Junior School – Week 6

Diary Dates

Please find below some reminders about upcoming events. For all of Term 2 events, please refer to the College calendar.

• 3 June – Round 6 Winter Sport 
• 7 June – Quinn House Mass, 6pm 
• 8 June – Year 5 History Showcase 
• 12 June – Pupil-Free Day – King’s Birthday 
• 14 June – 16 June – Year 5 Camp
• 14 June – Year 6 History Showcase
• 16 June – Reports Available, 5pm 
• 17 June – Round 7 Winter Sport 
• 19 June – Parent/Teacher/Student Interviews 
• 22 June – Classes conclude 

After School Code Camp 

Waverley College Junior School is looking to partner with Code Camp to offer a weekly coding After-School program, starting in Term 3. This is open to all students in Years 5 and 6.

Code Camp After-School allows students to hone their creative skills and keep practicing through weekly sessions over the Term! Their fun and engaging content ensures students learn new creative skills in a safe, educational environment.

At this stage, Code Camp is wanting to gauge an idea of families who would be interested in their child/children participating. If you are interested in your child/children participating in Code Camp in Term 3, please click here to learn more about the programs being offered and to complete the Expression of Interest form.

*Expressions of interest close on Friday, 9 June 2023. 

Should you have any questions, please contact Code Camp directly.

Nurrunga Newsletter and Social Media Pages

Just a reminder that it is important to check articles in the ‘Principal and Leadership’ section of Nurrunga, after you’ve read the articles in the Junior School section. Information relevant to Junior School students is often contained in this section, and we strongly encourage you to read it.

We’d be delighted if you could also follow Waverley College Social Media pages to support our student, staff and community successes. Please follow @waverleycollege on Instagram and Facebook

 

Ms Gaby Bransby

(Acting) Director of the Junior School

 

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Year 5 History Showcase

We would like to invite all parents/carers to attend Year 5’s History Showcase next week on Thursday, 8 June at 2pm. 

The students in Year 5 will be presenting their historical knowledge from their history unit learnt this semester. They have been involved in a history inquiry unit that explores the significance of people, groups, places and events that have led to the development of Australia.

 Each student will have a booth at the showcase on which they will:

• Display the historical research of their chosen event/group
• Choose a character from their event or group
• Dress up as their character
• Prepare a minimum of five questions for the audience to ask about their character.

We are looking forward to seeing you there and celebrating the hard work and creativity from our Year 5 historians. 

Year 6 History Showcase

We would like to invite all parents/carers to attend Year 6’s History Showcase on Wednesday, 14 June at 1:30pm. 

Year 6 has been learning about the many reasons why people have migrated to Australia over time. They have interviewed somebody they know, who has migrated to Australia. At the showcase, students will:

• Dress up as the person they have interviewed or in a way that represents them
• Present information through a variety of sources in their booth 
• Showcase the documentary they have created during class.

We are very excited to learn all about the diverse stories of migration to Australia that Year 6 has collected. 

 

Ms Charlotte Stephens

(Acting) Assistant Director of Curriculum

 

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Winter Co-Curricular Sport – Round 6

The Winter Co-Curricular season is now over the halfway point, with two more rounds before the mid-year break and the remaining three rounds at the beginning of Term 3. This weekend is Round 6, on Saturday, 3 June. Just a reminder that there will be no Saturday sport next weekend due to the King’s Birthday Public Holiday. 

Please ensure you refer to the Waverley College app announcements each week, as I will continue to send out the weekly Sports Fixtures for each round. All families can also locate all relevant Junior School Co-Curricular information through the College website via the link below.

Click here to view all Junior School Co-curricular information on the Waverley College website

 

Mr Jack Wachtel

Assistant Director of Co-curricular (Years 5-8)

 

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Home Learning Club Week 5

*NO HOME LEARNING WEDNESDAY, 7 JUNE

We offer all students in Year 5 and Year 6 the opportunity to receive free additional support after school for the completion of home learning tasks. The afternoon sessions also provide a quiet, supervised study space for students who want to complete their assigned tasks.

Home Learning Club operates in the Learning Hub from 3pm until 4pm – Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays – during school term unless there is a scheduled Professional Development meeting and the club will be closed.   

Procedures

Click here to register your son

Only register his name once, to allow other students the opportunity to attend. The session is limited to 20 spots. There will be a roll call to ensure attendance.

Students are required to stay for the full session unless there is a message in the student diary requesting early leave, a parent/carer signature will be required.

Behaviour

As it is important to respect the rights of others to learn and work, all students are expected to settle to work in the Learning Hub and not cause a disturbance for others.

Teachers

• Monday and Wednesday – Ms Natasha Zivanovic – nzivanovic@waverley.nsw.edu.au
• Tuesday and Thursday – Ms Gaby Bransby – gbransby@waverley.nsw.edu.au 

If you require any further information, feel free to email us.

Important

If afternoon training sessions are cancelled, unfortunately, you cannot send your son to Home Learning as an alternative plan, students are registered for the afternoon sessions in advance and the capacity is always reached. Try to avoid messaging your son during this period, unless it is urgent.

2023 ICAS Competitions – Years 5 and 6 Students

What is ICAS?  

ICAS is an online academic competition designed to assess students’ higher-order thinking and problem-solving skills in English, Mathematics, Science, Writing and Digital Technologies.  Each assessment celebrates students’ accomplishments by providing opportunities for recognition and development. Every student who participates will receive a printed certificate and an online results report. Top performers will be eligible for medals.

If you would like your son to compete in the 2023 ICAS Competitions, you will be asked to nominate which competitions you would like him to be entered in through the Parent Payment System.

At the Junior School, the following ICAS competitions are offered: Writing & Digital Technologies, Science & English and Mathematics. This year all the competitions will be held in August / September, Term 3 and will be completed online in the Learning Hub before school starts. A timetable will be shared closer to the assessment dates. 

Click here to register your son

Through this system, parents/carers can pay for ICAS directly online, while tests will still be held at our school.

*Please use the school’s access code details to register your child no later than 23 July 2023.

Waverley’s School Access Code FBT592

Please consider carefully before choosing this enrichment opportunity for your son. It is a rigorous competition with many questions set beyond grade level. Participants are required to demonstrate a deeper, integrated and thorough level of learning.

If you are unsure of your son’s suitability, please consult with his teacher. More information about the assessments can be found at ICAS Assessments: Home 

If you require additional support registering your son, contact the customer service team, Australian Toll-Free, 1800 931 775.

Reader of the Week

 

Ms Natasha Zivanovic

Literacy & Innovation Teacher

 

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News From 5 Blue

Science 

This Term, the boys have begun to learn all about energy and energy transformations. They have been looking at the Deep Learning Competency of working interdependently as a team, and participated in an exploratory learning task to create circuits.

Each group was provided with equipment and were instructed to construct a complete circuit. They needed to make the bulb light up using wires, a battery, a bulb and crocodile clips, and were then asked to share how they designed their circuits.

During the experiment, the students recorded the process in their classwork books, explaining their circuits through a labelled diagram. Some of the students challenged themselves by adding more electrical components into their circuit. 

Students were asked specific challenges:

• How can you make the bulb shine brighter?
• Can you make more than one bulb light up in your circuit? How did you do that?
• Can you add at least one other electrical component into your circuit?
• What is the most complex circuit you can make?

Here are some of the students’ thoughts on the experiment:

Alexander O’Brien and Rufus Nicholson 

Alexander: “What I learnt about circuits was that you could put the wires into the power circuit then the light bulb platform and then put the crocodile clips around the circuit hole and it will make the light bulb light up. When I did my experiment, my team and I figured out how to turn it on and off by moving a little lever on the circuit board. We had a few goes but then we solved it and it turned out better than I ever imagined!”     

Rufus: “What I learnt about circuits is that you can sometimes mess around with the wires and it will still work but if you put time and effort into it then it will work just as you want it to, maybe even better. When I tried to make the lightbulb light up I started off by placing the wires in different positions but then I improved to make it much more successful.”

English 

In English, the boys have been studying the picture story book Voices in the Park by award-winning children’s author, Anthony Browne. They have been working extremely hard to plan and compose a story from the fifth voice perspective. When drawing their illustrations to match their text, the boys have been focusing on visual and language choices to convey mood, meaning, and character traits for their reader audience. 

The visual literacy elements the boys have been learning about are: 

• Colour
• Salience (the first image your eye is drawn to on the page)
• Line

At the completion of their books, for their Term 2 English summative assessment, the boys will provide an explanation of their illustrations and explain the intended effect that the choices in technique should have on their audience. 

Here are some of the students’ thoughts!

Thomas Sheehy and Blake Collins

Thomas: “I have learnt that visual literacy is so important in drawings and photos. It can show and highlight certain things or emotions, through colouring, body language, salience, lining and positioning. It is also useful if you want to exaggerate or emphasise certain aspects in your drawing. In his books, Anthony Browne uses lots of visual literacy to link the text to the drawing. I showed this in my book by trying hard to change the weather depending on the emotion, using body positioning to show the characters movement or action, resize certain objects to emphasise the feelings of the characters and change each person’s facial expressions to show how they are feeling.” 

Blake: “Visual literacy can be background images that give you clues of what the picture is trying to tell us. It is very important to use it in pictures because it can really give a clue to what the author is trying to say. It can be useful in different ways e.g. over exaggerating, salience, body language and much more. I showed visual literacy by adding extra pictures in the background e.g. weather (depending on the emotions of the characters), faces, using certain objects to represent lifestyle and wealth and changing facial expressions. Lastly, I used lines in my pathway by the use of trees and so on.”    

 

Ms Elise Hunt

Classroom Teacher 5 Blue