This week we recognised our SSO's as part of SSO appreciation week. Coromandel Valley Primary School is extremely fortunate to have a team of incredibly talented and dedicated SSO's on staff. They are all critical to the smooth running of our school and we would like to thank them for their hard work and commitment towards all that we do. As well as enjoying a special morning tea provided by staff, Mrs. Hooper's students presented our SSO’s with a special message of appreciation and a plant representing how they support growth in our community.

Thank you, Sue, Karen, Clare, Nicole, Jenni, Jenny, Yvonne, Megan, Suzie, Anna, Vicky, Carey, Keith, Dave and Martine.

Last week our staff attended a two day (Sunday and Monday) conference on Cultures of Thinking. It was held in Melbourne at Bialik College.

We were fortunate enough to listen to Tiziana Fillipini who spoke passionately on the Reggio method of teaching. She introduced the metaphor that children come to school with 100 languages and how it important it was for teachers to also be in possession of 100+ languages in order to elicit and build on our students’ knowledge, skills and understandings. She emphasized the power of documentation and really looking at what understandings students bring to their learning.

The other keynote speaker was Edward Clapp, an American world-renowned leader and Harvard Project Zero researcher, who focused on participatory creativity. He explored the idea that creativity is always socially and culturally situated.  He urged us to see the collaborative process of creativity.  When we look at historical or even current leaders who are adding significantly to our world/social knowledge, we should actually look at all of those who worked with that person. We all know about Albert Einstein but are we aware that his wife was a leading physicist and that he spent much time with 6 other key scientists who worked closely with him? Creativity is the product of team effort!

Staff were also given the opportunity to explore Design Thinking processes, Makerspace learning environments, Garden & Kitchens, and building this into the curriculum, collective creativity in Art, thinking routines to encourage student voice and other creativity centred learning approaches. I would like to thank staff for giving up a Sunday to attend a weekend conference and I look forward to seeing some of these ideas evolve at our school.

Our lost property is again overflowing with unnamed windcheaters, jackets, lunch boxes and drink bottles.

Lost property is located in the passageway through the door next to the green court.

Please have a look to see if anything belongs to your child.

Anything still there by the end of term used in our spare clothes cupboard or sent to a charity shop.

New items bought from the uniform shop now have a special tag which you can register online. If your child’s item ends up in the lost property cupboard the system automatically sends an sms to advise you that it is there. Tags can be purchased from the uniform shop if your child’s clothing does not have a tag.

Our Year 6 and 7 students started Book Week with a fantastic Manga and Anime Workshop at Mitcham Library with Tsunami Hee Ja, an Adelaide based artist and illustrator.

Grandparent’s Day was a great opportunity for grandparents and other special visitors to visit our classrooms. The Book Week Parade showcased the amazing creative outfits of our students and staff, that were inspired by their favourite book characters. Some of our talented musicians, singers and jump ropers performed for family at the Grandparent’s Day Concert. Many visitors stayed to enjoy the morning tea that was kindly organised by the Parents and Friends.

After a busy week of sharing books and fun, our final Book Week event was a performance of “Big Dream” by Perform Education for students in Reception to Year 3. This is a fun musical about being brave and strong, and not letting dream stealers take your confidence and your hope. The children were very involved in the performance and receptive to these positive messages. The performers were delighted by the kindness of our children and the support they gave the performers during the performance.

Sheralyn Robertson

Teacher-Librarian

As part of our inquiry into businesses, the year 5 students visited Adelaide Central Market, looking at how market stalls attract consumers through their design, layout, products and customer interactions. These observations were used in the design of the Year 5 market.

As part of our inquiry into Wellbeing, students in year 5 have been conducting individual inquiries into an area of personal interest. Wow!!! The students were all able to talk at length about what they learnt and what surprised them, as well as explaining any processes they used to make something. Topics included candle making, cake decorating, garden design, architecture, making a Minecraft Mod, coding, art, rocket launching, photography, back drafting, zoo keeping and making bath bombs.

On Tuesday of Week 3, both Year 3 classes had the priviliege of visiting Monarto Zoo, to learn more about our current Unit of Inquiry ‘All Things Change’. This Unit of work is an inquiry into: All living things are connected to others in their natural environment and go through a process of change. We are exploring concepts surrounding living things, lifecycles and natural environments.

The highlight of the day was the ‘Full Safari Tour’ which saw our bus driver cleverly navigate us around the massive park with our tour guide, Peter. He was very knowledgeable about the animals that we saw and he even taught us some chants to entertain us.

We started the day with recess in the sunshine before our informative bus tour. We then returned for lunch and a visit to the gift shop. We also said hello to the cute Meerkats before returning to the bus for the long ride back to school. Thank you to all our parents who came along in support.

Katie Magarey and Dan Johnson

Yr3 Teachers

In week 4, the Arts group for Service as Action held Art Week. We invited the classes to attend lunch time sessions in which we taught the students different art skills. We taught drama games, bubble art, cartooning, drawing and watercolour pencils. 

We think it went well and the students who came learnt different skills and had lots of fun. It was cool to meet other people in our school who are passionate about art and to help them with their skills. Art week was a success and we learnt a lot about teaching art.

By Sophie, Brianna and Bonnie

Yr6 students

Keith has been busy in the JP playground.  Stage 1 is complete, with next stage underway.

Riley and Joe performed in a special event called the ASO Big Rehearsal. This is a mentoring workshop with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra where the students accepted into the event are sent several pieces of music to learn a few weeks ahead of time in a high pressure and realistic scenario like a real orchestra. They then went into the Symphony Orchestra Grainger Studios in the city and each student was paired with an ASO performer for a two hour workshop. They were conducted by Graham Abbot who is one of the “proper” ASO conductors. At the end the parents are invited in to watch a concert of the pieces they have been working on. No filming or videos were allowed as the ASO is a performing and professional working orchestra and the studios are highly secure. However at the end we were allowed to take a picture of them with their “person”.

Joe played first violin with a lovely violinist by the name of Judith Coombe and Riley on her cello was seated next to David Sharp.

Several children from many schools all over Adelaide participated in the two day event with two different levels of participation.

Well done kids! What an amazing experience!

This year, some members of our school community have been participating in Children’s University again which has been a great opportunity for students to continue building successful habits of learning outside of their classroom.

Children’s University have announced a new and exciting Student Portal Website which will allow participants to search Learning Destinations based on categories, date, and location as well as complete activities online.

On Wednesday the 18^th of September, we have a representative form CU visiting our school to offer an information session open to our parent community to provide further information and support regarding the program itself and these exciting new changes to the website.

The visit will also assist our preparations for our Graduation Ceremony which will take place on the evening of Monday the 11^th of November.

Looking forward to seeing any members of our parent community at the information session.

Regards,

Dan Johnson

Get your kids to play cricket this summer

The nights are still cool, but the days are getting longer, winter sports are finishing, and the warming winds of the coming summer will soon be drifting through the air. A summer of Saturday mornings relaxing in the shade of a sprawling gum tree, sipping a long cool iced drink, chatting with friends, and maybe even watching the kids as they play cricket. Just relaxing for an hour, or two if you're lucky and the kids are older.

Sign-up for Term 4 cricket. It's the perfect way to spend a Saturday morning.  Sports nomination forms are available from the office.

The Coromandel Valley Primary School Under 8s played in their SOCCER CARNIVAL on Monday 12^th of August at Bowker Street.

They had some great fun and enjoyed playing under the bright lights at night time against other teams in our district. It was a chilly night however this did not stop the kids from playing their best and winning some games! Well done to the kids who participated, the Coach Rob, and all the parents / friends who supported and cheered on our fantastic group of kids.   Cheers Taryn  Widdows (Team Manager)

Spencer, James C, Lucas, Halle, James A, Halle, Nicholas, Harry, Charlie and Rob Nadin (Coach)

We have a number of school desks (20) that we are needing to move on.  If you would like one they are available from the Art room in Turner building. If you would like to make a donation to the school, this can be paid at the front office.

We also have a number of cricket items that are looking for a new home - we are very happy for families to collect any of the items below

batting pads - various sizes

wooden bats

wooden stumps

cricket balls

batting helments - various sizes