School Fees
Thank you to all the families that have already paid their school fees.  School Fee reminders will be sent home next week.  If you have any concerns regading paying your fees, particularly due to COVID-19, please contact either Ms Rachel Smith or Mrs Belinda McRae at the Front Office.

A Lens on Learning

Year 5/6 Go Out and About : National Museum of Australia

Last week Year 5/6 students had an action packed week with two excursions to support their current learning. On Wednesday students visited the National Museum of Australia to see the Endeavour Voyage exhibition. Here students explored the untold stories of Captain Cook and First Australians.

Some notable experiences of the visit included:

• Students saw transcripts from Cook’s account of the Endeavour’s voyage up the east coast in 1770. They also viewed artworks created by Indigenous communities and school children, and memorabilia collected over many years.

• They saw how Australia’s Indigenous peoples and the Endeavour voyages looked at the same night sky but read different meanings into the stars.
• Students learnt about life onboard the Endeavour and what happened before the ship sighted the continent.

The students and teachers learnt a lot on the excursion and enjoyed the opportunity to make informed observations about varying perspectives of the same events.

“It was fun going on the scavenger hunt at the National Museum of Australia. We got given objects to investigate and we had to find what Captain Cook named the island.” Edie Q

“It was cool. We saw many different things like the Endeavour, turtle shells and Captain Cook’s diary.” Alain

The museum was adventurous, creative and a really good story.” George

Parliament House and the National Electoral Education Centre
Two days later, students were out and about in Canberra again but this time visiting Parliament House and the National Electoral Education Commission. During this excursion students learnt about democracy and government in Australia. They took a tour of Parliament House (and saw a giant Lego model of it which was created by ‘Brickman’ himself) and took part in a role play to learn about the process of passing a bill in the House of Representatives. This gave some of our buddy politicians a chance to shine!

Students then strolled down to Old Parliament House where they enjoyed a relaxing lunch and play in the Rose Gardens. Whilst at the National Electoral Education Centre at Old Parliament House they then completed an interactive program about Australian democracy, voting and representation. Students conducted their own simulated election and then counted the votes (using the preferential voting system) to achieve a result and learn about the voting process in Australia.

“We did voting and arguing. We learnt how to vote in an election and how to pass a bill in the House of Representatives.” George

“The Electoral Education Centre was very interesting. It showed us how they count the votes in elections.” Marissa

“Old Parliament House is a great place to learn about democracy. It teaches you the history of democracy and how voting used to happen.” Mia N

Clean Up Australia Day

As most of you may know, Friday the 5th of March was Clean Up Australia Day for schools. First of all, thank you for your phenomenal effort and great cleaning skills! It was amazing to see everyone so engaged and excited about a cleaner future. We would also like to congratulate the ‘Champion Class Cleaners’ from each class:

Kinder: Patrick
1/2: Thissa and Zoe
3/4: Charlie and Tyler
5/6: Michael, Ava, Niora and Tessa

And a BIG congratulations to our ‘Champion Cleaner’ award recipient, 3/4 Gold. They have been awarded with some gloves and Woolworths seed pots to give their garden plot a boost!

Once again thank you, and keep cleaning, in school and out!

The Environmental Leaders

Extra curriculum music lesson are provided at the school by the following businesses.  If you are interest please contact them directly.