Month: October 2013

Our very first Middles Aerobics Team ‘Kunyung Kidz’ had a great morning at the Spring Challenge competition in Geelong on Saturday (even though it was a very early 8.30am start!).  Our girls gave an awesome performance and placed 5th out of 13 teams competing.  This is an awesome result, especially given this was our girls’ first time on the aerobics stage, performing against teams that had perfected their routines since competing in the first May competition.

Congratulations to our Kunyung Kidz team and a big thanks to their families for
supporting the girls on the day.

Photo: Our Kunyung Kidz aerobics team: Ella Swales, Reese Mestdagh, Holly
Prossor, Amelia Daff, Brooke Fischer, Ella Fischer, Poppy Rich and Eden
Mestdagh

AEROBICS CLUB

Middles students: come along and learn the Kunyung Kidz aerobics routine during
Monday lunchtimes in the BER building.  Bring your drink bottle!

Thanks

Jo Clarke (Parent and Aerobics Coach!!)

Groovy would answer that with ‘Let’s start at the very beginning…a very good place to start!’

Tuesday was a day to celebrate! Our Senior School students were outstanding as they presented their work during the Senior School Exhibition! We were all amazed at the quality of work that was presented to the school community! What I was most amazed about, and proud of, was the children’s ability to articulate not only WHAT they had learned but, equally importantly, HOW they learned…..their understanding of the PROCESS of learning they went through to gain a deep understanding of their area of interest.

The children could explain the research skills they used, the different ways they needed to communicate with others (peers, mentors, teachers, community members), the social skills they needed to employ and the thinking behind their decision making!!! So really they had to use ALL of the PYP skills we have talked about in the newsletter!

Above and beyond all of this was their ability to reflect on EVERYTHING they had done……….asking themselves the questions:

If I had to do this again (which as adults we know they will need to undertake research and employ social and communication skills for the rest of their lives!!) how might I do it differently to improve?

What did I do well? What could I have done better?

What did I see other people doing that I would like to try next time? What worked for me? What didn’t work for me?

The success of the Exhibition was not just the fact that it looked engaging and bright and colourful…..it was the quality and depth of research, the articulation of the process of learning and the SO WHAT factor!!!! All students were able to articulate, and wanted visitors to know, as a result of our learning this is what we really  got out of it, this is our SO WHAT! This is what we would like to influence your thinking to be……………………..surely THAT is learning transferred into ACTION at its best!!

Brilliant job Senior School students and teachers!!! You were all amazing! Please refer to the Senior School BLOG over the coming days for reflections and photos!

FAMILY LIFE NIGHT! 🙂

We were approached at the start of the year by one of our parents, Julie Burton, to organise a FAMILY LIFE Night at the school! We said ‘sure!’………………………..it was held last night and we had over 100 children, parents and grandparents attend!! Was it wanted- yes!

The night was magnificently facilitated by ‘Kelly’ from the Family Life Program, who made the conversations funny, relevant, student centred and enjoyable! Parents leaving the sessions were full of praise for the night!

As a result we will aim to run another night of sessions in 2014! So please spread the word and we can lock it in on the 2014 calendar!! 🙂

FUN FITNESS FRIDAY!! 🙂

This morning saw another 70 students, parents, siblings take to the oval to ‘walk’ their way into fitness on a PERFECT Spring morning! Really proud of our community members for taking up this opportunity and strutting their walking, jogging (crawling) style!!! I’m not sure if riding a scooter would count at the Olympics as a walk or run BUT @ Kunyung PS we LOVED to see it!! Mind you our scooter rider was only 3 years old!!! How cute!! 🙂

Please feel free to come and join us every Friday morning @ 8:30am on the Oval!! Siblings and family members welcome!!

 

 

We invite you all to our Senior School Exhibition!

Please see the invitation below for more details. Click the image to enlarge. 

The students have been working very hard to prepare the day. You are welcome to attend any of the sessions listed on the invitation.

Can you believe it?

We are about to head into the final term of the year and it only feels like yesterday we were welcoming our Preps to their first day of school! 🙂

Term 4 promises to be as busy and exciting as Terms 1,2 and 3!!! We have excursions, Whole School events such as the ‘Walk-a-thon’, Friday Fun Fitness and Coach Approach, Preps’ and Juniors’ Athletics Day, Parent Information Nights such as ‘Family Life’ Sessions, 2014 Prep Transition Sessions, Year 6 Exhibition and Graduation, Whole School and Sub School Assemblies and much more…….stay tuned!!!!

We have our normal weekly homework and nightly reading expectations at all year levels and you can follow Level Team BLOGS to keep up-to-date with specific requirements!

All level teams start to look into new Units of Inquiry…..please have a read below to keep up with what your child/ren will be inquiring into this term! Please let your child’s teacher  know if you have any expertise or interest in any of these areas!

Our Preps are going to start looking into ‘Living things having certain requirements in order to survive and grow.’ They will be looking at the characteristics of living and non-living things, similar needs of plants and animals and the resources we need to share (food, habitat etc) to sustain plants and animals.

Our Juniors will start to inquire into ‘All living things go through a process of change.’ This will include researching the following focus areas:

Living things have a variety of external features.

Living things live in different places where their needs are met

Living things grow, change and have offspring similar to themselves

Our Middles will focus their learning on the central idea ‘Water is essential to life, and is a limited resource for many people. They will focus their research on the following areas: Sources of water and how water is used, what happens to water after we have used it, distribution and availability of usable water and our responsibility regarding water.

Our Senior students, once the Exhibition is completed, will focus their learning on the central ideas ‘Children worldwide face a variety of challenges and risks.’ and ‘Trading depends on the ability to produce goods and supply services that can be exchanged.’

Throughout the term we will continue to develop and enhance the Attitudes, Learner Profile Attributes and Transdisciplinary Skills we have written about in the newsletter throughout the year!!

What a term ahead…….I, for one, can’t wait!!! 🙂