The last two weeks of Term 3 have been full of special events and wonderful student performances. Congratulations to our Art Teacher Fiona Gibson on an inspiring Art Show last week that had 1 337 pieces of artwork on display. Year 5 had the most pieces of art at the show and one student completed an incredible 9 pieces. This week we had over 30 Year 3 – 6 students compete at the District Athletics competition and 10 students qualified for the next level at Division. On Wednesday we had our Year 2 – 6 Mountfield Maestros Concert in the Junior School Hall and I would like to congratulate the 23 students that performed. The audience thoroughly enjoyed all the performances. Finally, yesterday our Foundation – Year 2 students had a delightful time jogging, sprinting, jumping and throwing as part of their annual Athletics Carnival at Secondary School. Students performed in their House groups and the Year 2 students look forward to challenging themselves at the Year 3 – 6 Athletics Carnival in 2024.
Last weekend Ormiston had two netball teams that reached their competition Grand Final. Congratulations to the Year 5 Topaz and the Year 6 Opals teams that won their Grand Finals. As a result, both teams were Premiers in their division and already they have started training at school to get ready for the Spring Fling season coming up very soon in Term 4.
Congratulations to Ruth Whelan in Year 6. Recently Ruth competed at the Victorian Open Short Course Championships and competed in the 50m, 100m and 200m freestyle as well as the 100m and 200m individual medley events. During the championships, Ruth achieved 3 out of 5 personal best times which she was a fantastic effort. We look forward to Ruth’s performances at the upcoming GSV Swim and Dive Meet in November.
I wish our school community a restful school holiday break. This is an opportunity for all Ormiston families to spent time together and return to school on Tuesday 3 October for a wonderful Term 4.
Paul Donohue
Head of Junior School
In 2023, all schools participated in online NAPLAN assessments which enabled semi-adaptive assessment of skills. This meant that the types of questions being asked over the course of the assessment were able to be adjusted, depending on a student’s response. This type of testing provides a more detailed picture of a student’s skills in the areas being assessed: Reading Comprehension, Conventions of Language (including grammar and punctuation), Writing and Numeracy.
Previous NAPLAN data has been reported against 10 bands. The new NAPLAN data is reported according to four proficiency standards.
Camberwell Girls Grammar School’s NAPLAN results continue to be exemplary, with strong performances for all year levels across all areas of assessment – Reading, Writing, Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar, and Numeracy.
While recent newspaper reports have highlighted concerning literacy and numeracy results for Victorian students generally, Camberwell Girls Grammar School’s results continue to buck this trend, with the majority of students sitting in the top two proficiency standards. It will be some years before NAPLAN data can be compared and trends identified, however it is pleasing to see the strong results across literacy and numeracy assessments. These results reflect the ongoing commitment to developing and using evidence-based pedagogical practices for developing literacy and numeracy skills.
Dr Charlotte Forwood
Director of Learning Design and Development
This term, the Early Learning 4 Part-Time children have delved deep into an inquiry into ‘kindnesses’ to investigate how it can be visually, audibly, and emotionally expressed.
As creators, the children have shown a strong interest in the medium of clay when exploring the representation of kindness in people in the form of emotions. As children develop their social awareness skills, they recognise the need to have “listening ears, looking eyes and a friendly face”, said Miya when showing kindness to others through body language. Over two weeks, the children sculpted their understanding of ‘what kindness would look like’ when expressed through body language and facial expressions.
Scarlett: I am sitting and smiling, and my body is saying ‘Let’s have a picnic’. I’m going to share food and my water. See, I’m holding it.
Xavier: My face is calm. I’ve got a surprise in my hands, I’m going to share it with everyone.
Through this inquiry, children are encouraged to consider kindness as being flexible and dynamic, rather than isolated to only ‘acts of kindness’. Children are scaffolded to adjust their gaze to notice these interactions in everyday life, whether it is through verbal and non-verbal conversations, small and large acts of kindness (i.e., bringing their peer’s drink bottle from the basket to the mealtime table, drawing and writing cards), to voluntary and involuntary actions (i.e., using manners, and being emotionally tuned into their peer’s feelings).
As curious learners, the children considered the audible representation of kindness. When asked: If kindness was a song, what would it sound like? The children responded:
“It will sound happy and make you laugh”, said Chloe.
“Or it might be soft and gentle like it’s putting you to sleep”, said Xavier.
“Kind is giving hugs, can a song give you hugs?” questioned Ariel.
“No!”, responded Miya
“Hug can be in a book, a girl give hug to a boy”: said Jacqueline.
Esther Wong
Early Learning 4 Teacher & Early Learning Coordinator
As curious learners and researchers, the Early Learning 4 children developed an interest in frogs after we shared the Dreamtime story Tiddalick the Frog. Throughout this term, through factual text, images and discussions, we have been exploring and making discoveries about the life cycle and habitats of frogs. Children have had time and opportunity as environmentalists and curious learners to develop wonderings about frogs:
I wonder what frogs eat and how often you need to feed them.
I wonder why frogs need to have moist skin and how do they keep their skin moist.
I wonder how you keep an enclosure clean.
I wonder if frogs make a noise.
As a way of finding out, as collaborators and curious researchers, we connected with Angus, a Year 5/6 student at Mother Teresa Primary School, who is an expert about Green Tree Frogs. During two Zoom sessions, Angus shared his knowledge about frogs and answered the children’s wonderings that focused on the habitat, life cycle and eating habits of frogs.
This week, Angus provided an opportunity for the children to experience the Year 5/6 frog enclosure in our Early Learning classroom. When the children entered the classroom and noticed the enclosure, there was much excitement, curiosity, awe and wonder. This provided an up-close experience and an opportunity for the children to observe first-hand how frogs move, eat and camouflage themselves amongst foliage and in logs. Throughout the day, as environmentalists, the children were responsible for spraying water on the frogs to ensure their skin remained moist and within the enclosure to maintain an optimum moisture level. The children were also provided with an opportunity to document what they observed and noticed through photography, drawing and dialogue and to share their discoveries with their peers.
“When frogs eat, they roll their eyes back to the top of their mouth. This helps them to move the food.” – Abigail
“I saw the Green Tree Frog climbing up the window. It used its toe pads to stay on the window.” – Odette
“I noticed that the Green Tree Frog was camouflaged in the log and near the rocks. Camouflaged means it changes colour so you can’t see it. The frog changed to a dark colour. It was brown.” – Victoria
“Frogs breathe through their skin. We need to spray water to keep their skin wet.” – Georgia
Angela Follacchio
Early Learning 4 Teacher
The Ormiston Art Show was a great success. The whole of the Junior School was turned into an Art Gallery, with many pieces of artwork, by every student on display. The students were very excited to see all their artworks and those of their peers. There were paintings, drawings, sculptures, textiles, photography and ceramic artworks, full of colour, pattern and texture. Many visitors came to see the artworks and the students got to vote for their favourite piece from each year level.
Fiona Gibson
Junior School Art Teacher
We celebrated Book Week in style at Camberwell Girls Grammar and welcomed a wonderful selection of incredible performers, authors, illustrators, and storytellers to our school to help us celebrate reading and literature.
Perform! Education visited to present their very special Book Week show, Way Too Cool! to our students from Foundation to Year 4. It was a fabulous show filled with relatable characters, comedy, engaging songs, and fabulous dance moves which all the students enjoyed learning and practicing before the event. The show addressed highly relatable themes of kindness, empathy, and friendship and used titles which had been shortlisted for the CBCA Book of the Year Awards and to support the learning.
We welcomed Leigh Hobbs, author and artist, to visit our Junior School students. Leigh ran a series of fabulous hands-on drawing workshops with students across all year levels and taught them how to create some of his most well-known characters, Mr Chicken and Old Tom using simple instructions. It was wonderful to see the drawings our students created using his step-by-step guides and everyone was thrilled with to be able to explore their inner artist/ book illustrator for the day.
We continued our celebration of books and reading with some incredible dress up as your favourite book character parades and assemblies. From Early Learning through to Year 6, students demonstrated imagination and creativity when creating costumes that reflected the wonderful reading culture we share at our school.
Indigenous author, artist and songwriter Gregg Dreise also visited CGGS and ran several highly entertaining and engaging presentations with students participating from every year level, Early Learning all the way through to Senior School. Gregg’s sessions provided our students with opportunities to learn about indigenous language and culture as he incorporated singing, dancing, storytelling and music courtesy of his didgeridoo into each presentation. Gregg had our students laughing out loud at his jokes and stories.
Sally Spencer
Junior School Library Teacher
The Year 6 students visited the Immigration Museum. During the excursion, we heard many different immigration stories. I learnt that Sidney Myer, an immigrant, was the inventor of the Myer emporium, and about the gold rush wave of migration. I enjoyed learning about and viewing different artefacts and the lady who took our class was very interesting and informative. I enjoyed the excursion and learnt many surprising facts about immigration and different cultures. – Rachel F
The Year 6 students went on an excursion to the Immigration Museum. I learned that Sidney Myer founded ‘Myer’ and the Sidney Myer Music Bowl was named after him. I enjoyed learning additional information about Cuc Lam on top of what we learned in class. Overall, the Immigration Museum excursion was very informative, and I learned a lot about our history. – Sharika P
