It was an absolute pleasure taking a large group of Year 5 & 6 students to the Melbourne Sports & Aquatic Centre (MSAC) on Thursday 10 November. The committed students have been training extremely hard to improve their diving and swimming skills. The carnival was an opportunity for them to improve their personal best performances and compete against other students from independent schools in the local area.
A special mention must go to the diving team. This has been a new sport introduced this year and was very encouraging that the students received very positive feedback from the diving judges on the day. We had a number of students receive ribbons and were within the top three competitors in their year level. A big “Thank You” must go to Kim James, PE Teacher and Fiorella Soci, Classroom Teacher for organising this wonderful event. Additionally, I would like to thank Olivia Unmy, Swim Coach and Lucy Bartram, CGGS Coach for supporting our students throughout the day, and our parent helpers Charmaine Whelan, Rose Poon and MihirI Paul for giving up their time and assisting with important jobs on the pool deck.
Congratulations to the following students:
Diving Team
>Sienna Jack
>Georgia Papadopoulos
>Sophie-May Ronzani
>Nellie Ruddle
>Sophie Wong
>Jasmine Xie
>Amy Qi
Swimming Team
>Jasmine Xie
>Rudra Santhosh
>Nellie Ruddle
>Stefanie Nguyen
>Amy Qi
>Kealey Liew
>Asha Bhattacharjee
>Sophie Wong
>Mo Lin Yu
>Eden Chia
>Ruth Whelan
>Ailey Poon
>Rachel Franco
>Hanna Lindsay
>Elsa Wei
>Georgia Papadopoulos
>Sophie-May Ronzani
>Lauren Tang
>Olivia Wu
>Aneira Paul
>Joyce Zhang
>Claire Nguyen
>Sienna Jack
>Kathleen Lim
At our Junior School Assembly this week, we recognised personal best efforts in classrooms and specialist subjects in Semester Two. As Head of Junior School, I thoroughly enjoyed learning about what students have been doing in Terms 3&4 and our Ormiston Spirit Awards continues to acknowledge students who are consistently displaying the CGGS School Values of Respect, Integrity, Commitment, Hope and Courage.
Congratulations to the following students:
CLASS AWARDS
Foundation – Charlene Wang
Year 1 – Ting Xuan Chuek
Year 2 – Estella Ko
Year 3 – Emma Adel
Year 4 – Annabelle Teh & Zoe McManemin
Year 5 – Rachel Franco & Hanna Lindsay
Year 6 – Christelle Chin & Nina Gan
SPECIALIST AWARDS
Library – Crystal Wu & Alisha Lagana
Physical Education – Eshaal Ahsan & Kealey Liew
Art – Akira Rajakulendra & Olivia Wu
Music – Rachel Duong & Zoe Raspin
Chinese – Teanna Do & Dora Zhu
French – Minaaz Kaur
STEAM – Olive Maingard
I wish our Ormiston community a restful weekend.
Paul Donohue
Head of Junior School
Last week the ELC welcomed grandparents, families, and special friends into the centre. It was wonderful to have the children share and present their year’s learning and inquiry projects with our community. This included collective displays, portfolios consisting of work samples from interest-led and collaborative explorations, and ongoing work in the classroom.
Friendly discussions and connections were made between teachers, children, parents, grandparents, and the wider school community over a shared morning tea outside in our playground under the spring sunshine.
Esther Wong
Early Learning Coordinator
On Monday this week the Foundation students participated in an incursion all about the weather. Before the incursion they were intrigued about how clouds form and why it rains. They practiced being scientists and made predictions and observations as they learnt about the water cycle. They conducted tests to see if warm things go up and how condensation forms. One of their favourite activities was making a model of a rain cloud in a jar. Before the incursion concluded they explored and discussed all about storms. The students heard the sound of thunder and used the lightning globe to see the effect of lightning. They were very engaged and grateful to participate in these valuable hands-on activities.
>Rain comes from the sky when the clouds get full of water. – Evelyn P
>The clouds have water vapour. – Isabella
>I liked the rain drops in my jar. – Olivia
>I liked the rainbow glasses. – Hailey
>The glasses make the colours from the sun reflect. – Audrey
>It was amazing! – Emilia
Selena Reedman
Foundation Class Teacher
On Wednesday 2 November, Year 4 went on a fun excursion to the Melbourne Museum. We went to see so many different and interesting exhibitions. The first two that we went to was the Dynamic Earth, and 600 million years ago. They both focused on young earth, giving us many new facts about old rocks, minerals, dinosaurs and so much more. After we had lunch, we headed to the amazing playground nearby and we all had a spectacular time. All of us then went to Bugs Alive (another exhibition) where we got a close up on many insects and tiny creatures. The final thing that we did was go to the Learning Lab where we learnt lots about the difference between temperature and climate and we created bright and colourful posters in groups focusing on one way to look after the environment in detail. Unfortunately, the IMAX theatre wasn’t operating but we still got to watch a beautiful and informative short clip called “River Connections”. We all had a fantastic time at the Melbourne Museum.
Stephanie Marriott
Year 4D Student
Our Year 6 Virtual Debating Team once again faced their previous opponent, the Australian International Academy of Education, on Friday 4 November. This time round, Asha Bhattacharjee, Eshani Nagarajan and Amy Yang debated ‘that sponsorship is ruining professional sport’. The team spent the previous week collaborating to define terms, formulate arguments, find credible real-life examples and prepare possible rebuttal.
For this debate, Asha began as first speaker, followed by Amy and Eshani. The main arguments were that sponsorship can leave athletes voiceless and without freedom of speech, that sponsorship can ruin athletes’ careers and lives, and finally, that it can leave people with unhealthy diets and habits given the food, beverage and gambling ads shown by companies sponsoring major sports like AFL. What was impressive during this debate was the strong language the team used throughout to persuade the adjudicator, the way they tackled rebuttal with researched cases, as well as the way the team maintained their composure whilst under pressure. They helped and supported each other and were very positive and hopeful of the outcome.
In the adjudicator’s eyes, it was a difficult debate topic. This was because it was not an evaluative topic where each side weighs up the pros and cons of sponsorship; instead, it was about the question: does sponsorship ruin professional sport? The adjudicator gave feedback to come up with a description of what ruining sport really means in the future. This would help both teams prove their case. In the end, she narrowed the debate down to three key questions:
It was this last question that caught us all by surprise and was the deciding factor to this debate. Unfortunately, that was the area our team had not really considered when preparing for this debate.
Despite the loss, I would like to commend Asha, Eshani and Amy on their tremendous efforts during these debates. Considerable time, effort and critical thinking goes into each debate and each of these girls has worked hard to respond to feedback and progress in their debating skills. All three students should be incredibly proud of their efforts, attitude and the way they managed their disappointment. Personally, I have thoroughly enjoyed witnessing their growth over the past two terms. I hope they are able to walk away from this experience with their heads held high, having a better understanding of the nuances of debating and equipped with a few more skills they can continue to utilise over their lifetimes.
Katrina Cheong
Year 6 Classroom Teacher
