From the Junior School

From the Head of Junior School

As we continue to enjoy the autumnal colours around our Junior School playgrounds, we are continuing to reflect on celebrating our rich diversity. Our diversity of culture, passions and thoughts make us unique and that is what makes us special. Learning to accept ourselves and one another for who we are is a critical part of our learning and growth. We want to equip our girls with the confidence to celebrate their own strengths. Part of this journey is learning to change our mindsets from worrying about mistakes we make to celebrating these mistakes as ‘fabulous failures’ and seeing them as amazing growth points.

Last week Mrs Lara Bird, Acting Deputy Head of Junior School Curriculum shared the story of Sara Blakely, CEO of Spanx, who spoke about how her father reframed her perspective on making mistakes by high fiving her every time she experienced failure. Click on the short video where Sara Blakely talks about failure. We would love you to share a fabulous failure of your own with your daughters over dinner one evening this week.

As our Years 3 and 5 girls have a go at NAPLAN this week, we are encouraging them to enjoy the experience and to remember that whilst NAPLAN helps us to see some of their understanding and to show us some areas for growth, it does not show us what makes each girl exceptional and unique. The Year 3 teachers have written a letter to each girl to remind them that the people who assess tests like NAPLAN…

“They do not know that some of you speak more than one language, play sport, sing, love to dance, or can code a computer program. They do not know that you are caring and thoughtful, and that every day you do your best. They do not know that you love trying new things and having a go. Because these characteristics cannot be tested.  

The scores you get from NAPLAN will not tell you everything. They can’t tell you that you have improved on something that you once found difficult. They can’t tell you that you make your teacher smile every day. They can’t tell you how amazingly special you are.”

We are proud to display our new Wellbeing Wall which has been designed and made by Kindness Captain Georgia Yuen for her Principal’s Project this year. Lots of girls have already enjoyed reading the different affirmations from this wall.

Lens into Learning

Mrs Lara Bird, Acting Deputy Head of Junior School – Learning and Curriculum

This week our Year 6 girls began their cooking adventures in the Secondary School. The girls have completed a safety protocol quiz to build their knowledge and add a layer of safety to their learning in the secondary kitchens. This week the girls learned how to make sustainable fritters. I know they are looking forward to more cooking adventures in the weeks to come!

Year 6 also shared their knowledge around re-growing vegetables with the Junior School in our assembly this week. There is a vibrant array of beetroot, carrots, onions and celery shooting new roots and leaves in the Year 6 learning space. Each week the girls are measuring and recording the data as part of their integrated inquiry learning.

Junk Yard Beats – Year 5 Incursion

Mrs Jill King, Acting Language Arts Co-ordinator

Did your Year 5 daughter come home on Friday afternoon and start to raid the kitchen cupboard, the workshop and the recycle bin? If so, there is a very good reason. On Friday 7 May, our Year 5 girls were treated to a sensational incursion with ‘Junkyard Beats’ – a group of brilliant musicians, actors and dancers whose mission is to inspire young people to explore the musical possibilities in whatever junk lies around them.

Our girls were completely immersed in the performance and workshop and could not get enough of the driving rhythms created in their ‘Junk orchestra’ of broomsticks, buckets, lids and discarded kitchen utensils. The energy in the room was so exciting.

As well as having enormous fun and making plenty of noise, Year 5 girls were able to assist with the building of three installation pieces. 5B and 5E made a large A-frame drum kit complete with water kegs, aluminium cans and a wok! 5P and 5L have a balaphone constructed from recycled soft drink bottles – each one carefully tuned by pumping air in through a tyre valve until the exact pitch was reached. 5M and 5Y have a very impressive ‘thong-a-phone’ which is a series of PVC pipes cut to various lengths and slapped with a thong to produce the tones.

These unique ‘junkyard instruments’ will be featured in our Year 5 Showcase, as we explore as many ways as possible to ‘Reduce, Re-use, Recycle’ and to share the message of the Lorax.

Debating – a reflection written by the Debating teams

“Debating as part of the Primary A and B Pymble teams for the ISDA season this year has been such a thrilling experience and a wonderful opportunity to improve our speaking skills and to develop critical thinking and listening skills. It has helped us to become more confident when presenting a speech in class, or even just speaking in front of an audience. We really enjoy coming together each Friday afternoon to train, talk and discuss topics – the food is definitely a highlight too!

During the debate, the intensity of it always brings us down to earth. The frantic organisation, the pressure and the sound of pen scribbling against paper creates a different atmosphere than when we train. Occasionally as you are debating you hear the other team’s expectant silence as they wait for the adjudication or the triumphant cheers of victory. The undercurrents of emotion and focus are strangely calming yet overwhelming.

Friday afternoon is the time of week where teamwork, logic and confidence are needed. As a team, we all participate in the group in our own way. Even in breaks, interacting with each other and having fun is really what we all love, aside from the frantic working. We make puns, play card games, and, of course, finish our muffins, but when it’s time to get back to work we never hesitate. Everyone in both teams has enjoyed debating so much, and if we had to pick between this and other activities, we would definitely choose debating (not saying you should not go and have fun with other things, but debating is amazing!)

Before the actual debates begin, we revise our knowledge of argumentation and rebuttal. When we finally come to the part of the debate where the result is shared, tension reeks pungently in the atmosphere. Whether we lose or win, we always celebrate with chocolates or brownies and chat about each team’s experiences which creates a better mindset to keep on trying for future debates.

Debating is something we all love doing. It challenges both our logical thinking and reasoning. The preparation is pressurising, yet reassuring, and the debate is frantic, yet calm and collected. But the one thing we all feel a strong emotion for is the teams. We work together, we have fun together, we never give up on one another. That is what debating is about.”

Congratulations to both of our ISDA debating teams who have progressed to the semi-finals on Friday 14 May. We wish both teams lots of luck.

Sustainability Club Wipes Out Waste!

an initiative led by our Sustainability Captains

We hope that you have stepped up to last week’s challenge to bring a refillable drink bottle to school each day to help us stop the unnecessary use of single use plastic bottles! Our animals and marine life that live on our polluted lands and in our oceans say a huge thank you!

This week’s Wipe out Waste – Tip of the Week is ‘Bring a waste free lunch to school!’

Along with your daughter’s refillable drink bottle, we also challenge the girls to bring a waste free lunchbox every day. This lunch box will have no single use packaging as this goes straight to landfill! Instead of bringing mini wrapped packages, you can place snacks in reusable containers, bring a thermos for those yummy, warm lunches, use reusable cutlery and finally wrap your food in beeswax wraps.

Together we can ‘Wipe out Waste!’

Compass Check-in

Mrs Nerissa Davey, Acting Deputy Head of Junior School Wellbeing

Throughout the Junior School, the girls are learning to ‘Go direct, with respect’. In our assembly last week, Dr H spoke to the girls about what this means and how to show kindness and respect to each other. So, what does this mean to our girls?

“Avoiding Triangle talking means you need to talk to your friends without leaving anyone out. If you do leave someone out, they will feel jealous and sad.” – Cate and Gloria (Year 4)

“Showing respect to others means they will do the same to you. Don’t chat about someone behind their back, go straight to the person if you have a problem.” – Blair and Ella (Year 4)

“Having a circle chat in our classrooms means not leaving anyone out.” – Yuan Hui (Year 4)

“In friendships you need to say what you mean but always with respect.” – Alexandra and Lucinda (Year 3)

“Talk to someone in person and include them in your conversations.” – Celeste and Eden (Year 6)

In our community

This week our Muslim families will break their month-long time of fasting during Ramadan and celebrate Eid. We wish them all the best at this special time. We would also like to acknowledge our Indian families who have relatives and friends living in India. We are holding you all in our thoughts and prayers during this time of COVID-19. 

Notices

Year 3 Parents – Kimochi Webinar

There has been a keen interest from our parent community to learn more about Kimochis and the ways you might be able to use a common language at home to ensure consistency and to encourage social emotional learning more quickly.

We are delighted to invite you to a parent session on Kimochis delivered by Michael Edgecomb from Doing Life Together on Tuesday 18 May from 7.00pm to 8.00pm. This will be an online Zoom event and more information around enrolment and the link to the event will be provided closer to the date.

Parent Focus Group Invitation

As you know, the College has made the decision to combine our Preparatory and Junior Schools into what will become known as our Junior School for girls in Kindergarten to Year 6. This will take effect from Term 1 2022.

In anticipation of this transition, we will be conducting small focus groups with current Preparatory and Junior School parents to get your feedback and to identify areas for enhancement. Our focus groups will be held in the Junior School Library at the following session times:

We are sending an email to you all which includes a link for you to click on if you would like to be involved in one of these focus groups. Each focus group will be small, however, we are happy to hold more groups after these dates if there is lots of interest from our parent community to be involved in this process.

Mrs Kate Brown

Head of Junior School

JSPG

Mrs Louise Woodall, Mrs Sarah Fisher and Mrs Shiva Rich, JSPG Leaders

Grandparents Picnic – Tuesday 18 May from 12.30pm to 2.00pm. The aim of the afternoon is for the girls to share a story or some learning they are proud of with their special guest. Grandparents can share a story or bring in a favourite book to share.

Please register for tickets here: https://events.humanitix.com/preparatory-and-junior-schools-grandparents-picnic

McGrath Foundation/Mother’s Day Pink Morning Tea – Thursday 20 May from 10.10am to 10.50am. Girls are asked to wear pink mufti, bring a gold coin and their own morning tea. All parents are welcome!

Please register for tickets here: https://events.humanitix.com/mcgrath-foundation-mother-s-day-morning-tea

Upcoming Events organised by Year Co-ordinators and Class Parents