Around the Primary
Dear Parents,
The end of another school term and another opportunity to celebrate - as individuals and as a whole school community! May you enjoy the school holidays with your delightful children!
The past few weeks the staff have all been very busy with writing, editing and entering school reports on our new 'online' format. While we appreciate that change can be a little unsettling, we hope that you will ultimately appreciate the benefits of being able to easily and reliably access your child's report at any time. If you would like to discuss any aspect of your child's report please feel free to make an appointment with your child's teacher early in Term 3.
Like you, we want to support your children to strive to be the very best they can be - to be focused, curious, creative, hard-working, collaborative and motivated learners ... and we understand this to be a daily undertaking that requires encouragement, support and challenge. The way we communicate with children at report time is particularly important. Please be mindful and respectful of your child's feelings and the messages you are giving them, through words or body language. Certainly discuss areas for improvement but keep it relaxed and positive!
An article with a few parent tips and reminders when reading your child's reports, is attached (open link here) and I hope you make some time to read this information and then celebrate with your child their achievements and efforts for Semester One.
Happy Holidays!
Kind regards,
Antoinette De Pinto
Head of Primary
,
Congratulations to all the students that received a certificate at today's Assembly.
Lightning Carnival Report
Last Thursday, John XXIII College hosted the annual IPSHA Year 6 Winter Lightning Carnival. On an idyllic day, there were 9 schools and about 450 competitors engaged in the winter sports of AFL, Netball, Soccer and Hockey. The Carnival was a huge success with the students enjoying a wonderful experience. The day is all about student participation, social interaction and displaying skills developed throughout their Primary School years. Football was the only sport where scores were kept as it was the official IPSHA "Eagles Cup" competition. Our college team tried extremely hard and thoroughly enjoyed the challenge from other schools.
It is important to acknowledge the fantastic contribution of fifty, Year 9 and 10 students from our College who umpired across the 28 venues. They did themselves, the College and their parents proud with their efforts. All competing schools were highly complementary of the standard of umpiring and the overall performance from our secondary students. We thank the Grounds and Maintenance Staff for their wonderful support, the Canteen Staff, the Year 6 Parent Coordinators and volunteers for their fabulous effort in catering during the day.
Overall, a great day was had by all !
John Alderman
Primary Sports Coordinator
SCIENCE DAY OF EXCELLENCE
On Friday 26th of June, we attended the "Science Day of Excellence" workshop at Holy Rosary Primary School. The theme of the day was 'Lego Robotics'. Many other schools also attended and in total there were sixteen Year 6 students. Our Science teacher for the day, Mrs Skinner, gave us the task of designing a moving LEGO Robot out of a Mindstorms EV3 set without using wheels. We had to make the robot walk or crawl. Firstly, we had to design the structure of the robot. Initially we chose to make a robot spider but we had to modify it into a dog structure as it was lighter and it moved more easily. Next we had to find a way to attach motors to the structure and we learnt how to use the Mindstorms computer program to give the motor some instructions. We also used the program to make our robot named "Phar Lap" call out noises when it moved. In the end we were successful in making it move several metres. The most enjoyable part was watching our robot gallop to the three metre line. Every school completed a robot that could walk and move over the target distance. Some robots crawled across the ground while others galloped across the room. Special thanks to Miss De Pinto and Mr Alderman for picking and dropping us off and special thanks to Mrs Skinner for teaching us how to make LEGO robots using Mindstorm EV3.
By Olivia Eastwood (6G) and Oliver Mitteregger (6B)
