News from the Principal

Another wonderful term concludes, and for our Year 12 students, the last full term of their schooling. We wish them well during the Practice Exams in the second week of the term break. As the final, formal exams approach, my advice to them is to take a few days of complete break from study – rest, refresh, rejuvenate – before final rehearsals and revision and the final exams.

Term 3 is always a key building term for the following year, and I am pleased to announce to the College community a number of important leadership roles.

LATTICE leaders have been appointed to lead teaching and learning in 2014 and beyond:

Precinct Leaders

Cultures: Greta Caruso
Discoveries: Andrew Robertson
Journeys: Lucinda Malgas
Explorations: Aimee Fraser

Pedagogical Leaders

Innovation: Judy Taylor
Collaboration: Grant Exon
Engagement: Sula Tyndall

After an extensive search it was very encouraging to have five appointments from our current staff, demonstrating an excellent level of talent and quality educational thinking and practice from within the Kingswood College community. In addition, Lucinda Malgas has been undertaking temporary roles in recent months at the College, and is known by many of the students.

Aimee Fraser joins us from Westall Secondary College where she has held a range of positions including Arts Project Coordinator, Performance Coordinator, Year 7 Coordinator, Year 8 Coordinator, Year 9 Coordinator, and Transition Coordinator. She teaches in both the performing and visual arts, and regularly performs in theatre. I know that the Kingswood College community will welcome Aimee.

In addition to these roles, Marygabrielle Fitzgerald will be the VCE Coordinator in 2014. She has a wealth of experience in VCE, implementing our Enterprise Program at Year 10, and is our VET Coordinator. Marygabrielle will bring a new cohesion and direction to this area of our work with senior students, and her contribution as a member of the Senior School Leadership team will be of great benefit.

As the term finishes, so does the contribution of two of our teaching aides in the secondary years – Astri Apsey after fourteen years will retire and begin the next chapter of her life. Fiona Mckay is also finishing in order to support her family. Both women have worked wonderfully with our most needy students, to support them in their learning, and their no-fuss, quiet but flexible and persistent approaches have been of great benefit to students, families and our staff. We wish them good health and happiness in their futures.

I wish everyone a restful and rejuvenating break – and as always I have asked all our students to do three things

• Enjoy the change of routine
• Stay safe!
• Do something for someone else – not because you have to, but just because you can!

Elisabeth Lenders
Principal

Reminder: sports uniform

A reminder that from Term 4, 2013 each student’s sports uniform must either be all of the new sports uniform – or all of the old uniform – not a combination of both. 

Dobsons shops have full stock of the new sports uniform including the shorts and if you order before 3 November 2013 you can receive a discount.

Dobsons are no longer selling any second-hand old sports uniform, so if you would like to donate to a good cause the College is collecting old sports uniforms for SOSK in Kenya. Items can be left in Reception at Junior, Middle or Senior School.
 

China Trip

It's day six of the China Trip and our Middle School students and staff are thoroughly enjoying their cultural experience, visiting sites such as the Great Wall. More pictures can be found on Kingsnet.

Junior School News

I would like to wish all Kingswood College families a very happy and safe holiday. Enjoy the break with your families. We look forward to welcoming everybody back refreshed for an exciting Term 4.

Year 3 Camp
Year 3 students and teachers had a wonderful camp experience at Sovereign Hill last Thursday 12 – Friday 13 September. Students stepped by to the 1850’s and experienced what life was like on the goldfields of Ballarat. A highlight of the trip, (besides the confectionary store) was the evening performance of Blood on the Southern Cross. Congratulations to all involved and special thank you to Mr Dillon, Mrs Rady, Mrs McLean and Mr Leith who accompanied the students.

Lost Property
There are still a large number of uniform pieces in our lost property. If you think your child has misplaced a piece of clothing throughout Term 3 please come and check this. Labelled items of clothing are passed back to the owner.

Footy Day
ELC – Year 6 students enjoyed a wonderful Footy Day on Friday 20 September. Well done to all who participated in this day. Thank you to Mr Ian Leith (PE), Mr Jason Flanagan (Year 6) and the Year 6 students for their organisation of the day.

Uniform
Term 4 will see the re-introduction of our summer uniform. By Monday 21 October all Junior School students are required to be wearing their summer uniform. This includes either a wide-brimmed or legionnaire style Kingswood College hat. Please make the necessary arrangements.

Celebration 2013
If you haven’t yet booked your tickets for the Kingswood College Celebration evening on Tuesday 22 October please do so. For those in Prep – Year 2 please indicate your attendance by replying to the letter that has previously been sent home.

Whitehorse Division Athletics
Best of luck to two of our Junior School sporting stars: Ellora Kelly (12 years girls 800m and 1500m) and Josh Andrikopoulos (12 years boys’ discus) who will be competing in the Whitehorse Division Athletics carnival on Wednesday 9 October at the Bill Sewart Athletic Track.

Scholastic Book Fair
The Scholastic Book Fair will commence on 16 October at Kingswood College Junior School. Further information will follow.

Further Thinking
Spring is a wonderful time in Melbourne and with the school holidays upon us there is so much on offer (much of it free) for our young people to enjoy. I have included a few websites below which provide more information about what is taking place in and around Melbourne at this time of the year.

http://www.vic.gov.au/about-victoria-tourism/holidays-daylight-saving/school-holidays/school-holiday-activities.html
http://www.thatsmelbourne.com.au/whatson/school_holidays/Pages/default.aspx
http://www.onlymelbourne.com.au/melbourne.php?id=2261

Aaron Loats
Head of Junior School

International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme

As this term concludes we reflect on the completion of our first Primary Years Programme Unit of Inquiry, Sharing the Planet. Each Year Level has concentrated on a different line of inquiry appropriate to their level and has spent time delving deeper into their areas of interest.

Next term, we will once again focus on a whole Junior School Unit of Inquiry that follows individual lines of inquiry suitable to the Year Levels. We will focus on the Transdisciplinary theme of ‘How we express ourselves’. This is an inquiry into the ways in which we discover and express ideas, feelings, nature, culture, beliefs and values; the ways in which we reflects on, extend and enjoy our creativity; and our appreciation of the aesthetic.

The staff have encouraged the students to look at the attributes of a good learner (the Learner Profile) and have recognised these through certificates in assembly as well as through positive reinforcement in the classroom.

Donna Rady
PYP Coordinator

Building a sense of community between Year 8 and Pre Prep

The Year 8 leaders and Pre Preps recently enjoyed a lunch together as part of the Year 8s community service  and for the Pre Preps to understand that they are part of a wider school community.  There was lots of excitement and chats and for some of the Year 8s it provided a great opportunity for them to revisit their old playground.  We look forward to other opportunities to spend time together.  Some of the Year 8s were disappointed to miss out on rest time but everyone had a great time together.

‘I love it, they're adorable.  They teach us things too.  They are showing us all the things they can do and they are very creative’ - Morgan, Year 8

‘I told them where I lived and I showed them my counting.  I counted to 21’ - Justin, Pre Prep

‘I liked talking to Rory.  We talked so much. We talked about how it's cold in ice. We were talking about games too. We talked about skeletons’ - Jack, Pre Prep

Silver medal for Freya

Year 2 student Freya Batty has won a silver medal in the team competition on Sunday 8 September 2013 for Level 2.

The Rythmic Gymnastics Victorian State Championships Pennant routines included ball, hoop, rope, ribbon and free hand and Freya and the girls put in a solid performance to claim the silver medal.

The team trains every Saturday morning under the instruction of a Rythmic Gymnastics Coach for two hours, and all that effort has certainly paid off.  Congratulations Freya.

Year 5 infomercials

Year 5s were tasked with making an informecial about reducing electricity usage.

All groups worked hard to produce great infomercials, and after much deliberation two groups were chosen as the winners.

Congratulations Healthy Terra and One Last Apple Tree on your outstanding work!

Watch the winning infomercials on our YouTube channel.

Kids Teaching Kids

On Wednesday 11 September the Year 6 students went to Blackburn Lake to participate in the Kids Teaching Kids program.  This involved the students delivering a 30 minute presentation to students from other schools on a topic they had been researching relevant to Blackburn Lake.  These topics included Migration Habits of Birds, Life Cycle of Birds, Feeding habits, food sources available within the area and Identifying Bird Species.

The students have worked tirelessly throughout the term in preparing for this day and should be very pleased with their efforts. They received fantastic feedback from the organisers and other students.  Everyone learnt something new on the day and enjoyed the opportunity to present to their peers.

Well Done!

Jason Flanagan
Year 6 Classroom Teacher

Cornerstone Programme

The Junior School Cornerstone Programme aims to develop the values of our school, promote Positive Education and encourage the overall Wellbeing of our students.

This term, the focus has been on Responsibility. The students are very perceptive of what they should be responsible for, often citing things such as their own actions, the environment and planet, chores around the house and being respectful of school rules.

During Term 4, we will be looking at our school value of Integrity. It would be wonderful for families to have a conversation about what integrity means to them over the holidays to give their child something to come back and share with us next term. I was lucky to have experienced a beautiful example of this during the week when I visited the Year 3 classroom. They talked about Integrity as standing up for what they believe is right. It links beautifully to our PYP Learner Profile of being Principled.

Donna Rady
Assistant Head of the Junior School

Junior School SEEK program

In Term 3, the Junior School SEEK programme has continued with much enthusiasm and excitement from the students. The programme’s aim is to extend and enrich our highly able students. They have been busy problem solvers, awesome authors and competitve debaters. Well done, to all the students, for a dynamic term.

What’s Happening in Prep –Year 6
Prep have focused on developing their creative thinking skills. They have looked at how things are similar and different, metacognition (the science of thinking or knowing about thinking), and discussed their own ideas on topics. They have been given the answer and asked to find the question and have shown 4 different ways to solve one problem.

Year 1 and 2 have undertaken a Writers’ Workshop and Passion Projects allowing them to develop their own interests and lines of inquiry.

Year 3 and 4 have participated in Philosophy session where they discussed emotions, imagination and wisdom. They also researched at some famous Philosophers.

Year 5 and 6 have participated in the Maths Olympiad challenge.

Year 6 have commenced debating activities with great gusto!

Donna Rady
SEEK Teacher

Kingswood College Cross Country Season Wrap Up

The 2013 Kingswood College Cross Country running season culminated with some great success at the EISM Cross Country event Wednesday 11 September at Ruffey Lake Park in Doncaster.

This year’s House Cross Country at Gardiners Creek on Tuesday 6 August was very well supported by students, parents and staff alike. The weather conditions were perfect for distance running and there were some great performances by individuals and teams.

Instead of awarding trophies at Assembly, they were handed to winners on the day and along with the barbeque, this added to to the carnival like atmosphere. The winners were as follows:
                 Boys                    Girls
Under 13  Parker Fox          Olivia Mitchell
Under 14  Benjamin Wise    Ellie Cleland
Under 15  Jeremy Charles   Katherine Smith
Under 16  Isaac Leeson      Emma Leurs
Open       Zac Slattery         Georgia Bunker

Of particular note was Benjamin Wise’s (Year 8) effort in finishing overall second out of all Kingswood College boys. Benjamin, new to Kingswood College this semester, is proving a great asset to the sports program, excelling at Football, Cricket and Cross Country running. 

It was the first time we’d had a barbeque as part of the celebration and the Year 11 Hospitality students managed to cook enough sausages and sell enough drinks to raise almost $850 for one of our selected charities, SOSK.

The winning house was once again Gywnton, who dominated the event. A distant second was Brunning with Walker third and the House Performing Arts stars, New, fourth.

EISM Carnival

42 Kingswood College students represented the College at the EISM Carnival at Ruffey Lake Park. The strong attendance at the early Wednesday morning sessions and Monday afternoon training sessions really paid off as we enjoyed one of the more successful running carnivals for the last few years.

We achieved five X top ten finishes on the day, a great effort given the extremely high standard of competition. These five were:
Parker Fox (10th), Ellie Cleland (9th), Noah Whiffin (Under 14 - 4th), Jacob Hill (Under 15 – 8th), and our running star, Jeremy Charles in 1st place. This was particularly pleasing for me given Jeremy’s dedication to both Cross Country and Athletics training sessions and the fact that he had finished high up in the places before but had never won the gold. Even more impressive was that Jeremy had rolled his ankle badly the week before.

All in all it was a great team result, highlighted by some excellent individual performances. I would like to thank PE staff for assisting with training sessions and the actual day as well as Nick Bowden, our expert running coach, who helped develop all the students who made training sessions.  Nearly all students who got to training improved upon last year’s result.

Sports Exchange 2013

Last Thursday 5 September, six Kingswood College students from Years 9 and 10 represented the combined Central and Southern Division teams to play the bigger and stronger Eastern Division. This is usually a carnival where the EISM play the Gippsland Independent Schools (GIS), and this year was the first time that the Carnival had been played amongst the 22 schools that form the EISM.

Our selected team representatives were:
Year 9 - Lachlan McPhail (Basketball), Christian Pappas (Soccer), Simone Scandrett (Netball)
Year 10 - Tom Habal (Hockey), Laura Brooks and Verity Baltutis (Softball)

The games were played at a variety of venues and all students met back at Emmaus to enjoy lunch, team and individual presentations and awards. In speaking with the coaches of the teams, it was clear that all Kingswood College students had played very well and shown impeccable sportsmanship.

The highlight of the afternoon was when the Central Captain, our own Tom Habal, was chosen as the best player on the ground from his team, a fantastic achievement given the high level of skill involved in a representative sports Carnival.
Congratulations to all these students and thank you so much for your willingness to put your hands up for selection and then play so well on the day.

For the record, the Central teams won the Softball and Hockey and drew the Soccer.

Another final for the hockey stars

Friday 13 September Jessica Slattery, Ellora Kelly and Talana Kitchen of Year 6 played in the Under 14 Girls Pennant Hockey Team Final against Yarra Valley in Doncaster.  All of the girls have been playing hockey together since they were eight years of age and have progressively played in a final series most years leading up to this years’. 

The girls played in their half back positions and the final score was Box Hill 3 and Yarra Valley 1.  Well done to our Year 6 girls and they will be looking to repeat their Grand Final status again next year.

Parents and Friends Association

The next PFA meeting is on Tuesday 29 October 2013 and all are welcome. The format for the meeting will follow that of our last meeting. Aaron Loats, the new Head of Junior School, will begin his presentation at 7.30pm followed by the meeting.  Many parents stayed on for the meeting last month and the format worked well.  It is likely that we will adopt this format for future meetings so please keep this in mind when thinking of attending PFA meetings.

Our PFA Kingswood College Golf Day is planned for Sunday 20 October, thanks to all those who expressed interest in attending. It’s not too late to let us know that you would like to join in the day.

Fundraising and Social Events
Golf Day – Sunday 20 October
Thank you to all parents who sent the positive responses for our Golf Day. Details will be available early in Term 4.
If you have not registered your interest yet please email –  seignior@bigpond.com

World Teachers Day – Friday 25 October
The PFA will host a morning tea on Friday 25 October to celebrate World Teachers’ Day and thank our teachers for the great work they do.

Christmas Puddings
Following on from the success of our Christmas pudding fundraiser last year, they will be available again this year.  Details regarding ordering will be in the newsletter in Term 4.

Holiday Catch up
The Year 5 Class Reps have organised a get together during the school holidays for Year 5 students. It’s on Thursday 3 October at 10.30am at GESAC in Bentleigh East. Contact your Class Rep for further details.

Planning for Next Year
These include a ladies lunch or high tea (still to be decided) combined with a fashion parade as a lead up to Spring Carnival, a family fun night and a family lawn bowls day.  More information about these will become available as we move closer to the end of the year. 

If anyone would like to take part in organising these events please contact:
Tracey – seignior@bigpond.com  or Alana – alana.hollenberg@gmail.com

Next Meeting
The next meeting is on Tuesday 29 October 2013.  Aaron Loats will speak at the meeting to introduce himself to all school members and fill us in on his background. Again more information will be sent as we move closer to the event. 

Term 3 has flown by with lots of events including: the PFA Big Night Out cocktail party, Fathers’ Day Breakfast, the Junior School Production which was fantastic and gave all the students a chance to participate while Fay Lovus organised refreshments for the parents. Aaron Loats welcome afternoon tea, Junior School Disco, just to name a few.

Thank you to all the Kingswood College community who participated and helped out in the organising.

We wish you all a very relaxing and safe break and shall see you all next term.

Alana Hollenberg PFA President
Tracey Seignior PFA Communications Officer