Head of Primary

Term 3 Reflection

Term 3 has been a blast, and we can look back with thankfulness for God’s abundant blessings this term.

Primary events that have been real highlights included 100 Days of Prep, Athletics Day and Book Week with our annual reading picnics and dress up parade. This year we enjoyed Christian author, Simon Camilleri who shared from his story Read, Think, Pray, Do. Primary classes also engaged in workshopping stories and story writing. As part of our Book Week celebration, students donated and purchased books with a grand total of $400 going to support indigenous literacy in the Northern Territory. A huge thank you to all families that supported this venture.

Our Year 5s recently went on camp to Adekate Ballarat experiencing the excitement of the gold fields. Some even struck it rich gold panning at Sovereign Hill! As well as learning about this historical period, students participated in many challenge activities including archery, leap of faith, crate stack climb and hut building. Camps afford students many opportunities to personally challenge themselves as well as grow socially and we are proud of how well the Year 5 cohort engaged.

Further to these highlights, we have also enjoyed a couple of amazing Assemblies from Year 5 and Year 3. Both year levels wowed everyone with their performances, and it was a blessing to share these occasions with our amazing parent community - we are thankful for your support.

In the final weeks of the term Primary will extend their learning of God’s universe with Enrichment Week. This semester our focus is on the sciences and mathematics. Kerryn Terrington is leading this venture, and we hope that students are challenged and prompted to think more deeply about God’s amazing world. A bonus of E3 week is the multi age groups which provide students with the opportunity to strengthening their connections across Primary.

Our prayers are with Emily Law who has taken maternity leave and is soon to welcome her third child. We also congratulate Naomi Su, a regular support to the Primary school, on the safe arrival of her second daughter, Elsie. May God bless your families.

Blessings,

Book Week

PARADE & READING PICNICS

Term 3 has been a very busy time for the library. In August, we had Book Week, which coincided with the announcement of The Children’s Book Council of Australia’s (CBCA) Book of the Year awards. The Primary School held a very successful Book Week Reading Picnic which was enjoyed by everyone. This year’s theme was “Book an adventure”

The Picnic commenced with a Book character parade under the Dome and then moved into the MPH, where the author Simon Camilleri entertained everyone with his book Read, Think, Pray, Do. Students then selected a number of book readings to attend. Books were read by staff members from all sections of the school. In the afternoon, our guest author ran workshops for Years Prep – 2.

Prep News

Preps Celebrate 100 Days of School

On Monday 4^th August, our 2 Prep classes celebrated being at school for 100 Days. The children enjoyed dressing up as people who were 100 years old (!). There were lots of grey hair and quite a few walking sticks too. We made fairy bread (using 100s and 1000s), glasses, badges and necklaces with 100 beads. We did lots of activities celebrating this milestone in their school life. The Prep children have learned so much about God and His world during their 100 days of school and will continue their learning throughout their time at school.

Exciting Egg-citement: Chicks in the Classroom!

The Prep classes are enjoying learning more new things for the last 2 weeks of Term 3! Farmer Linda from “Henny Penny” visited us on Monday and delivered an incubator, 12 fertilised eggs, a brooder box and 3 cute chicks. We will learn about life cycles, farm animals, animal needs and caring for animals. We will also learn by watching chickens hatch and holding chickens! Mr Haines visited our classroom and joined in with the fun too.

Year 1 News

Term 3 has been an exciting and memorable time in Grade 1. We have learnt so much about the wonderful world that God has created and used our creativity and collaboration in projects, lessons and our time with our buddies. We have also had so much fun in our specialist classes.

Here are some of the memories that you can bank away in your time capsules!

Year 1 Drama Production: The Little Red Hen

In Grade 1, the Performing Arts theme for Term 3 has been ‘Let’s work together to put on a show!’ The students worked together to learn the short play, ‘The Little Red Hen’, in which the barnyard animals learn that ‘If we all work together, we can make something good!” In Music lessons, the students learned four songs and practised performing them with actions. In Drama lessons, they learned to memorise dialogue and speak with volume and expression, both as individuals and in groups. Students created costumes and props to use in their performance, and rehearsed under stage lights, using a set created by Year 9 Stagecraft students. In Week 8, students were excited to perform ‘The Little Red Hen’ for an encouraging audience of parents and friends. It was wonderful for students to have the opportunity to perform for an audience, and they can be proud of the way they worked together to present a final show.

Year 2 News

Book Week

From students to teachers we had a wonderful week celebrating book week. The highlight of the week was Thursday on 21st August when we engaged in reading picnics, the dress up parade, and a readers workshop with Simon Camilleri. 2P students enjoyed the magic tricks that Simon shared and our take away of READ, THINK. PRAY, DO.

READ a passage of the Bible, THINK about how you can apply it, PRAY to GOD and DO apply it!!.

We are so thankful for our new ways for learning and developing a great joy for books and reading.

Year 5 News

Donvale Church Visit

Our visit to the Donvale Presbyterian Church on 28th August was successful. The students performed well and behaved well. They even mingled well with the elderly. We ended up singing happy birthday to one the church members and in turn one of them read us a poem about St Andrews!

Adekate Camp in Ballarat

This term, our Grade 5 students embarked on an adventure at Adekate Camp! Students embraced nature and challenged themselves through a variety of exciting activities including the zipline, leap of faith, orienteering, archery, hut building, and making damper over an open fire. These hands-on experiences encouraged teamwork and resilience, while also providing plenty of fun and laughter.

As part of our camp experience, we also visited Sovereign Hill in Ballarat, where students stepped back in time to explore life during the gold rush. They toured an underground mine, panned for gold, and participated in a range of engaging educational activities, deepening their understanding of Australia’s history in a fun and interactive way. It was a fantastic week of learning, bonding, and making memories!

Year 6 News

MCG Excursion

On Thursday 28th August, the Year 6 students ventured on their much-anticipated excursion to the MCG. They had a fantastic time exploring the Australian Sports Museum, where they discovered Australia’s rich sporting history and tested their skills in the interactive Game On area.

One of the highlights of the day was an insightful and engaging tour of the MCG. Students were excited to explore behind the scenes, visiting the media room, the changerooms, and even stepping onto the famous MCG turf.

The students were also privileged to hear from Jenny Donnet, an Olympian who made history as the first Australian woman to compete at four Olympic Games. Jenny shared valuable lessons from her journey as an elite athlete, encouraging the students to always give their best in whatever they do in life.

We are especially thankful to God that the rain held off, enabling everyone to enjoy lunch and have time chatting and playing with their friends.

E³ Week

We had a wonderful week investigating and ‘Unveiling the Cosmic Story’. Year 4 to 6 students had the opportunity attend workshops on Monday to Wednesday around the themes of geometry, measurement, engineering, chemistry, buoyancy, astronomy, and tessellations. A huge thanks goes to our teachers for making the workshops so engaging and interesting for the students.

Year 1 to 3 students had similar opportunities on Thursday and Friday, when they had their workshops.

Selected students were also invited to a full day of workshops in the GATEways Ignite incursion on Tuesday. Year 1 to 3 students started the day with a Mission to Mars, designing a landing module and learning about adapting engineering principles in order to survive. In the afternoon, they moved to the maths workshop where they were challenged with a variety of maths puzzles and even had a go at designing their own. The year 4 to 6 group started with a maths tessellations challenge based on the work of Escher, where they produced some interesting variations on tessellations. For the afternoon they switched to the science-based workshop and worked on overcoming various challenges in their scenario. Both presenters were very impressed with the teamwork, cooperation and enthusiasm displayed by our students and everyone had a great day of learning.