News@Pulteney No
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REGISTERED BY AUSTRALIA POST PP 53615500023 news@pulteney No. 102 Terms 2& 3 , 2012 FROM THE PRINCIPAL Writing this article during the term three break two revelations provided the theme. The first was observing the School quad from my office one bright morning. Usually the area is brimming with students in all manner of conversations and activity. During a break their absence leaves the benches idle and the wind the only chatter. The absence of movement dulls the scene and the mosaic of the slate stands unappealingly bare. My second moment was standing in two empty rooms in my house. I had cleared both my two youngest sons’ bedrooms in preparation for painting and all the toys and trinkets of their lives had been moved elsewhere. The rooms were as lifeless as the playthings that usually captivate their energies. Mind you they come very much alive hurtling through space with well aimed throws! My touchstone for this article, then, is the awakening of our own lives in our relations with others, most particularly in a school setting, such as Pulteney, where children shape our own being. At Pulteney, in the normal run of things, I have any number of childrens’ lives and activities to fill the quad a hundred times. There are boundless stories and enough adventures to write a girls’ or boys’ own tale to rival the very best intrigues. I anticipate that any age of any school would be the same and it is why we can all take such heart and joy from our various involvements and associations in Pulteney Grammar School. Most recently, over these holidays students have been traversing the globe. There have been students in Japan and Nepal. Moreover, there are staff, on reconnaissance to Kenya, Vanuatu and India as we prepare for students to also visit those countries. As part of the Adventure Learning Experiences, a globally focused community service program, the School has entered partnerships with several organisations to provide opportunities for Pulteney students to explore. The objectives for each of the Adventure Learning Experiences is that they will be sustainable and focused on students entering their senior schooling. The belief is that students in Year 10, and beyond, will gain enormously from such experiences, perhaps shaping careers, and at the very least learning and giving in places that they would normally only see on a map. The Nepalese trip, in partnership with the Blue Sky School and Mother Rajan’s Orphanage in Kathmandu, for example, allowed three staff and fifteen students to visit. Our team was able to work and live with staff and students in a remarkably different cultural setting. This led to a great enhancement of understanding between both countries. The life changing experience, as described by a number of participants, gave the opportunity to interact with people of relatively no material wealth, but with a richness of culture and happiness and joy of life that the Pulteney Travellers grew quickly to envy. Our staff and students have returned, empassioned to assist in giving greater opportunity to the Blue Sky School and orphanage staff and students for the future benefit of Nepal! Already, the arrangements for fourteen students to travel to Zambia in October, next year are set. Through a partnership with ZooSA, established ostensibly through the vibrant Conservation Corps program in the middle school, the attraction of conservation in an African setting, working with the Chipembele Wildlife Foundation has proved irresistible. Similarly, staff have just returned from their reconnoitre of other intended, international settings. Our Deputy Principal, Mandy Hore, has spent a week appraising the benefits of students assisting the Good Shepherd Mission in northern India’s Uttarakhand region. While Daniel Polkinghorne, a middle school teacher, has ventured to Kenya, working with the Global Youth organisation’s twenty-year project on an Odebe eco-village. Reverend Sonya Paterson, the School Chaplain, has also visited Vanuatu to consider the possibilities of students teaching in the Anglican Church of Australia’s project of adult literacy in Port Vila and completes an array of projects demonstrating the outreach and opportunity that Pulteney is attempting to bring to the lives of students on our contemporary age. Closer to home, in fact State Parliament, our debating students have experienced extraordinary success in recent weeks. The School had two teams in the grand finals, the open senior team and the Year 8/9 team. The finals were tense debates and victory by both teams was a credit to their preparation and consistent standards of excellence. In what is an outstanding achievement the students representing the School will be hosted at a ceremony in Government House later this year. Not to be outdone Prep School students have emerged as victors in the State final of Tournament of the Minds, a problem solving competition. The students will now travel to Perth for the Australian Championship as a reward for their success. Editor’s Note: Advertising is limited to members of the school community and many of those who advertise are generous sponsors of the School and I would encourage you to support their businesses if the opportunity arises. Mark Bourchier, [email protected] Cover: Pulteney Grammar Old Scholar Peter Hatherly passed away on 6 July 2012 in his 100th year. Much can be packed into almost 100 years and Peter certainly made the most of the years available to him. 2 The progress of the Arts world thrives. The performances at the Prepactular in the Adelaide Town Hall, or the Book Parade by the Kurrajong students in Wyatt Hall, or the Year 12 Drama class and their portrayal of the Breakfast Club at the Bakehouse Theatre, the equally unforgettable School musical, Viva Mexico, at the Space Theatre, or the silver medaling performances of the School Concert Band in the State Championships at Unley Town Hall, are all notable achievements. The record number of 430 dinners at the Long Lunch, held on Sunday 26th August in the Robert Henshall Gymnasium, was a telling expression of the community of Pulteney. Unfortunately, amid the many successes there are, inevitably, challenges that remain yet to be overcome. Such is the case with the wonderful rivalry Pulteney enjoys with Scotch as part of the 15 sporting competitions that comprise the Intercol Cup. Played at the conclusion of both winter and summer seasons the contests between the senior teams of the two schools are engrossing. In the fifth year of the Intercol Cup the School were downed by a single fixture losing 8 matches to 7 matches. After five years - so near and yet so far! Pulteney coming together. Along with the other 18 reunions, Old Scholar gatherings and competition of seventeen Pulteney Old Scholar sporting teams, we are fortunate that the bonds of Pulteney kinship continue so vigorously. This latest news@pulteney is a fine portrayal of the School, and the many settings, shown so visually will gladden hearts. So, as the quad fills again for the last term of the year and my childrens’ rooms are now restored to disorder, I encourage you to enjoy this edition of news@pulteney content that the life of the School continues unabated. Eddie Groughan 3 KURRAJONG A Readers Theatre performance is a EGGS ARRIVE IN ELC T dramatic reading, where students take After collecting feathers and learning about turns reading words from a script. It is a birds in Term 1, the students wanted to find valuable language strategy to use as it helps out more about chickens. Staff arranged build oral fluency and strengthens reading eggs, an incubator and a brooder box from skills. It also helps to build confidence in Living Eggs. It was so special to watch the students and promotes teamwork. chickens hatch and learn about the life During Term 2 the children from Tamingga cycle of a chicken. The children observed class (RT) met their Year 5 buddies for and recorded their growth, fed them and the first time. It has been a wonderful took care of them. They read picture books Harry Couche-Petch observing the chickens in ELC T opportunity for the children to build about farm animals, especially chickens, relationships with older students in the hens, and roosters! The children decided school. Mr Dodd’s class have assisted the they would like to learn about the life cycle Receptions with their Farm Animal Research of other animals and have since obtained Projects. This has involved them researching a booklet about all the animals they could facts about their chosen animals on the borrow and learn about as members of the Internet as well as helping their buddies Nature Education Centre. I wonder what to create 3D models of their farm animals. animal will visit ELC T next? Both the Year 5’s and the Receptions have ‘OUTDOOR ROOMS’ IN gained an enormous amount from this COURTYARD experience and they are all looking forward to spending more time together in the The children and staff from each ELC have Jamie Bunnik and Noah Thesinger (5D) assisiting coming terms. been busy creating ‘outdoor rooms’ in the Darcy Bryan (RT) to make his animal model Antill Courtyard for all Kurrajong students to enjoy. One of the rooms ELC W created has been a ‘Dinosaur Garden’. Mrs Kirsty Lake kindly donated a pond to use as the base for the dinosaurs to live, and plants, rocks, wood, bark and pebbles were also added to this exciting learning room. The rooms vary and are designed to develop students imagination, curiosity, language, social skills, role-playing, fine motor skills and sense of fun! Parents have begun to Students from 2K planting the broad bean seedlings donate other items and materials to create they germinated into the vegetable patch in the more ‘outdoor rooms’ in the courtyard.