As always, there is much happening this fortnight in the Primary School. We hope you enjoyed and found the parent-teacher conversations last week informative and helpful in strengthening our partnerships.
100 Days of School
Last week, we celebrated 100 days of school for the Preps. I’m sure everyone had a great time running around in their capes! Reaching 100 days is a significant milestone that should give the little ones an enormous sense of achievement. It also means they are more than halfway through their school year.
This popular milestone is celebrated while teachers in Prep and Year 1 continue to reinforce basic maths skills. The children spent part of the day counting many items to 100. A fun fact: this celebratory day has been around for more than 40 years! Even better, the number 100 has biblical significance, which the children learn about too — my favourite use of it is in the parable of the Good Shepherd, where the Lord is willing to do whatever it takes, including pursuing one lost sheep out of 100, to save someone who has gone astray.
“What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and search for the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that did not go astray.” (Matthew 18:12–13)
The kindness of Jesus’ salvation is clearly rubbing off on our children.
Year 1 Acts of Kindness
To warm your hearts with how kind our children are, I wanted to share a photo with you. Mary Donnan has been teaching our Year 1 class while Mrs. Cooper is on maternity leave. Unfortunately, she fell and broke her shoulder. However, the Year 1 students in her class blessed her by making a signed and decorated sling. Mary said:
“What a tonic! How blessed we are to have such acts of kindness from staff and students at HCC. God is so good to us!”
Olympic Mania and the Potat-Olympics
Then, of course, we’ve had Olympic mania, with not only Green and Gold Day (thank you, parents, for your creative adornments last week) but also the… Potat-Olympics!
To celebrate the 2024 Paris Olympics, the Year 3 students participated in the Potat-Olympics, a truly spud-tastic event.
All students brought their own clean, washed potato to school and decorated their Pot-athlete, naming them after our Australian athletes or using other spud-based puns. Each Pot-athlete competed in a variety of Olympic-themed events, such as the Sprint-ato and Shot-put-ato. Different classes chose different events to suit their Spud-tators. Will our teachers ever stop surprising us with their creativity?
Technology Classes
There are also some other joyful happenings in the Technology classes. The students had an absolute blast learning about coding last term. The Year 2s learned how to make algorithms in Scratch Jr., the Year 3s learned how to make algorithms in Scratch, and the Year 4s learned to make algorithms in Microsoft MakeCode Arcade. The Year 4s created amazing maze games with all kinds of collectible treasure items, traps, secret portals, roaming enemies, and a variety of creative surprises that made their maze games all the more interesting and enjoyable to play.
This term, the Year 2–4 students are changing gears and participating in a series of Design Technology challenges. The Year 4s will attempt to build the tallest tower and the strongest bridge using only paddle pop sticks, toothpicks, modeling clay, and hot glue.
The Year 3s will learn how to build small watercraft out of recycled and natural materials, inspired by the designs and techniques of the First Nations watercraft.
The Year 2s will imagine what a sustainable ‘farm of the future’ might look like and consider the needs of humans, animals, and the environment.
Cyber Safety in Technology Classes
While Technology classes are absolutely full of these fun topics and activities, we also need to address some more difficult topics around Cyber Safety. The College is seeking to address the topic of eSafety from a Biblically informed perspective. We have five key areas to focus on, addressing the most common online child safety issues:
Godliness – Recognising that we are all made in the image of God, and that we must conduct ourselves with kindness, respect, and dignity, while also addressing how we can stand up against cyberbullying with the help of trusted adults.
Courage – It can be hard to say “NO” to our friends and peers, but we need to know how to set and enforce healthy boundaries. We also need to have the courage to speak to a parent, teacher, or other trusted adult if something ‘yucky’ has been accidentally seen.
Wisdom – ACT (Ask, Check, Think)
Ask parents for permission to use online technology.
Check, with the help of an adult, what data and hardware access is being asked from apps, games, and websites before using them. The internet is continually constructing a permanent digital fingerprint of each person.
Think very carefully at all times when using the internet. We should only interact with people we know and trust in real life and always seek our parents' permission and supervision.
Responsibility – We need to be responsible and keep our passwords and private information secure.
Discernment – We need to put on our detective hats and learn to be careful and cautious about everything we read, see, and hear. We need to learn to look for clues and red warning flags that indicate something might be a fake or scam.
Upcoming Events
And… just when you thought you might be costume-free, don’t forget that Book Week is coming up next week, and Footy Father’s Day is the week after. For any parent who hasn’t got one yet, a hot glue gun and a costume box is a must for the next Christmas list!