Wendy’s Group Week 8 Term 4
Hi everyone.
It is great to have the group back together now after all the camp adventures. It sounds as if the Great Aussie Bush Camp was a tremendous success and Jervis Bay certainly was also! We had great weather and the children had a brilliant time, playing at the beach, investigating the rock platform, learning from Aboriginal Elder and educator, Bernie, cooking and serving their own meals (they planned the menu too!) and looking after their belongings and tents for the week. The Year 6 Ceremony was beautiful, with the leavers presenting their symbols and explaining their meanings, and then children and parents speaking about each of our 2025 leavers as they get ready for the next step in their life journey. Camp is an extraordinary opportunity for personal growth and the development of independence, and I think each of the children returns to school with a new sense of their own capacities, increased resilience and some very beautiful memories. It was great to have Meg there for three of the days as she will be their teacher for 2026.
Because we left for Jervis Bay on the Monday after the concert, I haven’t written yet about how fabulous that whole event was. Huge congratulations to all the performers! Each of the groups was so impressive and the whole event was a delight. I was especially proud of my group, of course! The children who wrote the play (Emme, Mabel, Louie, Grace, Kitty, Ilona and Haz) did a great job and everyone rehearsed and organised costumes and props, working together as a team to make sure the final performance was a success. There were some very funny in-jokes built into the script which we all enjoyed throughout the process… to share just one, we have developed a class joke that whenever I ask for a spelling or vocabulary word to be put into a sentence, the phrase “chocolate milk” (which, of course, Grace was drinking in scene 1) is also included in the sentence. We’ve had some good laughs with that one.
As a direct result of our play script, we have been very fortunate to be invited to tour SBS Studios and see how a real news reporting agency functions! Many thanks to Cathy for organising this. Please see the email I’ve sent to my class parents. We still need one more driver to help us get there next Wednesday afternoon. Thank you to Sally, Cathy and Erin for offering to help so far.
This week we have debriefed our camp experiences and written thankyou letters. We also collected and baked goods for our stall on Thursday, an initiative of Emme’s to raise funds for my teacher friend, Kateryna, in Ukraine. Thank you SO much for all the wonderful contributions from the school community. It is deeply appreciated. The stall was a tremendous success and we raised over $400. Thank you to everyone for their support.
On Friday, we had Ewan and Asher visit for the day. Both are now finishing up Year 8 and sound as if they are really doing well. It was fabulous to have them to help with marking and counting money.
This week Mabel’s “My Time at Currambena” is here in the Newsletter. Not many days of term left now! High school orientations sound as if they’ve been a great success and the leavers are all super well prepared. I am sure they’ll all have a smooth transition into Year 7 at their different schools.
Have a wonderful week.
With love, Wendy