Bringing People Together- A Social Run along the River - written by Mr Paul Robinson, Director of Sports. It was unfortunate that the scheduled interschool Cross-County event was cancelled, but as the cross-country team had been preparing well for the event we decided to invite them for a Saturday morning run along the Ba River. To ensure positive role modelling the students were joined by a number of teachers and parents on the run.

Meeting at school, we then walked down to the riverside where Elijah and Faith led parents, students and teachers in a warm-up. We then set off along the river with everybody being able to run along at a pace that was comfortable for them. The morning started out a little chilly and overcast but during the run the sun came out and blue skies could be seen across the river, and we stopped along the way for a group photo opportunity.

We ended up running 6km, a distance many of our runners had possibly never covered before, but they displayed outstanding resilience in completing the run and never giving up. We could not be prouder of our Hawks cross-country runners, it was a great morning to bring the community together and have a meaningful morning of physical activity. Thank you to our parents for their continued tremendous support and the Hanova teachers who showed great enthusiasm in coming out to support us too.

Reception students learning about healthy habits - written by Mrs Maria Gibbs, Reception Teacher. Reception students have been enjoying their new unit of inquiry that is focused on healthy habits. Our central idea is: Good Habits keep us healthy.  Our lines of inquiry are: Our daily routines, Ways to be healthy, and Importance of healthy habits.

Some of the fun learning activities that the students have participated in so far included creating their favorite fruit with air dry foam clay, and then verbally sharing what it is with the class. Soon they will be sequencing the events of a story called Handa’s Surprise which is about various animals that take fruit from Handa’s basket with her realizing it.

For Numeracy, they have been learning about ordinal numbers, and have ordered their top favorite fruits and vegetables from 1st to 5th. Students have also played a sorting game to remember the difference between fruits and vegetables by placing the various picture cards into the correct hoola hoop. Reception class will soon be using fruit and vegetable pictures to practice addition.

Primary Parent feedback on Remote Learning - written by Mr James McCrory, Head of School & Acting Head of Primary.

Dear Primary Parents

We are happy to feedback to Primary Parents on the online survey regarding remote learning. Thank you to those pop you who take the time to respond. The responses from Primary parents have separated the into Early Years and Upper Years to see if there are any discrepancies.  As can be seen in the two examples below, the overall satisfaction ratings from Primary Parents are highly positive, both for the overall experience of Remote Learning, the interaction of Managebac platform, and school communications.

Satisfaction with school communications during Remote Learning was also rated well.

Although the overall satisfaction ratings for remote learning are pretty high, in future we see that we need to explore ways to provide more teacher feedback.

It was also rewarding to note the satisfaction ratings of parents working with their children during Remote Learning. This was a difficult period for all.

We also sincerely hope that we will not need to recourse to online learning again. However, if we do, we need to to ensure that we offer the best support possible for students and parents. We will continue to seek your feedback and endeavor to improve the learning experience for all our students.