Junior School

Character, Resilience and Hope

The readiness to persevere when faced with unfamiliar and challenging learning situations creates the opportunity for success and achievement.

Herein lies a primary tenant of the school camp. Personal gain is achieved by our students from the moment they know that camp is on the horizon as they prepare both mentally, physically, and organisationally for the experience of camp. During Term 2 students and staff enjoyed our season of offsite overnight camps for Years 3, 4 and 5. Being away from home on school camp provides space for reflection and opportunity for personal growth that the open sky and the green surroundings provoke through immersion and challenge by choice. Our students travelled to locations at Stanwell Tops, Galston and Yarrawonga Park on Lake Macquarie where all were surrounded by the wonders of nature which announce God’s glory. Key to the experience for the children is the opportunity to be faced with personal challenges by engaging in an array of camp activities like climbing, sailing, teamwork problem solving, canoeing, bushcraft, abseiling, and archery. Besides the formal program, many of the challenges for personal growth present in the form of life skills, personal organisation, planning, collaborating and navigating the weather. When faced with significant intermittent rainfall, the students worked together to set for the rain to move forward. The children were amazing. Their positivity and willingness to try everything, encourage each other and find their pathways for personal growth were outstanding across all three camps. The Junior School has continued to partner with Cru Educational Camps. Cru provides the infrastructure and the expertise to deliver quality programs. Our Junior School staff are present throughout, working closely with the Cru Leaders to support the children. The Cru Team provides an important provocation for the children to reflect on their faith journey presenting a biblically informed message and group reflection time that aligns with our commitment to see the children develop character, resilience, and hope.

Martin Conway Junior School Director of Students

Real-world Application

In Junior School STEAM we teach three different strands. In this edition of The Barker, we will be focusing on the Robotics strand.

The Robotics strand combines elements of practical design and coding to produce robotic solutions for various situations. The real-world application of design and coding skills through another medium creates connections throughout the students’ learning to prepare them for unknown future jobs. In Year 2 students use the Lego WeDo 2 kits to gain an understanding of how robots can complete jobs that are risky for humans. They learn about different types of sensors that allow robots to work independently in places such as Mars or deep under the sea. The students apply these concepts to design and build a robot that can help them in the classroom. Year 3 sees students delve deeper into the benefits and limitations that robots provide. They look at how robots can work tirelessly with greater precision than humans but lack the ability to make decisions and account for variations. The students test these ideas out by racing a human-piloted robot against a coded robot. Year 4 students continue to build on the skills developed in Years 2 and 3. They are presented with a design brief and are required to modify a basic robot design to create a parade float. The parade float performed a choreographed dance to All Star by Smash Mouth from the up-coming Shrek musical. This open-ended task allows students to push their design, construction and coding skills. A key focus of the Robotics unit is working as a team. Through discussion and collaboration students work together to share knowledge and develop teamwork skills that will serve them well throughout life. Year 5 students learn the basics of binary code and block coding via the Scratch and Vex VR (Virtual Robot) programs. They then go onto code the Vex IQ robotics systems to perform various drive functions. The Vex IQ robot that students design, plan and build in collaborative pairs participates in a mini competition based on the 2022 Vex IQ ‘Slapshot’ challenge. Students drive and code their robots to push specially designed discs under the fence and into the goal zone for points. Robots always undertake challenges in alliance pairs in order to build a sense of team and collaboration. Students in Year 6 are comparing drone coded flights to ones that are piloted by the students themselves. They code in the Tello Edu app in order to perform the same pattern of instructions and then they perform the sequence of events themselves and measure their landing accuracy each time.

Lindsay Bosch & Tim Gee Junior School Specialist Teachers - STEAM

House Sport Carnivals

All students in the Junior School represent their House in sport and other co-curricular activities.

There are six Houses in the Junior School. The House system creates healthy competition amongst students and they become very parochial when the opportunity arises to compete against each other. At this point in the school year, the Junior School has completed three major House sporting competitions, Swimming, Cross Country and Track Athletics. The champion House for each of the carnivals thus far have been; Swimming - Tasman Cross Country - Tasman Track Athletics - Flinders The Junior School House Sport Captains have shared below how these carnivals promote positive House spirit amongst the students in their Houses. “The three House carnivals were great for Hillary House as they gave us an opportunity to unite as one team. Cheering together encouraged us to bond and lift each other’s spirits.” Hillary House - Amelie and Jericho “The three House carnivals allowed everyone to fly high and never let our spirits die.” Byrd House - Bree and Oliver “The three House carnivals evolved House spirit by bringing everyone together and encouraging all of us to succeed, not only for ourselves but for each other.” Flinders House - Ivy and Tristan “The three House carnivals are a great opportunity for students to get together and cheer on one another. They also encourage House spirit, friendship and teamwork, bonding our House closer together.” Scott House - Angela and Tommy “The three House carnivals are a great opportunity for students to display teamwork, courage, persistence and determination. Mawson always shows up ready to perform and we never give up.” Mawson House - Tilly and Zack “The three House carnivals have taught us many things. They teach us leadership, friendship and teamwork. House spirit has never been stronger.” Tasman House - Ines and Tom

Mathew Olijnyk Junior School Director of Sports

Students in Year 6 participated in the annual Write a Book in a Day event.

This event is an inclusive, creative writing competition where students write and illustrate books in teams of up to ten. Writing a book in a day is a challenge that our students accepted willingly and with great enthusiasm! To make this event even more exciting, unique writing parameters were provided for each team to write their story. This included each team being provided one human, one non-human character, the setting, an issue and five ‘random’ words to use cleverly in their storyline! Write A Book in A Day, is an initiative raising funds for The Kids' Cancer Project. All funds raised go directly to The Kids Cancer Project. The charity has contributed tens of millions of dollars to scientific research projects to help children with many types of cancer. Right now, the charity is funding 35 medical research projects across 22 institutes Australia-wide. Recently, Year 6 had the opportunity of hearing from Owen Finegan. Owen is the The Kids’ Cancer Project CEO and is proud of the determined stance the team is taking against childhood cancer. Owen shared how the charity’s strategy is to provide seed funding to the most innovative scientific studies in the country that truly sets it apart. The 18 books Year 6 wrote will be delivered to hospitals across Australia for children to access who are undergoing treatment. Stories written by children for children. These stories will bring some joy and happiness to children who are sadly unwell. Some of the books created in the end were: • The Cook’s Kindness • The Tale of Ted • Hotel Holiday • The Exhausting Excursion • The Path to a Popstar • A Bit of a Pickle • The Heist Over Dinner • Delight “I love how Write a Book in a Day gave us the opportunity to work in teams. We brainstormed ideas and broke up the tasks, before coming back to share our plan. It was both stressful and enjoyable.” Tom Nye “It was really fun hanging out with peers that I don’t usually work with. It was very special to be part of an important charity and to write a book for sick kids.” Jericho Alley Year 6 students and families were asked to donate to their teams. This year, we saw the most outstanding generosity from our community with a culminating donation of $42,000. This total continues to grow as well! Thank you to those who gave so generously. Your donation will go a long way to help enhance the research of childhood cancer. It was a wonderful day of writing amongst students.

Timothy Moyes Junior School Classroom Teacher & Year 6 Grade Coordinator