It has been wonderful watching the Middles turn into SCIENTISTS as they inquire into how the Earth’s rotation on its axis affects how we live. They have started using Science Journals as they conduct experiments and draw diagrams to research their Unit of Inquiry ‘How the World Works’…… The Juniors are about to commence their next Unit of Inquiry on ‘Sharing the Planet’ and will be looking at the Earth’s finite resources and how these resources are used all around the world. They will be writing down some action that they can take to help look after our finite resources. The Preps, during their ‘Where we are in Place and Time’ Unit of Inquiry that finds them inquiring into personal histories, have written some questions to their parents taking on the role as RESEARCHERS. I loved reading some of their questions and look forward to seeing the DATA collected!

All of these Units of Inquiries are developing our students towards being ready to undertake the Senior School Exhibition! 🙂

SENIOR SCHOOL EXHIBITION!

WHEN: Tuesday 15th October 2013

In the final year of the IB Primary Years Program, students participate in a culminating project known as the Exhibition. Students are required to engage in a collaborative, transdisciplinary inquiry process that involves them identifying, investigating and offering solutions to real-life issues. Through this inquiry they will also manage their time, research, proactively work with mentors, take appropriate actions, communicate their findings, assess their tasks and CELEBRATE their learning.

The Exhibition can be visited by people in and out of the school community. We have teachers and students from other schools, community members, school parents, friends and family of our Senior School students visiting. If you want to see where your younger child is heading towards in the future, it is a great way to see what we at KUNYUNG hand over to the Secondary Schools. It has always made us all feel exceptionally proud of your children and our students.

Please have a look below to see the central ideas that are forming the framework for the students’ inquiries. Please see any teachers in the Senior School if you have any expertise in any of these areas! We would love your assistance! 🙂

Central Ideas

Fashion expresses peoples’ belief and values.

People connect culturally and globally through sport.

Performing Arts & Music are ways that people express   their ideas & feelings.

Authors express themselves through what they write.

Sporting brands express beliefs and values through their   products and sponsorship.

Political expression can change peoples’ views, opinions   and beliefs.

People express the beliefs and values though cultural   celebrations.

People express their beliefs and feelings through   traditional cultural clothing.

Cultural art expresses peoples’ beliefs and values.

Human emotions are expressed through visual art.

People share their imagination and feelings through   cartoons, drawings, animations and graffiti art.

Body art expresses peoples’ belief and creativity.

Cartooning is used as an expression of creativity,   feelings and beliefs.

People express themselves through different types of   dance.

People express themselves through technology and online   communication.

Bodyart is a way people express their beliefs and   creativity.

Visual arts and photography can express feelings and   provide help to understand emotion and cultural beliefs.

Technology can help people communicate their ideas,   feelings and creativity.

Last Friday was a special day in the lives of all Kunyung Community members! There were tears of joy as over 1300 excited family members and friends watched our students take to the stage for the biannual School Musical- Back to the Drive In! From DOC to King Kong to ‘I see dead people’ to Madeleine to The Von Trapps…….the list just went on and on!! The students were simply superb and a credit to their parents, teachers and school! They were beautifully behaved back stage, entertaining on stage and displayed many of the school’s Learner Profile attributes along the way (RISK TAKERS, BALANCED, PRINCIPLED, COMMUNICATORS, OPEN MINDED and THINKERS- just to name a few!)

TAKE A BOW KUNYUNG STUDENTS!!

A special mention to our fabulous parents for assisting with the  night and producing such AMAZING costumes! There were working bees at school, lots and lots of home sewing, late nights phone calls discussing bargains on ebay or Lincraft specials! You name it and it was accomplished by many very hard working parents and grandparents!! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

Teachers…………on top of the already rigorous classroom sessions you prepare on a daily basis you outdid yourself with enthusiasm and effort to assist your classes to be the best they could be on the night! Thank you for the extra time and thinking that you so happily put in to get the items ‘just right’! Don’t think we didn’t see some of you dressed up in parts of your classes costume- just quietly and hopefully waiting for a chance to jump on stage as well!!!!

Finally, last but most certainly not least, a VERY special thank you to Groovy! Your un-wavering enthusiasm and energy inspires us all! The children are so very lucky to have a Performing Arts teacher who goes the extra mile (or two or three!) to make this experience for the Kunyung students one they will NEVER forget! The planning, coordinating, creativity and happy, smiley disposition you displayed throughout the process is an inspiration to us all! On behalf of the Kunyung Community THANK YOU!!!!

“It was such a great day/night, and typical of Groovy’s productions. We are so lucky to have her, and she involves everyone!’ ( Jane Croger Middle School Parent)

We will ride this high of success this week BUT we already have places to go and people to meet starting from tomorrow……….enjoy your Scienceworks excursion Middles as you launch into your new Unit of Inquiry ‘How the World Works’……Juniors are about to commence their next Unit of Inquiry on ‘Sharing the Planet’ and the Preps ‘Where we are in Place and Time’.

The Seniors are continuing to work on EXHIBITION and ‘watch this space’ for further information. Check out their BLOG for current Exhibition information.

As part of our School Review all of our classes completed a ‘BUDDY GRADE’ activity….students were asked to work with their buddies to answer the following questions:

What gifts and talents do you have? Some responses included soccer and football skills, reading and maths skills, good tricks in sport, caring for others, great handwriting and letter writing (Prep) and sharing my ideas with others.

What do we do at school to help you improve them? Some responses included working together in maths, sharing our ideas, The Musical, Interschool Sport for Seniors, sports days, working in teams (pairs and groups) and writing.

What could we do better to improve them? Some responses included A Junior Master Chef Club, Maths Clubs, Sustainable gardening Club and teachers giving us extra work!

There were many, many more responses- this is only a selection. We used these ideas last week when we me to discuss our next School Strategic Plan! Thank you to all of our students for their valuable input!

WOW! Go Kunyung!! 🙂

 

Well Well Well……..

With the excitement and anticipation continuing to build towards this year’s Musical the school is abuzz with singing, dancing and loads of colour!! Groovy is running on empty BUT is still running and students are having last minute costume adjustments and rehearsing their song lyrics! Happy Days!

What else could possibly be happening in a school preparing for their BIG night on stage….well let me tell you!!!

In the Multi Purpose Room today we witnessed our PREPS share their Toys with the school community in their 2013 TOY EXPO….it was amazing! Conversations between the Preps and their parents as well as with other students were well worth listening to. They spoke with confidence and excitement and gave detailed answers to anyone who would listen. The whole process of designing toys and then creating them was a wonderful learning experience and thanks must go to the teachers who supported this Unit of Inquiry ‘How the world works’.!

Our Juniors spent a day last week at McClelland Gallery observing paintings and sculptures at the Gallery and along the Frankston Foreshore. The excursion complemented and supported the current Unit of Inquiry ‘How we express ourselves’. It was a superbly organised day by staff and would not have been able to take place without the support of the parents who gave up their time to attend! Thank you!

The Middles have recently returned from their school camp at Manyung! We have had so many positive comments from students, staff and parents and this is largely due to the great students that attended the camp and the detailed organisation by the Middles teachers. Well done and we’re glad everyone had such a great time!

The Seniors have their EXHIBITION well underway and the teachers and students are working very hard to write their own central idea and questions that will enable them to start the research process required to EXHIBIT a quality inquiry! The theme driving this Exhibition is ‘How we express ourselves’. Please visit the SENIORS page to find out more about the EXHIBITION process!

Thanks also to Sporty and the teachers in Years 3-6 for attending our House Athletics on Monday! It was a difficult call to make as to whether we should cancel the event or not but we thought we might miss the rain! We got through 8 out of 10 rotations before the weather turned bad on us……….back to school we went! Thanks to parents and staff for setting up and packing away the equipment and to the students for displaying exemplary sportsmanship throughout the day!

As well as Mrs Vitale taking tours around the school for 2014 Prep families we have also had teachers from other PYP schools coming to Kunyung for Professional Learning. Staff from Auburn South PS and Toorak College have visited our school to see how we do things! I must say they have all been very impressed by the teaching and learning they have witnessed! We have some staff visiting McKinnon PS and Mentone Girls Grammar later in the week.

I’m exhausted and its only Tuesday! 🙂

Happy Days!! 🙂

 

What a week….and don’t we love it!

School Musical rehearsals are in full swing and we can’t wait to see all of the performances put together on the actual night! Singing, dancing, costumes and pure excitement (We may need a teacher act next time so we can join in the fun OR maybe not!!)

The Preps had their TOY TALK in the library and it was a joy to see parents, teachers and grandparents sharing their loved toys with the children….this is all leading to the children making their own toys! Can’t wait to see them on exhibition during the Prep Toy Expo!

The Juniors are exploring the world of imagination through poetry, design and literature! I can’t wait to see what they made out of cardboard boxes! Some of their poetry has been descriptive, entertaining and emotional……we may be able to publish some on the  blog! The students ability to share their learning in the Juniors is such a highlight! They can articulate what they are learning and why they are learning it! 🙂

Middles are getting ready for their camp this week but they have also been discovering the world of communication. How do we communicate with others? What forms of communication are there? The Middle students have been using the blog as an example! Check out their explanations on the ‘Middles Mail’!

The Seniors are ‘firing up’ for their Kunyung Exhibition and have also started ‘Literature Circles’…..it is great to see students working and analysing literature in small groups. The discussions are supported by the use of ‘Thinking Routines’. These routines provide students with a structure to discuss and analyse books at a deep level of thinking!

We had our second Parent Education forum last Tuesday morning  focussing on ‘Questioning’. IT was a really well supported session and the conversations were fantastic! The parents who attended contributed to the activities with enthusiasm and experience and we believe that everyone who attended walked away having learned something they didn’t know when they entered the session! Teachers included! The third session is on THIS TUESDAY if you would like to join us- 9-10:30 in the Library! 🙂

On Friday morning we had the pleasure of parents attending our ‘Morning Tea with Principals’……….we had some lively and stimulating conversation as well as some lovely food supplied by Rachel Evans-Brumby! Thank you to all who attended. We have a similar session lined up for parents in Years 3-6 in 2 weeks. We would love to see as many parents as possible!

Walking around the school I couldn’t help but be impressed with the enthusiastic way teachers and students were attacking their learning! There is lots of ‘reading nightly’ evident- which is greatly appreciated by teachers so THANK YOU PARENTS for ensuring this is happening! There is lots of evidence of students asking great questions and thinking deeply about their work. I could so easily see students working on developing their ‘self management skills’ as well as ‘communication skills’…………….all fantastic stuff!

Well…I’m signing off now as we gear up for another week in, as one of our little preppies said this week, ‘THE BEST SCHOOL EVER!!!!’

 

 

 

Good Day KPS Families!

A very special welcome back to Term 3!

Can you believe it’s Term 3 already??

After a lovely rest your teachers are ready to go for an ‘action packed’ term of learning and excitement! We can’t wait to see your bright, enthusiastic faces ready to go!

We have our Whole School Musical to look forward to and the Year 3-6 students have their camps to prepare for and enjoy!

We have our yearly Walk-a-thon and  House Athletics! The Seniors also have their Interschool Lightning Premiership on THIS WEDNESDAY!!

As well as all of this we have lots of classroom learning to do and great friends to play with!

Let’s start this journey together!

🙂

To all our WONDERFUL Kunyung Families!

We wish you all a safe and happy holiday!

Enjoy your time together and stay safe……rest up well because we have lots of fantastic learning organised for our gorgeous students on their return to school next term!

Kunyung Staff!

A huge thank you to all parents who attended our first Parent Education Session this afternoon! The session was titled ‘Past V Present’ and was presented by Nina Davis (Junior School Teacher) and myself. The aim was to present some major differences in the way we learnt in the past as compared to the present and why there are differences, the skills that we focus on developing at Kunyung and to engage our parents in their learning! (Scout did sleep his way through the entire presentation but considering he is only 2 months old- he is forgiven!!)

We began the session by asking parents to take a stance on a range of topics. Some included:

• Teachers are responsible for all learning
• Homework is an essential part of learning
• Learning can be measured by a letter or number
• Teachers know all the answers
• Worksheets support learning

Parents moved around the room to show their stance on these topics and in the process demonstrated physical involvement in learning and the use of thinking skills to make decisions. This was just the warm up!!! Nina and I were exhausted from just watching!

We used a Sir Ken Robinson TED Talk as a provocation titled “Schools are killing Creativity”…..we would recommend it for any parent who is interested in learning more about education.

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Individually, and in groups, parents completed a Harvard University Project Zero Thinking Routine ‘Connect Extend Challenge’ to analyse and discuss the clip. The clip highlighted the need to provide students with opportunities to learn in a variety of ways, to develop individual interests and needs and to promote creativity to the same level as literacy and numeracy.

Some parent questions included:

‘How do you keep all students engaged when students are working in groups?’

‘How do you know what talents your children may have?’

Our focus then moved to the skills that research is suggesting are vital for learning in living in the 21^st Century- COLLABORATION and ICT COMMUNICATION. Parents listed the skills they felt were essential for living in the 21^st Century as a comparison…….Another Thinking Routine was completed ‘Think Pair Share’ where parents recorded their thinking. Some of their thoughts included ‘Organisation, Self-management, Communication, Literacy and Creativity’

Nina and I then presented the Transdisciplinary skills that Kunyung teaches on a daily basis. These 5 skill sets include THINKING SKILLS, RESEARCH SKILLS, COMMUNICATION SKILLS, SELF MANAGEMENT SKILLS and SOCIAL SKILLS. Please see the attachment for these skill sets and their sub skills. It was pointed out that reading, writing and mathematics are still taught explicitly in classrooms but other skills are also recognised and developed.

We concluded the session by highlighting the school’s mission statement and the school’s teaching philosophy (as Nina pointed out…not many school’s actually have either!) We aim to develop students’ gifts and talents through developing their Learner Profile and attitudes. We do this at a ground level by developing the skills they are going to need to be successful in any area they choose. Inquiry style teaching that our school believes in allows creativity and provides a format to teach reading, writing and mathematics in a real and interesting way.

We had a live chat room on for the session and parents were encouraged to leave questions, comments and ideas during and after the session. Some of the posts included: ‘How are these skills assessed in the classroom?’ ‘How can I help to develop these skills at home?’ ‘Thanks for an informative session’…………………….

Thank you to all those parents who attended and we look forward to our next session ‘Asking good Questions’……please contact the office if you are interested in attending!

Cheers

Kim Jackson

Assistant Principal

What a flurry of excitement at Kunyung Primary School this week! It has flown by with many examples of the engaging and wondrous learning that takes place by the Bay on a consistent basis!

Student Led Tours: Watching and listening to our students explain and articulate their learning to parents has been a definite highlight of the week! Our students continue to amaze us with their knowledge and understanding of what they learn and how they learn it………we sincerely hope that our family community enjoyed this sharing experience with their children and the class! A big thank you parents for your support, children for sharing and teachers for so warmly opening your classroom doors to our community!

DISTRICT CROSS COUNTRY: Congratulations to all Kunyung students who represented us today at the District Cross Country! ALl students represented Kunyung with pride and a great sense of fair play! Well done! 🙂

Middle School surprise! All Middle School students were given a surprise start to the week when they arrived at school to find themselves being taught in another era! Teachers were transformed into the kind of traditional teachers many of us (OK- some of us!) had as students. Classroom tables were placed in rows, students performed dictation, spelling tests and were asked to read in front of the class. It was a silent room and students were made to stand up when a teacher entered the room! Some teachers were even harshly criticised in front of their class by the Infant Mistress (That was me!) Why? The Middles are starting a Unit of Inquiry with an Historical focus “People and places change over time” and this was their starting provocation! Provoke it did……some of the reflections were fantastic! This surprise was followed up with a trip to Coal Creek on Wednesday and the students experienced more examples of how life was in a different era and many changes that have taken place! Thank you to all parents and teachers who accompanied our students!

Surprise visitors to the Prep area: Some of our Preps were very excited to have a visit from their Pre School teachers this week. We invited the Kunyung Pre School teachers to come for a visit and they arrived on Monday morning!

 

What a lovely surprise for our students but an even lovelier reaction from their Pre School teachers. We are hoping to extend these visits to other Pre School teachers in the coming weeks!

Cyber Safety Parent Forum: A HUGE thank you to the 40 parents who came to our Cyber Safety Forum on Wednesday night! Mr David Barnes and Mr Craig Entwistle prepared and delivered loads of great, useful information and we thank them for their time and effort! If we have enough interest we will look at running the session again as an encore!!