Last Friday, a group of Year 4 – 6 students represented Camberwell Girls Grammar School at the annual district cross country event organised by School Sport Victoria. The North Balwyn District comprises of over 12 local Government, Catholic and independent schools. Our students represented Camberwell Girls with considerable pride and enthusiasm and many students completed a personal best effort on the day. Our students either ran 2km or 3km on the day, depending on their age group, and both courses presented plenty of challenges either running up hills or running through slippery mud. The following four Year 5 students qualified for the Division Cross Country Championships coming up on Monday 27 May. These students included Janice P, Alessandra R, Neesha P and Claire Z.
Finally, I would like to thank the parents who attended this event and gave each of our students plenty of support and encouragement. Our students have performed very well at district level so far this year at both swimming and cross-country events. We look forward to Term 3 where our students will participate in a variety of track and field events once again at district level.
Congratulations to the following Ormiston athletes:
Under 9/10 Team
Janice P
Annabelle Z
Yilia Z
Amy S
Alice L
Aarza B
Cathy Z
Evangeline H
Nicole L
Kayla C
Under 11 Team
Alessandra R
Claire Z
Faye L
Isabella Y
Neesha N
Aurelia P
Lucy W
Ellie L
Shirley Z
Under 12/13 Team
Ivy X
Elfie F
Sooki T
Gloria L
Lauren J
Stephanie M
Ada L
Sara Z
Anna L
I would like to wish our Ormiston community a restful weekend.
Paul Donohue
Head of Junior School
In the EL 3 program, we are continuing to build on the children’s ideas and interests around ‘Lines, Ways, and Journeys’.As a starting point we posed a series of questions, offered opportunities to create independently and collaboratively, to represent and share previous knowledge and understanding around the concepts of this broad inquiry. This data has informed the direction we are taking and has organically woven its way into our program through continued engagement in lines and roads, our homes, and our families.
Experimenting with line through colour and collage has provided an opportunity to connect the children’s interest in cutting and collage materials to create their own visual display of line. The inclusion of different shape and sized lines has offered an abstract approach, challenging the children’s thinking and connection of the concept. We found that the children often revisited this experience, even after several opportunities to explore the materials, often adding bridges, tunnels and roads as a prominent aspect of their pieces. The continued engagement in this experience led to the children adding lines as roads, bridges and tunnels to their block constructions, often leading to their homes.
“Lines are on the road. You need them to drive. You cannot drive here without roads” Charlotte
“Line’s are the roads that take you home” Anaya
“It’s straight. A line is straight like a road. A line is a road.” Liam
“You go home” Nolan
“My house is purple. My house is made of metal” James
While listening to the dialogue between peers over morning tea and lunch, we noticed that children were often discussing their homes in detail, how they got to school and what colour their homes were. This prompted further learning opportunities and connection to the inquiry. We have started to collect photographs of each child’s home and will use these to create a collaborative and interactive map with the children to further unpack our interests of roads and pathways and how we are all connected through CGGS.
Jacqui Laird
Early Learning 3 Teacher
Our biggest House Event for the year, the Year 3-6 Athletics Carnival, was held on Thursday 9th May at Doncaster Athletics Track. This is always a big event and a much-anticipated House competition for the year. All students in Years 3-6 participated in a range of track and field events to earn points for their houses. The races and competition also gave the students the opportunity to showcase their skills and hard work in the lead up to the carnival in their P.E lessons. It was a fabulous day, and wonderful to see many parents there, supporting our students and cheering them on.
The Athletics carnival is not just a fun day for students to compete, but also an opportunity for them to learn valuable life skills and demonstrate our important school values. It was fantastic to see everyone cheering and supporting each other and offering encouragement and positive feedback to their peers. This year saw the introduction of the House Chant competition which was led by the House Leaders. Each House practiced their chants prior to the event creating an excited buzz among the students. The House spirit from everyone was loud and proud and created an incredible atmosphere on the day. The much-anticipated Spirit Stick Award was awarded to Taylor House for their encouragement, outstanding sportsmanship, team spirit and excellent leadership from the House Leaders. Congratulations Taylor House.
All the students should be extremely proud of their performance and later this year many of them will move on to compete in the District Athletics and GSV Track and Field competitions that are being held in Term 3. The winning house on the day was Lawrence, second was Singleton, third Schofield and forth Taylor. Congratulations to LAWRENCE!
Kim James
Junior School PE Teacher
Year 1 students have embraced this term’s Unit of Inquiry, investigating living things and their features, body parts, coverings and habitats. The students have made observations in the school garden and are looking forward to visiting the Secondary School science laboratories in the coming weeks where they will view and draw specimens of insects and other animals through the use of microscopes and hand lenses.
Last week, the students took part in an engaging incursion run by Wild Action. They interacted with classes of mammals, birds, amphibians and reptiles and were captivated by a diverse array of Australian animals, including a snake, turtle, goanna, crocodile, owl, green tree frog, sugar glider, tawny frogmouth, lizards and a joey. The students learnt about each animal’s habitat, diet, classification, coverings, and adaptations and they delighted in the opportunity to touch and hold many of the animals. Emily, the presenter, captivated their attention with fascinating facts, leaving the students with a newfound appreciation of Australian wildlife. It was an enriching and superb experience for all the students, and their enthusiasm and curiosity was fabulous. It has been wonderful to see each student’s knowledge and skills develop this term as they have taken part in so many hands-on learning experiences.
Chloe said, “I liked holding the joey and touching the snake.”
Eliana said, “I enjoyed the incursion because I got to see lots of different types of animals. The sugar glider and the baby crocodile were my favourite.”
Sarika said, “I enjoyed the sugar glider and baby joey. I learned that reptiles have scales and bats have ginger hair around their neck if they’re girls.”
Angela Columbine
Year 1 Classroom Teacher
This term Year 3 students are exploring the observable properties of soils, rocks, and minerals. At the beginning of our unit of learning, Ms Dumsday challenged 3W to recall their understanding of what a resource is. She was thrilled to hear their responses, highlighting their knowledge of which resources create the everyday materials we use, such as glass (sand), paper (wood), and carpet (wool).
To practice their skills of scientific observation and data collection, the Year 3 students then took a closer look at the different soils that could be found within the school grounds. They collected samples from different areas with different functions to compare: the driveway, the sandpit, under trees and under the tanbark of the playground. Each soil sample was analysed for colour, grain size and water absorbency – as well as any creatures that might have been living there! The differences between the soils in such a small area were striking and surprising to see.
Working in pairs, students created an annotated ‘soil art’ piece that will be used to spark future questions and topics for investigation for the remainder of the term as we find out more about soils, rocks and minerals and how we can learn about them. Year 3 is looking forward to the rest of our STEAM lessons with Ms Dumsday this term!
Elizabeth Warren
Year 3 Classroom Teacher
In Term 2, Year 4 have been exploring the question “How does our perspective influence our ideas about Australia’s past?” as part of our Inquiry unit. The Year 4 students visited CERES, an environmental park, to further explore our understandings of First Nations culture, art and history.
Here is a recount about the excursion written by Oliva D:
On Wednesday the 1st of May, Year 4, Ms de Quadros, Ms Ou and Nancy, Lily’s mum, went to CERES Environmental Park. We participated in a range of activities including a storytelling and drama session of Tiddalik a greedy frog, tasting and smelling native plants and an ochre body paint session.
After eating our brain food, we started our first activity, a drama session about Tiddalik, a story made and told 9000 years ago by the Gurnai Kurnai people. Our educator, Subik, told us the story and we dressed up as different animals including white cockatoos, possums, eels and kangaroos. I was a white cockatoo. Each animal had to make Tiddailk laugh by dancing because he had drank all the water and the Gurnai Kurnai people were really thirsty. The possums eventually made Tiddalik laugh. The moral of the story is don’t be greedy and take only what you need, not what you want.
For the second session, we explored native plants of Australia. We ate and tasted Salt Bush, Lemon Myrtle, Warrigal Greens and River Mint. Lemon Myrtle was spicy and bitter, Warrigal Greens reminded me of spinach and River Mint was a classic mint flavour.
Our last activity was ochre body painting. We painted our arms and Subik helped paint our faces. Some of the symbols we painted were rainbows, rain, emus, lizards, stars and kangaroo tracks. The ochre felt slimy and rocky because the rock wasn’t properly smashed/crushed and Subik added too much water. The colours I chose were red, white, and yellow which were the only three colours we could choose from.
It was such an interesting excursion. I can’t wait to visit again!
Anjali de Quadros
Year 4 Classroom Teacher
In week 3, the Year 6 students presented their Inquiry learning for Term 1 to their families and to students from Years 4 and 5. Students chose to explore a range of inquiry questions including:
“Can we create a fan using elastic energy?”
“Is it possible to create a blender using kinetic energy?”
“Can a watch be powered using thermal energy?”
“Can we create a solar powered lamp?”
In planning the design for their sustainable inventions, students had to carefully consider materials that would meet their needs and apply their understanding of energy transfer to their model. Students learnt that creating a model was not a straightforward process, it required trial, review and reflection along the way.
We are very proud of the students’ hard work, their flexibility, creative thinking, and presentation skills. Thank you to all who visited, asked questions, and gave feedback. We hope you learnt something new about some of the more sustainable energy sources available, and that you felt encouraged to make more sustainable energy choices in your own lives.
Jasvindar Gill & Margaret Hall
Year 6 Classroom Teachers
