From the Junior School

From our Head of Junior School

Strength based learning within our Junior School – our focus on Mathematics

This year Mrs Lara Bird, Deputy Head of Junior School, Academic, is leading action research into the role of mathematical thinking within the curriculum as we are keen to build our girls’ skills, strengths and confidence as mathematicians. She is leading our Junior School focus on building strong foundational knowledge in Mathematics through explicit teaching, the purposeful use of hands-on materials and participation in mathematical investigations to build our girls’ skills and self-efficacy as mathematicians. Throughout this year, Mrs Bird will provide communication and hold parent webinars to share our journey and explore the ‘why’ and ‘how’ we teach Mathematics across Kindergarten to Year 6.

As Mrs Bird often says, “For many children building their understanding of mathematical concepts means that Maths often needs to be held in the hand before it’s held in the head.” Using hands-on materials (counters, dice, MAB blocks, metre ruler and protractors) and practical activities enables girls to ‘see’ Maths and ‘feel’ it so that they can develop a deep understanding of the abstract concept and learn to apply it to unfamiliar and real-world problems.

Throughout this year Mrs Bird is also working with the Year Co-ordinators and Dr Sarah Loch, Director of Research, to identify our girls’ academic strengths and interests and more importantly, to help our girls identify these strengths. We then want to extend and challenge their thinking and identify passions through a diverse range of in-class curriculum focused activities as well as external opportunities. More information around external challenge opportunities will be provided by Mrs Bird in the coming weeks.

Let’s Get Creative – Kindergarten to Year 6 getting creative with Maths on 22/2/22

As this year, is ‘Let’s Get Creative’ we’re focusing on finding ways to build our creativity within our curriculum. This month provides a unique opportunity with a palindrome day on 22/2/22. We are therefore going to use this day to get our girls to have some fun with Maths on our ‘Get Creative with Maths Day’. During their normal Maths lesson, the girls will do some warm-up activities around the date and the numbers within that date. As it is ‘2,2,2’ day we thought it would be fun to invite the girls to bring a tutu (tutus for ‘2 2’) to wear over their school uniform. This is not compulsory, but we hope that lots of our girls will get involved. If you would like your daughter to bring in a tutu, please ensure she arrives in her normal uniform and brings her tutu with her to wear for the day over her uniform. At 22 minutes past 2.00pm on that day, all our girls will dance to our theme song for Term 1, Try Everything.

Year 6 in Glenworth Valley

Over the next two weeks our Year 6 girls will become explorers as they venture off to Glenworth Valley for their Outdoor Education program. During this time, they will abseil, kayak, ride horses and go for bushwalks. Connecting with nature and learning to challenge ourselves and try new things is such an important part of child development and learning to be kind to yourself. I was lucky to spend time out there with the girls sharing their adventures.

International Women’s Day and our College Value of the Week – Respect

As we reflect on the power of respect this week, we have introduced our girls to this year’s International Women’s Day (IWD) theme, ‘#banthebias’. We want to encourage our girls to know that however young they are their voice matters. International Women’s Day is an event that we hold close to our hearts at Pymble. It is a marvellous opportunity for us to celebrate the incredible women and girls in our community and a meaningful way to raise awareness of crucial conversations that we want our girls to be actively participating in. This year’s focus is #BreakTheBias, and over the coming weeks, the girls will be engaging in a range of activities that promote an understanding of how we can use our voices to promote a fairer and kinder world.

We need you!

The richness of these IWD celebrations will be further enhanced through the involvement of all community members. We invite you to participate in this event by recording a short (no more than ten seconds) video expressing what your hopes and dreams are for your daughter, a woman of the future. We are only able to accept 30 entries for this and it will have to be first in best dressed! Please send these through to Ahooper@pymblelc.nsw.edu.au.

Below is a table of the activities that each year group will be involved in. Teachers will set these tasks as additional homework over the next few weeks. All tasks need to be completed and returned to school by Monday 7 March. The girls will receive House points for their submission. Teachers will be selecting ten outstanding pieces of work across each grade to be displayed in the Hall and go into our first ‘People’s Choice’ award. Judging will be taking place on Tuesday 8 March as well as a special assembly in which the girls will be viewing our parents hopes and dreams clips. Please help us to inspire your girls.

If you would like to know more information about IWD 2022, the website can be found here.

Learning around our Junior School this week – our week in pictures

This week our Year 1 girls braved the elements as they explored our campus. They then created some stunning nature artworks inspired by the natural materials they collected on their incursion adventure. They have also explored their scientific creativity with a Fizzics incursion around ‘sound’.

URSTRONG – our Junior School friendship program

Mrs Kimberley Tyson, Deputy Head of Junior School Students

As part of our focus on respect this week, our girls from Years 1 to 6 have enjoyed interactive URSTRONG workshops. These are designed to empower our girls with the necessary language to build and maintain healthy friendships. It’s critical that our girls understand the inevitable changes within friendships over time and understand their role in managing healthy friendships. There are four simple, practical Friendship Facts which we hope you will hear your daughters talking about in the coming weeks as we explore them further through our Directions programs:

1. No friendship is perfect.
2. Every friendship is different.
3. Trust and Respect are the two most important qualities in a friendship.
4. Friendships change…and that’s okay.

Through this evidence-based program, our girls learn the importance of choosing to act respectfully to one another, and themselves, rather than choosing ‘mean on purpose’ behaviour. This is important as we expect our girls to model inclusion and kindness to one another within our Junior School family. Our younger girls loved sharing the URSTRONG workshop with their soft toys and Heidi the Hedgehog joined in too! They used their friends to role-play different scenarios and develop practical tools to navigate conflict in a way that allows for stronger bonds to be developed.

Achievements within our Junior School

Congratulations to Irisa Han (Year 6) for her outstanding achievement of an A grade in her Grade 8 AMEB cello examination.

Congratulations to Sophie Tong (Year 4) who continues to enjoy outstanding success in her golf tournaments as she is now the Killara Junior Girls Champion, the Harvey Norman Sydney Gold girls 11 Years and Under Champion and the Greg Chalmers Junior Masters 11 Years and Under Champion. On the last day of the Greg Chalmers Junior Masters, Sophie sank a putt from more than 21 metres at the ninth hole! Well done, Sophie!

REMINDERS

Lower road

If you arrive before 7.45am please do not park and wait for the correct drop-off time. This blocks the drop-off area and does not allow children who have before school classes to be dropped off in time for their class. If you arrive early, please continue and park elsewhere in a visitor’s spot before coming back to drop-off at the correct time.

In the afternoon to assist with an efficient pickup of Kindergarten to Year 2 students from Co-curricular activities, you may park either under the pines or in the staff car park if there is a vacancy, and walk to the pick-up area to collect your daughter. As the coaches are involved in other activities following your daughter’s session, the pick-up time needs to be strictly adhered to and any girls remaining uncollected at 3.50pm will be walked to OSHC until she is collected by her parents. This will incur a fee.

Dates for your diary

COVID-19: Important update and reminder for families

Please click here for:

• what to do if another member of your household tests positive while you are already in isolation;
• a reminder to inform the school if your daughter has to isolate at home and temporarily switch to learning via Pymble Online; and
• upcoming booster shots for eligible students.

Mrs Kate Brown

Head of Junior School