The children have made a wonderful start to their years in Primary. From exploring the great pyramids of Ancient Egypt to investigating the properties of 3D shapes, recreating Monet’s gardens in pastels to being tour guides of Australia, this has been a full and rewarding year.
The seven new students who have joined JCS this year in our class have shown courage and resilience in settling in to their new school and class. It does not seem to have taken them long to feel at home; they have been warmly welcomed by their classmates whose kindness and care in helping them to get to know our school has been lovely to observe. Friendships are blossoming across the Year group and our school values have been very much in evidence.
We started the year with Ancient Egypt which we all loved. I will not forget the morning the pyramids started arriving: amazing creations in gold paint and sand, full of treasures, that precariously made their way up to class. The children’s creative ideas, knowledge and eye for detail were all remarked upon by the visitors who came during Open Day. Exploring this rich culture in our History lessons, as well as in their amazing Art classes, has been a highlight of the year.
We started our Science this year with a study of `Feathers, Fur and Leaves’ and a visit to the Australian Museum and the Botanic Gardens. The children loved dressing up as scientists in white lab coats, or palaeontologists ready to go on a dig, and the staff at the museum gave them plenty of opportunity to explore fossils, and various kinds of Australian flora and fauna. Learning the uses of trees, plants and herbs, whether for medicine, spears or cradles, was fascinating and the children spent a happy, sunny afternoon in the Botanic Gardens with our expert guide.
In Term 2 we visited a local Aboriginal heritage site at Bantry Bay as part of a study of change and continuity in Australia in History. We all took our socks and shoes off and carefully walked over the rock platform, finding fish and spears, men and sharks. It was a fascinating morning and the children’s silent, attentive faces as they listened to the stories of our Aboriginal Heritage officer were a delight to see.
It has been a good year for reading and writing; we have enjoyed our class texts, ‘Pinquo’ and ‘Mirror’, and composed a wide range of pieces of writing from these. We have also had fun writing stories together as a class, which we will continue to do. The children very much enjoyed dressing up in Book Week and loved sharing picture books with the Year 5 students who came to visit.
Many children chose to take part in our Maths Challenge, and also in the Australian Mathematics Competition and enjoyed investigating maths in these new ways. We have covered a broad scope of topics this year which we revisit in more depth as we move into Year 4.
Milson Island, greatly anticipated by the children, was a big success. We have lots of good memories of the activities on offer: team challenges such as designing, building and testing rafts and orienteering, and more individual challenges that tested children’s courage and willingness to have a go such as the Giant Swing and archery. They cycled, cooked damper over a fire and played games in the gym. Sharing cabins together and enjoying the experience of being on camp with their friends, and of course the disco, were as much fun, I think, as any of the planned activities.
Watching the children look after each other and cope so well with being away from home was a great lesson in the resilience of children. We are looking forward to next year already!
Finally, I must mention Macbeth! The children have been wonderful; imaginative, attentive, disciplined and courageous. This is the first time many of the children have performed in a Shakespearean play, and, for most, their first time on stage at a real theatre. I have been continually amazed by their bravery and talent. What a year!
Anne-Marie Sjogren
Teacher, 3S
The above review is a longer version of 3S class report that will apear in our Yearbook. Pictured below are some 3S students making rain guages.
