Hearing Unit Newsletter Semester 1 2020

Yarra Valley Grammar Hearing Unit Newsletter www.yvg.vic.edu.au

Semester 1

Telephone: +61 3 9262 7700

Facsimile: + 61 3 9876 1077

Email: reception@yvg.vic.edu.au

February 2020 – June 2020

TABLE OF CONTENTS: FROM THE HEARING UNIT ................................................................................................................................................................ 2 SPEECH SPOT TERM 1 ........................................................................................................................................................................ 4 SPEECH SPOT TERM 2 ........................................................................................................................................................................ 5 HOUSE CAPTAIN ADEM ..................................................................................................................................................................... 6 ONLINE LEARNING, TERM 1 .............................................................................................................................................................. 6 YEAR 3, TERM 1 ................................................................................................................................................................................. 7 YEAR 7 CAMP, TERM 1 ...................................................................................................................................................................... 8 PREP, TERM 1 .................................................................................................................................................................................... 9 YEAR 1, TERM 1 ............................................................................................................................................................................... 10 YEAR 2, TERM 1 ............................................................................................................................................................................... 11 SENIOR SCHOOL HOUSE SWIMMING, TERM 1................................................................................................................................ 12 YEAR 12 PHYSICS, TERM 1 ............................................................................................................................................................... 13 BIG SISTER/LITTLE SISTER, TERM 1 .................................................................................................................................................. 13 TAKE CONTROL – SET A GOAL CHALLENGE, TERM 2 ....................................................................................................................... 14 TAKE CONTROL – SET A GOAL CHALLENGE CONTINUED… .............................................................................................................. 15 JAYA’S ARTWORK ............................................................................................................................................................................ 15 CELEBRATING OFF- SITE LEARNING IN YEAR 3, TERM 2 .................................................................................................................. 16 CHRIS – RESILIENCE PROJECT .......................................................................................................................................................... 17 YEAR 5 ............................................................................................................................................................................................. 18 YEAR 1 OFFSITE LEARNING .............................................................................................................................................................. 20 Emma’s Autumn Poem .................................................................................................................................................................... 21 YEAR 2, TERM 2 ............................................................................................................................................................................... 22 PREP FAIRYTALE BALL ...................................................................................................................................................................... 23

FROM THE HEARING UNIT Welcome to the 2020, Semester One Hearing Unit newsletter! Yes, this is our bumper edition; as we did not collate a newsletter in term one due to heading into teaching in an offsite environment. This year has been one like no other, yet what we have seen in our students is amazing resilience through everything. Listening online poses its own challenges for the Hearing Unit students and they took it all in their stride. Just like each of them are individual, they found what worked for them to be as successful as possible in accessing the curriculum.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Hearing Unit staff for their amazing flexibility and openness to try new things during the period of isolation. They embraced the new technology and problem solved to find the best approach for their students. We are fortunate in some situations to work one on one with the students so we were able to have conversations with them to understand how they were feeling and coping with everything that was going on. We all got through it by working together and supporting each other, the absolute essence of the Hearing Unit.

This year, three new students joined our Hearing Unit: Chris in Prep, Lloyd in Year 3 and Nash in Year 7. We are thrilled to have them join us in what has certainly been an interesting start for them at Yarra Valley Grammar.

Chris enjoys all the different activities outside in the playground, Nash has enjoyed making new friends and Lloyd was extremely proud to be class captain in term one.

Earlier in the year, in March, we celebrated Hearing Awareness Week. The theme for this year was ‘Hearing for Life.’ Each day during Hearing Awareness week, Handy Hearing Facts were shared throughout the school, to make all students and staff aware of protecting their hearing. In a world of earbuds and headphones, we focussed on sharing the 60/60 rule for listening to music. The suggestion from the World Health Organisation is that you listen to music at a volume of 60% and for no more than 60 minutes per day.

There are two suggested apps that you can use to test your hearing at home: ‘HearWho’ (for adults) and ‘Sound Scouts.’ (for children). Both of these apps are screening tools and will highlight if further investigation is required from a specialist audiologist.

Emily Baulch, Year 11, was selected by School Sport Victoria to be in the Team Vic Under 17 Softball Team. The competition was supposed to be held in Western Australia in May and unfortunately, due to Covid-19, the event had to be cancelled. What Covid-19 does not stop is how proud we are of Emily to be selected, it is an amazing, well-deserved achievement and we recognise all the hard work Emily has put in to get to that level. We hope that in the future Emily will get the opportunity to compete and show her incredible softball skills at the state level.

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Whilst at home, the Hearing Unit students participated in their own Lego Masters competition. They had a week to make their Lego creation and then submit a 2-minute video clip of their design and an engaging story to go with it. The judges (Hearing Unit staff), assessed the pieces based on Creativity, Aesthetics and Technical Skills.

Congratulations to Matthew Layhe (Junior School) and Hamish Dickins (Senior School) on being our Lego Masters champions for 2020! It was a lovely distraction for us all during isolation and even the staff dusted off their Lego to participate!

We are all looking forward to the winter holidays after what has been a term like no other. Fingers crossed that our Year 11 student, Jaya, who is based in Tasmania can join us onsite in term three.

On behalf of the team, take care and stay safe, Rachel.

Ms Rachel Wilson Head of the Hearing Unit

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SPEECH SPOT TERM 1 Please let me introduce you to my 2020 HU “Rock Stars”!!

My HU “Rock Stars” have let me know about all the things they would like to improve on in Speech Pathology this year. Some of their ideas have been: -

Getting better at spelling Getting better at talking Getting better at saying /s/ Being more flexible Being a better friend Getting better at conversations Getting better at writing stories

It looks like we are going to have a busy year ahead! I can’t wait to see my “Rock Stars” shine and reach their goals!

Just a reminder: I am here on a Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday in 2020 and am happy to be contacted at any time with anything Speech Pathology related.

Mrs Anneke Flinn Speech Pathologist

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SPEECH SPOT TERM 2 Well, Term 2 certainly presented itself as unexpectedly unique!! As different as it was, it didn’t stop our Speech Pathology sessions this term! Instead we were offsite, online and still working hard to meet all our goals. I could not have been prouder of my HU students in how well they adapted to offsite learning and how enthusiastic they continued to be during their sessions.

Mrs Anneke Flinn Speech Pathologist

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HOUSE CAPTAIN ADEM Congratulations to Adem Goktepe who was elected Hughes House Captain for 2020. Adem was presented with his badge

by Mr Hocking at the Commencement Assembly in Term 1.

ONLINE LEARNING, TERM 1 Our amazing staff and students, took to the world of online learning with enthusiasm. It was a huge learning curve for us all. Staff and students alike learnt new skills, were very adaptable and super flexible.

We’re so proud of all of out Hearing Unit students who accepted the changing nature of school and gave their best to this new way of learning.

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YEAR 3, TERM 1

We were so lucky to welcome Lloyd to the Year 3 team. He settled in remarkably well and was even voted by his peers to be Class Captain for Term 1. Lloyd loves his sport and has spent many lunch and recess times playing down ball and cricket with his friends.

We had the annual House Swimming Carnival, this was the first time that the Year 3 students competed in this event. The children were not only great competitors, but they also showed wonderful sportsmanship.

Our Integrated unit in Term 1 was Creature Features. We learnt to find information about our chosen animals on the internet and in books. We worked hard to write information in our own words. Our final projects included a description, habitat, diet, predators interesting facts, labelled diagram, map of distribution and conversation status. As part of this unit we visited the Melbourne Zoo where we learnt a lot of interesting facts about a lot of animals.

Finally, we continued on our writing journey. We learnt about up levelling our writing by using more interesting writing. Our other focus was on using openers, more punctuation and ways to connect our sentences. Here is an example of Indi’s writing.

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YEAR 7 CAMP, TERM 1

Year 7

Camp Marysville

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PREP, TERM 1 CHRIS MAKRIS

The Preps enjoyed reading many books by the author Joy Cowley. After reading The Monsters’ Party, they created their own monster. Look at Chris’ monster to see how many of each body feature there is.

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YEAR 1, TERM 1 The Year 1s enjoyed Roald Dahl’s book, ‘The Twits’. Mr and Mrs Twit are mean to each other as well as other people.

The Year 1s had to make a list of adjectives to describe Mr Twit.

He had a disgusting beard full of odd food and things. In Declan’s list you can see both the beard and some of the adjectives that would describe Mr Twit.

Year 1s also had to write a menu they thought Mr & Mrs Twit might like. It was so revolting. Their menu items had to use alliteration (both words starting with the same sound.) See if you would like anything on Emma’s Maggoty Menu.

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YEAR 2, TERM 1 GAURVI SINGH The Year 2s learnt how to write a narrative. They practised each stage of the narrative writing process and then moved on to the draft stage. They used the story of The Three Little Pigs as inspiration and adapted parts to create their own story. Gaurvi started writing her first draft. After creating the story map the first thing when writing a draft is to get your ideas on paper. This is the stage Gaurvi is at. When you read her story, you will see she is only part way through getting her ideas written. Later Gaurvi will finish the story then edit, looking at uplevelling her work and checking punctuation and spelling.

This is such a great start. Keeping a narrative through dialogue only is difficult. Gaurvi as she was writing was already thinking of up-levelling words. Note how she has avoided always using the word ‘said’. As editing spelling comes later, here is the story as it stands so far: “Help Miny!” screamed Mony.

“I can’t!” cried Mony.

“Can you help us Miney?” cried Miny and Mony both.

“I can’t. I’m too busy running!” screamed Miney.

“What shall we do?” said Mony.

“What about we can hide in the box?” suggested Miney.

“No! The cat will find us easily in the box,” said Miny.

“What about in the pantry?” said Mony. “The cat won’t be able to open it,” “That’s a good idea, Mony,” said Miney.

“I think I found a better place to hide!” said Miny.

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SENIOR SCHOOL HOUSE SWIMMING, TERM 1

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YEAR 12 PHYSICS, TERM 1 The Year 12 Physics classes made their annual trip to Luna Park to investigate all things Physics!

BIG SISTER/LITTLE SISTER, TERM 1 Jaya and her friend Georgiana started a weekly lunchtime games and art group for some of the Grade 2 girls.

Jaya excited about her VCE Studies.

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TAKE CONTROL – SET A GOAL CHALLENGE, TERM 2 The Take Control – Set a Goal challenge had two purposes. The first was to consolidate lessons in goal setting.

The second was to empower students during a period of significant upheaval and uncertainty. Students used the SMART goal framework to create their goal. They decided the area of interest that they wanted to pursue, knowing that they had to commit to it for six weeks. The requirements of lockdown had to be observed and they could only use resources that were readily available to them in their home. As part of the process the students had to work out how they were going to track their progress and measure their success.

The reflections below were submitted at the end of the six-week period.

My Goal Reflection: Gabe Cameron (year7) My initial goal was “to do as many drags as I can without making a mistake”.

Drags are a maneuver in Field Hockey that allow us to get past the opposition. I play field hockey for a field hockey club so this was special to me as it gave me a chance to improve my skills.

My first attempt earned me a total of 109 drags. I was dissatisfied with my first performance so I became even more determined to achieve my goal. The first checkpoint saw me get a total of 303 drags! However, before this checkpoint I decided to change my goal to “being able to do 500 drags”.

Suddenly I was able to track my progress much faster! Then the second checkpoint came and I achieved my goal! I was very happy that I’d achieved it but I decided that I would keep on practicing to see just how many I could do.

Finally, the final checkpoint day arrived and a thunderous roar of happiness came when I reached a total of 600 drags!

I was truly happy because I’d thought 500 drags was unrealistic but not only did I achieve that I positively demolished it and got 600 drags!

Nash Chandler (year 7)

First time doing my goal, I got 4 baskets in a row. I knew that I could improve my attempts to get 10 in a row. Unfortunately, I could not work on my goal much before the first checkpoint because of an injury, but I was sure I could keep progressing when I was 100% better.

After my shoulder injury healed, I managed to get back to shooting and I would practice about an hour a day and that kept me progressing. As you know my goal was to get 10 in a row and I knew if I kept practicing I would eventually get better.

As I kept practicing it made me a whole lot better because I knew I could achieve this goal. I managed to get 28 baskets in a row and that was way past my goal, but I kept shooting until I was really happy with what I got. The day after that, I ended up shooting 40 baskets and I was shocked about how many baskets I got in a row because I was not expecting that many.

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TAKE CONTROL – SET A GOAL CHALLENGE CONTINUED… Remington (year 8) My goal was to be able to consistently bounce a tennis ball up and down on the edge of my cricket bat. I chose this challenge because I play cricket for summer sport and I want to practice my hand-eye coordination. My starting point was 3 or 4 bounces on the edge. My aim was to reach 10 bounces. The challenges I faced throughout the goal was mainly the time. I tried to practice 2 times a day for 10 minutes but my goal is an outdoor activity. It rained quite a lot at the time I started my goal. I got a couple of days to practice in the end. I made a huge improvement when I went from 8 bounces to 16! My endpoint was 18 bounces, I am really happy with the improvement.

JAYA’S ARTWORK During our offsite learning Jaya worked hard to create a stunning self-portrait for her Studio Art class. Jaya achieved a genuine likeness with her self-portrait.

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CELEBRATING LEARNING IN

OFF- SITE YEAR 3, TERM 2

Party Food

Played Yahtzee

Watched Indi’s stories on the big screen.

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We made hot dogs for lunch.

CHRIS – RESILIENCE PROJECT The whole school participates in The Resilience Project. The Preps acted out different emotions and when they might feel them. They then made a happy face and a sad face, looking at the different parts of the body that would tell you if someone were happy or sad. Chris not only did a great job on his faces, but he could act out if he were happy or sad too.

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YEAR 5

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YEAR 5 CONTINUED…

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YEAR 1 OFFSITE LEARNING

During the offsite, online learning, Year 1s had to write a story based around the above title. Declan has written his story so it is mostly told via dialogue.

“Ilmm. Ilmm.”

“What is that sound?”

“Oh, it is a puppy.”

“Dad, can we bring the puppy home?”

“Only if you look after the puppy.”

“Oh, O.K.” said the kids.

Today I went for a walk and I heard the crying puppy.

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Emma’s Autumn Poem

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YEAR 2, TERM 2 Year 2s have been learning about plants this term. They planted a bean. During the offsite, online learning they had to record their observations and comment about what they observed. Here is Gaurvi Singh’s record of the changes she observed. Like adult scientists, she has observed and recorded details as well as made suppositions from her observations.

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PREP FAIRYTALE BALL

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