Hearing Unit Newsletter Term 1 2019

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

Telephone: +61 3 9262 7700

Facsimile: + 61 3 9876 1077

Term 1

Email: reception@yvg.vic.edu.au

April 2019

Tuesday afternoon mindfulness in the Hearing Unit

TABLE OF CONTENTS: FROM THE HEARING UNIT ......................................................................................................................................................... 2 VALE DINAH JONES:................................................................................................................................................................... 4 SPEECH SPOT ............................................................................................................................................................................ 5 YEAR 7 CAMP TO MARYSVILLE ................................................................................................................................................... 6 YEAR 6 ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 7 YEAR 11 FOOD TECHNOLOGY .................................................................................................................................................... 7 JUNIOR PRIMARY EASTER BONNET PARADE............................................................................................................................... 8 YEAR 12 PHYSICS EXCURSION .................................................................................................................................................... 9 YEAR 9 CITY EXPERIENCE ......................................................................................................................................................... 10 JUNIOR PRIMARY ATHLETICS FUN DAY .................................................................................................................................... 11 ARTIST OF THE WEEK............................................................................................................................................................... 12 TERM 1 IN YEAR 2 ................................................................................................................................................................... 13 THE WATER CYCLE BY GAUVI ................................................................................................................................................... 14 PREP ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 15 ATHLETICS FUN DAY ................................................................................................................................................................ 15 SWIMMING SPORTS 2019........................................................................................................................................................ 16 WORLD’s GREATEST SHAVE ..................................................................................................................................................... 17 GRADE 6 BUDDIES ................................................................................................................................................................... 17 RILEY’S ECO AMP..................................................................................................................................................................... 17 SELF-ADVOCACY IN ACTION..................................................................................................................................................... 18 Self Advocacy in Action ........................................................................................................................................................... 18 EASTER CELEBRATIONS............................................................................................................................................................ 19 YEAR 4 CAMP .......................................................................................................................................................................... 20

FROM THE HEARING UNIT We have had a great first term in The Hearing Unit. As always, it is not until we reflect back on the term that we realise how much we have achieved.

Over the Summer holidays, the Senior Student building was fitted out with the Frontrow Juno soundfield speakers.

These speakers not only support students with a hearing loss but they also assist students with auditory processing difficulties, students who have English as an Additional Language and students who have difficulty concentrating.

They are the perfect user friendly microphone and speaker system for the secondary school in conjunction with the students’ personal FM devices.

The Junior School also received new Roger Technology. This technology is designed to ensure that the students have access to all spoken language within the classroom. The Roger touchscreen microphone has many features perfect for the dynamic nature of a Junior School class. A big thank you to Yarra Parents & Friends for their support in purchasing this new equipment. It is so fantastic that we now have these systems in every year level in the Junior School.

We had a great first Australian Hearing visit with Rebekah, our incredible audiologist. Her new shoes were certainly a talking point; they had the anatomy of the ear on them!

We also celebrated Chinese New Year by having some fortune cookies and sharing the words of wisdom with each other.

The whole school Yarra Valley Grammar Open Morning was a huge success and there was great interest for The Hearing Unit. Thank you to all our Early Intervention Services and feeder schools/facilities for promoting this day within their organisations, we certainly appreciate the support.

Then there was the Junior School and Senior School Swim Carnivals. Both days were filled with colour, excitement and fun. All the students that participated gave their very best and some achieved PBs, which was fantastic. It was wonderful to see so many of the Hearing Unit students displaying their leadership skills at these events. Well done everyone!

Some of the results were as follows: Junior School:  Matthew: 3rd Freestyle, 2nd Backstroke, 1st Kickboard  Harry: 3rd Noodle Race  Amara: 3rd Butterfly, 3rd Backstroke, 3rd Breaststroke, 3rd Medley Relay, 2nd Freestyle, 2nd Freestyle Relay  Lochie: 1st Freestyle Relay, 2nd Freestyle, 3rd Backstroke  Hamish: 2nd Kickboard  Ben: 2nd Freestyle, 3rd Freestyle, 4th Backstroke  Gabe: 1st Fin Sprint, 2nd Kickboard, 2nd Freestyle Senior School:  Remington: 2nd Freestyle  Nadine: 2nd Freestyle and Butterfly, 3rd in Open Freestyle and 1st for Relay  Emily: 1st Freestyle, 1st Breaststroke, 2nd Butterfly, 2nd Relay  Josh: 2nd Freestyle

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We held Hearing Awareness Week in the first week of March this year to coincide with World Hearing Day on 4 th March. To celebrate, each day in tutorials teachers shared different video clips or visual stimuli educating the students about hearing loss. It was lovely meeting the Early Learning Centre’s ‘Friday Family’ during that week to show them the Junior and Senior School Hearing Units, our amazing Speech Room, the speaker systems and the devices worn by the students. The teachers were so generous in letting us have a walk through so we could teach the ELC students about hearing loss and inclusion from a young age. Then to finish the week, the Junior School held a successful Cross Age Buddy Program where the students completed a fun activity together relating to hearing loss. We also held Denim for Deafness Day across the school on the Friday to raise money for the Deafness Foundation to raise money for research into childhood deafness. Across the whole school we raised $1856.00 It was a fabulous week and always great to share with the wider school community about what it is like to have a hearing loss. Weeks like that have such a positive impact on the Hearing Unit students’ sense of identity and belonging within our community.

We were fortunate to have a visit from one of our Year 12 students from last year, Sam Rickard. Sam has just commenced university studies and he came back to share some advice to our Hearing Unit students. He talked to them about what were some of the challenges Deaf and hard of hearing students face at university and what you can do to improve your listening and learning environment. We look forward to more visits from Sam in the future.

Speaking of Year 12 students, all three of our graduating students have gone onto university studies: James Webb-Honours Engineering at Swinburne University, Phoebe Dare-Interior Design at Swinburne University (also highest achieving student in Arts Design Technology at Yarra Valley Grammar) and Sam RickardComputing at Deakin University. All their hard work has paid off, a wonderful achievement.

Mrs Emma Keeler and I were fortunate to attend The Deafness Foundation Presentation Evening whereby we were presented the cheque for the Yoga and Meditation sessions we are running for secondary Deaf and hard of hearing students.

The students attending these sessions have found that the classes are calming and relaxing, whilst also improving sleep quality. During the presentation evening, Emma also presented on the English as an Additional Language resource package that she developed with Boobook Educational and Yarra Valley Grammar, thanks to the assistance of a grant the previous year from The Deafness Foundation.

The Parent Information Evening was another successful Hearing Unit event and a big thank you to Andrew Willis from Word of Mouth for sharing with parents the latest and greatest in assistive technology.

In the last week of term, we held our annual Easter celebration in the Hearing Unit. The Senior School students and the Junior School students completed a fun craft activity together, along with reading an Easter story. Easter eggs were shared and it was a lovely way to finish the term.

A big thank you to the Hearing Unit staff for all their hard work in transitioning the new students into the school and the existing students into their new year level. The students have all settled beautifully into 2019 and have had a successful first term.

On behalf of the Hearing Unit, I would like to wish you all a happy, safe and restful Easter break.

Ms Rachel Wilson Head of the Hearing Unit

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VALE DINAH JONES: It is with great sadness that I advise the Yarra Valley Grammar and Hearing Unit community that Dinah Jones passed away on Sunday, 24th March. Dinah Jones was one of the first parents to establish the Hearing Unit here at Yarra Valley Grammar. On behalf of the school community I would like to offer my condolences to the family.

In 1967 Nancy John was approached for advice by two sets of parents (the Calvert-Jones’ and the Jones’) each with toddlers with a hearing loss. Nancy, herself the mother of daughter with a hearing loss, had established first a kindergarten and then Ewing House to pioneer oral language education in Australia.

In the following year, 1968, she established the Advisory Council for Children with Impaired Hearing and met two more families (the Martins and Dorringtons) who also had sons with a hearing loss. Advice was taken from Professor Ian Taylor of Manchester that a small Hearing Unit would be the best educational placement for the children of these four families. At that time integration of Deaf or hard of hearing students into mainstream schools was a new and challenging idea but Mrs John approached our first Headmaster, John Pascoe, and was delighted to find that his response was enthusiastic, as was that of his staff. Yarra Valley Grammar then became the only mainstream school in the state to have a recognised programme for children with additional needs.

The four families had to bear a great deal of the expense of establishing the Unit at Yarra Valley Grammar and it was not until its success was undoubted that the School took full financial responsibility in the mid-1980s. Janet Calvert-Jones and Dinah Jones led the way in promoting, supporting and organising the Unit during its first decade. Dinah was something of a “powerhouse” and contributed to other school groups on top of her work for the Hearing Unit. She was president of the Ladies Auxiliary (later to become the Parents and Friends Association) in 1983 and 1984.

Dinah’s son, Robert, was of course a foundation student of the Unit and in 1984 became the first student of the Unit to successfully complete Year 12 and gain tertiary admission.

Dinah and her husband owned a property “Brilliant” at Yarck but purchased an apartment in Croydon where they stayed during school days before returning to Yarck at weekends. After her husband died she lived in Benalla for some time before illness forced her to go into care at Alexandra where she was at the time of her death.

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SPEECH SPOT We have really hit the ground running in the Speech Room this term!

So far we have targeted our speech and language goals during “Back to School” week, “Tropical” week, “Movie” week, “Feelings and Emotions” week and “Easter” week.

During “Feelings and Emotions” week, my Junior School HU students explored the nonverbal communication associated with a number of different emotions.

Can you match the face to the emotion?? Who is feeling silly, angry, brave, happy, joyful, confused, surprised and excited?

My Hearing Unit days in 2019 will be Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

Happy Easter!!

Mrs Anneke Flinn Speech Pathologist

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YEAR 7 CAMP TO MARYSVILLE Everyone was extremely excited to hop on the bus and get to camp, some people love camping whereas others can be homesick. The first thing was obviously finding out who was in our cabin.

Everyone was looking forwards to that! The meals were so delicious and amazing to eat on everyday.

The activities were so fun on the first few days but there was still lots more.

Some of my favourite activities was the abseiling and rock climbing as I made it to the top on both of them, there was initiatives where we work as a team to get through puzzles and be competitive when we play Ga Ga ball. Ga Ga ball was a game that everyone loved. Nearly the whole year level wanted to play! Lastly, the monster course, the tutors worked as a team to get through all the hard working activities the quickest. Everyone had fun and all of us was dirty from the mud pit! This was definitely fun! Year 7 camp was awesome.

By Remington Hobday 7.6

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YEAR 6 The Year 6s started the year learning about themselves, teamwork and leadership through the unit called The Amazing Race. Each student first found out their personal strengths and learning styles, reflecting on what they can offer a team. The whole year level was then broken into teams where we all had to work together to complete activities that drew on our different strength. Overcoming challenges and supporting each other was a big part of the activities. We all learned a lot about each other, but especially ourselves.

YEAR 11 FOOD TECHNOLOGY Dylan Wang has proved to be very experienced in the kitchen. He cooked a delicious Beef Wellington and a chicken and vegetable curry which he shared with Nelson and Hearing Unit staff. He’s thoroughly enjoying his Food Technology studies.

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JUNIOR PRIMARY EASTER BONNET PARADE

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YEAR 12 PHYSICS EXCURSION

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YEAR 9 CITY EXPERIENCE

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JUNIOR PRIMARY ATHLETICS FUN DAY

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ARTIST OF THE WEEK

Both Declan and Gaurvi have been chosen as Artist of the Week in Junior School by the Art Captains.

Here are their works of art.

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TERM 1 IN YEAR 2

In Year 2 we have been learning about what it means to be a good friend. We have talked about empathy and gratefulness. The children have enjoyed playing with their friends during recess and lunch.

Fabien is great at maths and he really enjoyed talking about this thinking at the Junior Primary Assembly. He has been working on 3 digit numbers and can even work out the one problem in many different ways.

Indi went to visit our wonderful audiologist Bek at her office at Australian Hearing in Croydon. We found out that when you have a cold it is sometimes even harder to hear.

Fabien and Indi are sharing all the things they love about life.

Next term the Year 2 team will be learning all about plants. This week we had to get all our vegies in so we can make soup next term. Hopefully we will get lots of rain and sunshine over the holidays.

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THE WATER CYCLE BY GAUVI

THE WATER CYCLE Year 1 has been learning about water: its different states, the water cycle, how precious fresh water is, how we use water in our lives. Here is Gaurvi’s diagram of the water cycle.

Here is Gaurvi’s explanation of her diagram: A water cycle has 4 steps.

First the water from anywhere evaporates.

Then it goes up to the clouds which is called condensation.

Next the water cools down and changes into liquid again.

After that the liquid falls down.

There’s 4 types of ways it can fall down.

It can fall down as rain, sleet, hail and snow.

And then the steps repeat.

The water comes back to the sea and the steps never stop.

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PREP The Preps have been learning about signs and the information they tell us. After the walk, they drew what they saw on a map.

Here is Delcan’s description of his map: Prep F went walking. We saw lots of signs. We looked for letterboxes and signs. It was super hard to find new signs. We had to walk all the way. This is the crossing and this is a car. Now we walked (over the crossing) and now we find the signs. This is a tree. This is a letterbox. This is my house. This is the school fence. We were super close to here (the roundabout). We were almost finished because we were there.

ATHLETICS FUN DAY The Junior Primary students participated in an Athletics Fun Day. Emma drew this and wrote about her picture.

Here is her description of her drawing: I went to Athletics Day. That’s Lola, and that is me and that’s Declan. You line up like this. You give the ball to the other person. You have to roll it to somebody else. At the back I stand like this. I get the ball and run.

This is the hurdle race. You jump over it.

We played the egg and spoon race. You walk like this. Don’t drop the egg. Put it back on (if it falls off).

It’s a sack race. You race like this. You have to jump.

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SWIMMING SPORTS 2019

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WORLD’s GREATEST SHAVE On the last day of term, Emily Baulch and Sammi Merritt participated in the World’s Greatest Shave.

Sammi raised $147 for colouring her hair.

GRADE 6 BUDDIES

RILEY’S ECO AMP In Year 9 Wood Technology, Riley created an ‘Eco Amp’ for his iPhone.

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SELF-ADVOCACY IN ACTION

Self Advocacy in Action The Hearing Unit students in Year 4 have been learning about the importance of access to classroom communication. Our focus this term has been on ensuring that our hearing devices are free of wax and moisture, that there is no physical damage and that they are working properly.

Matthew and Amara using the Ling Six Sound Check to test that devices are working correctly.

Students are also exploring what a communication breakdown is and some of the strategies that can be used to repair these breakdowns.

Here are Matthew and Harry practising how to repair communication breakdowns.

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EASTER CELEBRATIONS At our final Australian Hearing visit for the term, we had the Junior School students join the Senior School students and a few friends for some Easter art, games, books and of course chocolate eggs. All of our Junior School students loved spending time with their older buddies.

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YEAR 4 CAMP

Year 4 Camp Wootton Lodge

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