Olive Black Book Launch
On Friday 28 April, former student and former School Captain, Alex Miles (nee Lee: 2001) launched her new children’s book series, Starring Olive Black, at the Senior School Library amidst fanfare and celebrity sightings! The series follows the life and times of Olive, a ten-year-old movie actress, as she balances everyday life as a kid with super stardom.

Ormiston students from Years 2 – 4 joined Alex’s family and friends for an extravaganza that included a cameo by a disgruntled movie director (played by author and journalist Tony Wilson), a clue hunt for a missing safe code, and a moving tribute to the important people who have helped Alex along her journey – not to mention a real-life red carpet. In her opening remarks, Mrs Dunwoody shared details of Alex’s many, many achievements while at Camberwell Girls, which is where her career began as the playwright of a winning House Drama production. Our students were enthralled from start to finish, and Alex’s signing queue stretched for miles.

Davina Bell – Junior School Literacy Specialist

 

Ormiston Spirit Awards
This new award introduced last year concentrates on our School Values of Commitment, Respect, Integrity, Hope and Courage, and also relates to the way a student has demonstrated a Growth Mindset as part of their learning in class and during Junior School co-curricular activities.

Each student that receives this award will be given a certificate as well as a special Ormiston Spirit Award badge. This badge is proudly worn by the student throughout Term 2 2017 and will be officially passed to a new student within the next term. Only one student from each class and one student from a specialist subject will be selected for this very special award.

A number of Ormiston students were presented with this award during our Wednesday Assembly this week. Congratulations to the following students:

Student                              

Ellie Zhang / Foundation R

Sharon Zhang / Foundation S

Eden Chia / Year 1K

Maddison O’Meara / Year 1J

Sadhana Warrior /  Year 2D

Ashanti Rajakulendran / Year 2B

Maria Lin /  Year 3C

Sophie Tong / Year 3L

Anneke Cook / Year 4H

Anna Li / Year 4R

Georgia Langley / Year 5B

Ava Lillehagen / Year 5R

Olivia Petrakis / Year 6G

Zara Pearson / Year 6C

Yu Jiang / Year 4H – Art

Penelope Petrakis / Year 3L – Physical Education

Asha Bhattachaijee / Year 1J – Library

Isabella Madden /  Year 3C – Chinese

Iris Yang / Year 6C – Music

Jasmine Wan / Year 6C – Music

 

Early Learning 3 – Year 6 Home Learning In-Conversation
This week our second In-Conversation workshop with parents took place with the topic being Home Learning. Over the last 12-months, Camberwell Girls Grammar School from Foundation to Year 12, has been looking very closely at Home Learning across all year levels with a working group of staff from Ormiston and Senior School.

The areas the group have been concentrating on are: the benefits of home learning, the research behind using home learning, understanding the busy lives of our school families, and the impact of school co-curricular activities and outside activities families have organised for their daughter during the week and on weekends.

The conversation with Ormiston parents revolved around the above topics and the selection of home learning activities across Foundation to Year 6. Across both campuses, home learning activities will continue to be carefully selected and sequenced to ensure a smooth transition from Ormiston to Senior School in Year 7 and taking into account the academic learning and the emotional and social impact home learning has on students and families.

Please take the time to view and read the Home Learning Workshop presentation HERE

 

Year 4-6 House Cross Country
On Monday, our Year 4-6 students participated in our annual Cross Country event and it was wonderful to see so many students give their personal best during the race. The Year 4 students ran 1.5km and the Year 5 and 6 students ran 3.0km along Shenley Reserve. We congratulate all girls for participating! The results of the top ten participants are as follows:

Year 4                                     Year 5                                                 Year 6

Ellie Cowell                              Emily Price                                            Allanah Lam

Sarah Zhou                              Sofia Sanifilippo                                   Crystal Cui

Eliza Bosco                              Katrina Tong                                         Scarlett Giang

Sabrina Bignold                      Ella Traiforos                                       Jasmine Wan

Maya Goonewardene             Georgia Langley                                  Tanya Sevo

Amy Cao                                   Matilda Chan                                       Ella Hiramatsu

Jenny Wang                             Madeleine Yim                                    Riley Olsen

Priyanka de Silva                     Eva Papadopoulos                             Lily Ning

Jacqueline Zheng                    Ava Lillehagen                                    Elizabeth Xiao

Samantha Chua                       Zoe Brisk                                              Charlotte Drew

 

Year 1 Virtual Excursion
Last Thursday, the Year 1 classes joined together for ‘Minibeasts Magnified’, our first virtual excursion for the year. We met Karen from the Australian Museum and joined in the online discussion with a class from Duranbah Primary in NSW.

We learnt that insects have bodies separated into 3 parts and always have 6 legs. This helped us to understand that spiders are not technically insects. Because we have 5 stick insects in our class right now, we enjoyed asking an expert more about our pets. We learnt that some stick insects can be as wide as your thumb and look more like a small tree branch than a stick! Did you know that the combined weight of humans on planet Earth is less than half of the combined weight of all of Earth’s ants?! We thought that was amazing!

 

Year 4 Video Conference – From Cook to the First Fleet
To support our learning about Australia’s past, the Year 4 students engaged in a fascinating videoconference from the State Library of NSW. Students had the unique opportunity to view primary sources of evidence that included notes made by Captain James Cook, letters written on the voyage of the First Fleet and clothing worn by convicts. The students listened to expert knowledge about what life was like in the past and were able to ask questions about the artefacts.

I found it interesting that the only way to communicate was by writing letters and they took months to arrive at their destination. I never knew that Captain Cook had such a large family and was quite poor. He kept persisting, he wanted to achieve his dream and slowly he did.

Jenny Wang Year 4R

I learnt that people found the journals of the people who were on the First Fleet and that the NSW library had real artefact from the past. I was very interesting to hear about Australia’s history.

Maya Goonewardene Year 4R

 

NAPLAN
NAPLAN assessments will take place in Junior School next week. The following assessments will be conducted on these days in Year 3 and 5:

Tuesday 9 May           Language conventions (40mins) and Writing (40mins)

Wednesday 10 May    Reading (45 – 50mins)

Thursday 11 May        Numeracy (45 – 50mins)

Friday 12 May             Catch-up assessments for students that have been absent

More information for parents about NAPLAN can be found at: www.nap.edu.au/

 

With best wishes,

Paul Donohue
Head of Junior School