CamNews

Junior School

Celebration of Sport Assembly

Each year at Ormiston, we celebrate and recognise the efforts of our students that have represented Camberwell Girls Grammar School at sporting events throughout the year. The School Sport Victoria sporting events that our students participated in during the year were swimming, athletics and cross country. This year we had students who qualified for the Eastern Regional Championships in both swimming and athletics.

A highlight this year was that Ormiston had 21 students who participated in either 4 sports or sporting co-curricular activities throughout the year and a small group of students participated in up to 8 sports or activities. This is our best ever participation numbers at Ormiston. Next year, we will be increasing our sporting opportunities with diving and swimming, Year 6 Sport Expo, cross country and athletic carnivals organised by Girls Sport Victoria. These new and exciting experiences will give students the opportunity to compete against some of the topmost athletes in Victoria.

Finally, I would like to congratulate Georgia Papadopoulos of Year 5 for being awarded Ormiston Sportswoman of the Year for 2022. During her events and competitions this year, Georgia has consistently displayed our School Values of Respect, Integrity, Commitment, Hope and Courage, while always showing resilience and leadership skills. Georgia is a wonderful role model for our Ormiston community and we wish her all the best for her future sporting endeavours.

I wish our Ormiston families a lovely weekend and look forward to seeing all our Year 6 families at the Year 6 Graduation and Supper on Friday 2 December.

Paul Donohue
Head of Junior School

Early Learning 3 – Children are Reflective Thinkers

As part of the cycle of learning, the Early Learning 3 children have placed a focus on ‘reflection-on-action’, a concept introduced by educational philosopher, Donald Schön, where an individual thinks about actions after an event, in this instance, learning that has occurred this year. This experience has encouraged children to question, challenge and revisit their own learning, development, and accomplishment from Term 1 to 4. Using their portfolios has assisted children in looking at work samples, art, and photographs in detail, encouraging them to use creative thinking and problem-solving to further understand their inquiry into community and the environment, explore their feelings, celebrate successes, friendships and acknowledge challenges they overcame.

Children were encouraged to share their favourite moments of the year:

Ariel: I liked playing with friends in the sandpit.

Kiki: Playing with Emmaya. I like playing with the buckets and make a castle in the sandpit. And I like making art with you (Ms Sophia).

Hamish: Drawing crocodiles with Klaus.

Maria: I like drawing unicorns and koalas.

Abigail: Learning about community, it’s when you gather with everyone to sing songs and learn to help your friends.

Maxie: Learn about numbers, counting 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and to 20, and letters.

It is through this process that supports them to build new learning, consolidate an idea, transfer knowledge, and develop their ‘love for learning’.

Esther Wong and Sophia Stirling
Early Learning 3 Teachers

Early Learning 4 Full-Time  - Children are Agents of Change for Animal Wellbeing

“You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.” – Dr Jane Goodall

Throughout this term the children continued to develop their inquiry skills as they wondered, expressed their curiosity and thinking, researched, investigated, made discoveries and reflected on their learning.

As researchers, the children had time and opportunity to gather information from a variety of sources, about the structure, life cycle and habitat of sea turtles. The children viewed photographs and video clips, read books, explored a real turtle shell and engaged with felt play that depicted the life cycle of a turtle.

The factual text One Tiny Turtle by author and zoologist Nicola Davies, provided an opportunity for the children to explore the world of sea turtles and find out why they are precious and deserve care. As reflective thinkers and communicators, the children made connections, identified new ideas and shared their discoveries through dialogue, drawing and painting. 

As responsible and global citizens, the children became aware of conservation issues and the impact that plastic bags have on turtles, both in the sea and on the beach.

People leave their rubbish on the beach and then it goes into the water. – Nora

When it’s windy the plastic bag blows in the ocean. – Jane

Rubbish should not be in the ocean where turtles and animals live. – Alicia

When plastic bags are in the water they move and look like jellyfish. – Darcy

Turtles think plastic bags are jellyfish and they eat the plastic bag and get sick. – Aran

Through this authentic inquiry, the children developed an understanding about why we need to reduce the use of plastic bags and develop sustainable behaviours within our local community.

We believe it is important that children develop an understanding that through our authentic actions we can create positive change to ensure a respectful and thoughtful community. As reflective thinkers and communicators, the children dialogued about what they could do to keep turtles and other sea creatures safe and healthy and protect sea turtles from plastic bags. As part of taking action, the children are currently designing their own re-useable cloth bag, with a slogan and drawing, as a sustainable alternative to a throw away plastic bag.

Angela Follacchio
Early Learning 4 Full Time Teacher

Early Learning 4 Part Time - Children’s Wellbeing

This term, wellbeing continues to be a strong focus in the Early Learning 4 classroom. We support children to make connections to wider community members who assist us in making effective transitions to different life events, such as the doctor and dentist. This week, we welcomed two special guests, who shared their information and ways we can look after ourselves.

Avi’s Dad, Kunal spoke about taking care of our teeth. The children remembered the message that he shared with them “You must brush your teeth slowly and for longer, never rush!”

Elliana’s Dad George shared information about taking care of our bones. George said, “I help people with their bones when they don’t work well or when they are broken!” The children were very involved in exploring the human skeleton and learning how hip joints are put together with various pins.

The children are inspired by these parents to become doctors and dentists as they play in the home corner emulating these vocations. Learning through play gives the children meaningful ways to make sense of their world.

 “Early childhood professionals actively engage families and children in planning for ongoing learning and development in the service, at home and in the local community.” Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework (VEYLDF)

Ramila Sadikeen
Early Learning 4 Part Time Teacher

Year 2 Extended Day

Last Friday, the Year 2’s enjoyed a fun-filled afternoon of games and circus tricks. We started by playing poison ball with Mr D, which is always a fun way to get the afternoon going. This was then followed by Mrs Robottom teaching everyone skilled circus tricks. The students were focussed and determined to learn the art of juggling and spinning plates. Always a favourite part of the session is everyone being able to sit together and enjoy their dinner provided by Pinwheel. They mostly chatted about which meal was the best and predicted what movie we might be watching, much like they would on a real camp experience. Next, we all settled in to watch our movie ‘Meet the Robinsons’. The students were very excited to enjoy their snacks and icy poles, whilst cuddling up to their teddies together.

Mikaela Stanaway
Year 2 Class Teacher

Foundation – Year 2 Author Visit

On Wednesday 16 November, our Junior School Library was thrilled to host the official launch of children’s picture book, Little Matilda Goes to Hospital. Author Caz Goodwin and illustrator by Shaney Hyde were joined by children’s author, Amy Adeney and Little Matilda herself for this very special and exciting event. 

The Foundation, Year 1 and Year 2 classes had a wonderful time listening and viewing the Little Matilda stories with Caz, Shaney, Amy plus a variety of puppet characters from the stories. Our guests generously shared their creative writing processes and illustrating tips, tools and techniques with the students including a wonderful time-lapse video that demonstrated how simple sketches are turned into full colour pages from the book. A variety of fun interactive songs and activities had everyone on their feet and each student also received a beautiful ladybird bracelet gift from our guests.

Sally Spencer
Library Teacher

Year 1 Excursion – Myuna Farm

This week the Year 1 students took part in an excursion to Myuna Farm. The students have been investigating the farm to plate process and exploring different types of farms, both in Australia and abroad as part of our Inquiry unit. For most students, this was their first excursion and for many, their first experience on a bus, so understandably excitement levels were high!

Throughout the day, there were several hands-on experiences for the students to take part in, including seeing baby animals in the nursery, learning how to milk a goat, looking at different poultry and comparing egg sizes, feeding animals in the paddocks, grinding buckwheat into flour and looking at the process of making bread. The students were able to use new vocabulary they have learnt this term and make connections with some of the learning that has already taken place in the classroom.

The following students were keen to share their thoughts on the day:

I enjoyed milking the goat because I have never milked a goat before. – Lena

I liked grinding the buckwheat and touching the animals in the nursery. I also know that alpacas can spit! – Angela

I liked learning how bread is made. – Rubyrose

I learnt that pigs use mud as sun cream, and I liked feeding the animals. – Aileen

I enjoyed going to the farm school because we got to make flour. – Alex

I liked the patting the guinea pigs and rabbits and I loved the baby guinea pigs. They were so sweet! – Ginnie

I would like to extend my sincerest thanks to our wonderful parent helpers on the day and congratulate the Year 1 students on their enthusiasm, curiosity and teamwork.

Angela Columbine
Year 1 Class Teacher

Spring String Soiree

On Wednesday 16 November, the Junior School co-curricular string ensembles hosted a celebration of music in a relaxed and warm environment to a capacity audience. It was a wonderful opportunity for students to perform repertoire that they have been working on this semester.

The showcased groups were:

 >Year 2 Super Strings

>Y1-4 Junior Strings

>Years 5/6 Quartet

>Years 5/6 Quintet

 >Y4-6 Chamber Strings.

A special mention needs to go to the enthusiastic singing and dancing of the Year 2’s in their rendition of the “Hokey Cokey”

Thank you to Paul Donohue, classroom staff, music staff, music tutors and ensemble directors who all contributed to making the afternoon soiree such a success.

Rohan Mack
Director of Music-Instrumental

Year 6 Concert Band: Victorian School Music Festival

On Thursday, 17 November, the Year 6 students went on an excursion to the Hawthorn Arts Centre to play in the VSMF festival. This festival provides opportunities for school ensembles to perform in a real-world performances space, interact with a professional conductor in a feedback workshop, listen to other schools perform and discover how well they can play in a live performance context. The students received very encouraging feedback from the adjudicators and a Gold Shield, in response to their performance. It was certainly a rewarding and valuable performance experience.

Kate Savige and Rohan Mack
Directors of Music

The Year 6’s did incredibly well, performing three pieces that we had selected to prepare. We played together as a band and listened carefully to what the adjudicator had to say about our performance. The adjudicator was super nice and gave us good tips on how to improve. Furthermore, Mr Toohey (our awesome conductor) received personalised feedback in a conducting workshop with the Chief Adjudicator. It was a very worthwhile learning experience for us all, as we worked together to improve the details in the music and felt like we achieved our performance goals.

What an amazing day we had, and a definite highlight of Year 6.

Molin Yu and Stefanie Nguyen
Year 6 Music Leaders

Year 6 - First Lego League

For the past few weeks, a team of Year 6 students has been preparing for the First Lego League competition, a global event in which hundreds of thousands of 9 – 16 year-olds explore big issues and propose solutions while designing, building and programming a robot to compete in a theme-based robot game.

This year’s theme was Super Powered and focused on issues relating to energy. Brick Storm, our Year 6 team, decided to explore the issue of energy generation alongside the issue of waste in our waterways. Their solution involved removing and sorting rubbish from our waterways, then burning the non-recyclable waste in a Danish-inspired incinerator to generate energy. While the innovation project students developed their solution using the design thinking process, the robot group designed a robot using Lego’s Spike Prime resources and programmed it to complete an array of missions on a giant game board.

On Tuesday 15 November, the Brick Storm team joined our three Senior School teams to compete in the regional finals at Swinburne’s KIOSC campus in Wantirna. The students presented their innovation project, participated in a Q and A panel about their work and engaged in three robot games. While they did not receive any formal awards, they are to be congratulated for their teamwork, creative thinking and perseverance. They were all excellent ambassadors for Camberwell Girls
Grammar School. Congratulations go to our Year 9 team who have advanced to the National Championships.

Dr Charlotte Forwood
Director of Learning Design and Development & First Lego League Coach

Year 5 & 6 Science Talent Search Awards

This year, 20 students from Years 5 and 6 competed in the Science Talent Search. The Science Talent Search is a national competition which seeks to engage students in the land of Science. Our Year 5 and 6 students chose to explore Science concepts through Experimental Research, Working Models, Creative Writing, Computer Programming, Video Production, Scientific Wallcharts and Science Photography.

The following five students received a Major or Minor Bursary, which was presented to them at an online awards ceremony on Wednesday 16 November.

Major Bursary

Asha Bhattacharjee / Creative Writing: The microbes ate the glass

Minor Bursary

Christine Moi / Experimental Research: What is the most efficient form of transport?

Rudra Santhosh / Experimental Research: The effects of using different materials to create a chemical battery

Eshani Nagarajan / Science Photography: Refraction

Semaya Kaur / Science Photography: Flower shapes

In addition to the bursaries, eight students received Certificates of Distinction and five students received Certificates of Merit.

Each student is congratulated for the effort they put into their submissions. Thank you to all the parents who encouraged their child behind the scenes and where relevant, made sure they were able to attend the judging day to share their work.

I look forward to working with the Junior School students again next year.

Dr Charlotte Forwood
Director of Learning Design and Development
Junior School Science Talent Search Coordinator

Principal

Today, Mrs Dunwoody announces the 2024 Junior School Musical and details some exciting performing arts events coming up.

Secondary School

Trophies, excursions, incursions and camps - it's been a busy fortnight at the Secondary School!

Junior School

Ormiston students made a splash at the North Balwyn District Swimming Carnival.

Connected Community

The School hosted two fantastic community events this last fortnight, with another happening tomorrow!

Create Your Tomorrow