Grade 6 Canberra Tour 7 – 11 March 2016

Students from our school have recently undertaken an educational tour of our national capital Canberra ACT. Students were given the opportunity to participate in a variety of educational programs with a focus on Australia’s history, culture, heritage and democracy.

The Australian Government recognises the importance of all young Australians being able to visit the national capital as part of their Civics and Citizenship education. To assist families in meeting the cost of the excursion the Australian Government is contributing funding of $30.00 per student under the Parliament and Civics Education Rebate program towards those costs. The rebate is paid directly to the school upon completion of the excursion.

We had many Followers on Twitter here are some statistics from the 5 day trip. We 248 people ‘favourited’ photos. The Museum of Democracy also retweeted a photo of the students in the Senate. The most popular photo was the students at NASA close to the big dish, followed closely by a photo of a Canberra Sunrise and Parliament House. There were numerous photos that had been favourite at least 6 times.

I would like to thank the following people for all their help on this tour – Leeanne Baddeley, Robyn Walker, Paul Wallace and the most amazing parents Douglas Proctor and Maree Walker they both gave up 5 days to come on tour with us. Finally I would like to thank the students – there were so many times when I felt so proud of them, one particular time was at the Australian War Memorial. We had just participated in a wreath laying ceremony and were sitting on steps outside the tomb of the unknown soldier with our returned serviceman who was a Vietnam Veteran. The students asked the most insightful and reflective questions, I was so moved by there questions as were the other teachers and the veteran.

It was an amazing tour – thank you for all your support.

Julie Dalton

Student Reflections

“The War Memorial was an emotionally engaging place. As we walked into the tomb of the Unknown Soldier joyful laughs were silenced, smiles were washed away. Sadness filled our young minds. The stained glass windows gave colour to the darkened room. The bugle call played as we remembered the soldiers that sacrificed their life for our country. The many names scattered the walls, heroes side by side fighting, dying, mates forever. We must never forget them nor our allied forces or enemy. “Lest we forget” the ones that did not return.”—Emme

“Staff member introduced himself and told us a bit about space. Later on he showed us a video. It was amazing how many suns there are out there. About thousand times bigger than our sun and how small earth is to the universe. It takes about 2 billion years to get out of the Milky Way. Ballet is useful for when you go to space because it will be easier to move around. I remember when I was little and I learnt ballet.

I had so much fun looking around the place. I learnt a lot and found space very interesting. It made me want to learn more and discover lots more about the Milky way.”—Veronica

“The Canberra Camp made me realise a lot of things like how much of the universe we have discovered and how many people served their country in wars. I learnt a lot from the camp from speeches, slide shows, videos and from displays.

The Australian War Memorial touched me because of all the people who sacrificed their lives to fight for their country. Every soldier has a story of what happened in their perspective and what they had to endure.

The Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex made me feel like I was a small speck in the universe. It was one of the most interesting places we visited. We learnt about the third man ever to go to the moon and how no one remembers him.

The Royal Australian Mint made me feel interested to learn about coins and currency. It was amazing how they made the coins from scrap metal turning them into blanks and adding 14 tons of pressure to imprint the coins with the marks you see on the coins.” – Quinn

“Everyone fell silent, it was so quiet you could almost hear the soldiers’ cries of horror. All I could think about was the sacrifice that all those ANZACs made for us. The bugle started to play. I look up at the stained glass windows and sad expressions on the men’s faces. They were so young, too young to die.

Being part of the ceremony was really important to me because it made me think much more deeply about things. It also made me think how hard it would have been for everyone, not just the soldiers but all the loved ones left at home. And that is why I enjoyed the Australian War Memorial.”—Astrid

Grade 5 Spotlight

The Grade 5’s were fortunate enough to have a very special guest speaker, Tamara Tse (an Occupational Therapist), to enrich our first inquiry.

“On the Tuesday the 8th March Ciara’s mum came in and talked to us about the brain. She is an occupational therapist. She showed us a very cool video and told us very interesting and amazing things, like vision from an MRI and how images can trick our minds. It was helpful for our learning because it showed us the different parts of the brain and how it functions. We would like to thank her for coming in and helping us with our learning.”—Vanika 5A

“Our experience was mind blowing! I loved learning about the brain and how it works. The tasks were fun and challenging. I hope we do it again.”—Georgia 5A

Taekwondo

“This term the grade 5’s experienced taekwondo. The first 2 weeks were challenging for some people, but by the forth week everyone was amazing. Our teachers were Trent and Eric. They taught us self-defence and fighting. We learnt about where taekwondo came from and how it was created and when to use it. First, we learnt self defence which was blocking. We also played games to gain confidence on how to defend ourselves. It was the best experience ever.”—Jamie 5A

Grade 5 Anglesea Recreation Camp

The Year 5’s attended the YMCA Anglesea Recreation Camp in early February.  The students had a fantastic time, learning about themselves and each other through the various ‘Challenge by Choice’ activities.

The Giant Swing

“Hi, I’m Chloe, and I’m Indi and together we think that the giant swing was both amazing fun and very inspiring. The giant swing is challenge by choice and an encouragement to face your fears. We found this out because we faced our fears of heights.”—Indi and Chloe

The Beach Carnival

“On the second day of camp we spent half a day at the beach. We split up into our activity groups then given a colored flag and face paint that color. After the lovely walk

we arrived at the beach were some awesome activity’s awaited us. We started with a game called River, Bridge,Tree and this was followed by a game called Seal Crawl. We also had a sand building competition and creative story to go with it. The end was a tug of war, teachers v students. The teachers won! In the end the black team won the beach carnival. The carnival was fantastic.”—Mia and Maya

Building Huts

I was in a group of three. We decided to move because we didn’t have enough room for our hut. So we went over to a dead tall stump leaning to the left.

We imagined we were stranded on an island like The Lord of the Flies. So we rested our sticks on it and it looked like a teepee.”—Joshua

“It was really fun, gathering sticks, hanging out with my friends and building the hut in general. My hut looked stable until it collapsed and nearly fell on me. But my challenge was not to get a splinter.—Tasman

“My group started of doing a square hut but then someone in our group found an arch stick and we decided to make it the door way. So we put the arch stick in-between 2 trees and we just started to dump sticks on top and it became a hut.”—Hudson

Rock Climbing

“Rock climbing is fun and challenging. There are different levels of rock climbing walls. There are easy, medium and hard walls to climb. When we went rock climbing on camp we had to wear a harness and a helmet to keep us safe. We chose one of the climbing walls. They were hard to climb and it was tiring.  One of the climbing rooms was called the Boulder room aka free time room. You could climb on the roof in there.”—Trent and Chris

The Camp Search

“The camp search is a search where you have to answer questions based on the camp. For example what colour is the highest rock on the rock climbing wall? This is what we do we get into groups and get a question and answer sheet we have a certain amount of time to fill out the sheet. The teacher of the group has a horn and blows it when times up. The camp search was really fun because we got to work as a team, learn about the camp, where things were and how to problem solve.”—Rose, Kayla and Hannah