Kelleway Avenue Nicholls ACT 2913

Senior Site + 61 2 6142 1300

Junior Site + 61 2 6142 340

[email protected] www.goldcreek.act.edu.au

Welcome back to 2021!

What a wonderful start to the 2021 year! I have loved watching our staff and students return – all ready to engage in what hopefully will be a kinder learning year than 2020! I must congratulate our Preschool, Kindy and year 7 students, who have settled into their new routines quickly – and especially thank all of our school community for making them feel so welcome. It is so wonderful to have families back on site – and I cannot wait to be able to recommence some of the amazing Gold Creek events to continue building strong partnerships. I am privileged to be leading Gold Creek this term, and I know that our team of staff are excited to continue providing a strong learning community.

This year marks an important milestone in our continued School Improvement journey (2018-2020), as we welcome teams from both our International Baccalaureate programmes (PYP and MYP) and the ACT Education Directorate panels to help us reflect and develop our next strategic plan moving into the future. Staff have spent considerable time undertaking a self-study to explore our impact implementing IB as well as looking at our successes and next steps in our two priority areas –Literate Global Citizens, and Strong Learning Communities.

During next week both these panels will be joining us (both virtually and onsite) to explore what we do – great teaching and learning! Our reflections during this process centered on how we have embedded our strategies with some key takeaways that I wish to share with you: • Our commitment to IB and our philosophy of teaching and learning supports future focused pedagogies – we are preparing our students to make a difference in the world through an inquiry approach which focusses on skills development • We have a strong commitment to building quality programmes that reflect the needs of our students, and we provide a range of support to meet these needs • We have begun the Positive Behaviours for Learning (PBL) programme, which is yielding initial success in building a strong learning community • Our commitment to collaboration is a core belief of GCS – at all levels and with everything we do

These are just some initial thoughts that we have had whilst reflecting on the improvement journey of the last few years. We cannot wait to share with you all the review outcomes and look forward to working together to make each student at Gold Creek flourish.

PRINCIPAL: Jacqui Chapman ASSOCIATE PRINCIPAL: Janie Waters - SS ASSOCIATE PRINCIPAL: Cindy Condon - JS Board Chair: Kirsten Maloney [email protected] P&C President: David Pollard [email protected] 1

I would like to take the opportunity to introduce the Academic Senior Leadership team, and of course put some faces to names. From left to right we have: • Janine Waters – Associate Principal – Senior Site • Cindy Condon – Associate Principal – Junior Site • Jacqui Chapman – A/g Principal o Nicole Jaggers – Associate Principal – P-10 Curriculum

We have quickly developed a collaborative approach to continuing to ensure we deliver a high-quality International Baccalaureate education throughout Gold Creek School.

We look forward to working with you all in 2021!

Remember to continue to follow our COVID safe procedures.

Jacqui Chapman Principal

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WHOLE SCHOOL NEWS

NAPLAN Online will occur in our school between 11 and 21 May 2021.

NAPLAN Online is a more engaging assessment that adjusts questions to each student’s achievement level. It also delivers more precise results to schools and parents more quickly.

NAPLAN provides valuable information to schools and parents about literacy and numeracy achievement. It supports school improvement processes by enabling teachers to monitor student progress over time and to identify areas of strength and development.

All eligible students are encouraged and supported to participate in NAPLAN testing. Visit www.nap.edu.au to see interactive versions of the test and for more information.

SCHOOL APP & REPORTING STUDENT ABSENCES Option 1 Using the school App allows you to report student absences, check the school calendar, read newsletters and receive important information via sms on your mobile phones (provided you allow push notifications). All this is available through our school App!

Download the school App NOW, to help us keep in touch! (Download from Apple Store or Google Play).

Option 2 email junior site [email protected]

email senior site [email protected]

Option 3 The other option is by leaving a short message via our dedicated absence number:

Junior Site: 6142 1344 Senior Site: 6142 1323

If using the number above, please leave a short message stating student name, year, PC class and reason for absence eg. Late/Sick or Leave.

School website and social media links

INTERNATIONAL MINDEDNESS

International mindedness is a foundational principle to IB education. When people are internationally minded, they appreciate diversity of people and cultures. They make efforts to learn more about others. We are lucky at Gold Creek School to have such a diverse community. Below is a long list of languages that are in our school. There may be others. If your family’s language is not listed here, please tell your teacher about that language.

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Afrikaans Greek Mon Swahli

Albanian Gurjarti Ndebele Swedish Arabic Hindi Nepali Tamil Bengali Hokkien Persian Tagalog Burmese Indonesian Punjabi Telegu Cantonese Japanese Portuguese Thai Croatian Kannada Russian Tibetan Dari Korean Samoan Tongan Dinka Macedonian Serbian Ukranian English Malayam Sinhalese Urdu Fillipino Mandarin Slovak Vietnamese French Marathi Spanish Yoruba

Have you heard of all these languages before? Do you know which countries these languages originated from? Maybe you know some Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander languages. The Harmony Week website events page includes a calendar of cultural and religious dates. The calendar reminds us that on Friday this week (12 February) Vietnamese, Chinese, Korean and Tibetan families will be celebrating New Year. Saturday (13 February) is the Anniversary of the Apology to members of the Stolen Generations. You might be curious to find out more about these, or other significant events.

Libby Glasgow (junior site)

In 2021 we are looking forward to a range of exciting opportunities to grow our international mindedness in Senior School. In Community Connections students will engage in such project as ‘Sewing for a cause’ and ‘Sports Coaching’, both of which allow them to consider how they can contribute to the advancement of others both locally and globally.

Students have begun studying their various languages of Japanese, French and Indonesian and are engaging with an immersion in another culture through the subtleties and complexities of its language.

I look forward to sharing more with you about the Senior School’s journey in this section of the newsletter throughout the year.

Holly Wright (Senior Site)

INTERNATIONAL BACCALAUREATE LEARNER PROFILES & WORDS OF WISDOM

IB LEARNERS ARE:

INQUIRERS, KNOWLEDGEABLE, THINKERS, COMMUNICATORS, PRINCIPLED, OPEN-MINDED, CARING, REFLECTIVE, BALANCED and RISK-TAKERS.

I have no special talent; I am only passionately curious. – Albert Einstein

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PRESCHOOL NEWS

What a fantastic start to the Preschool year we have had with all our beautiful Pre-schoolers settling in well to their new classroom environments. We have enjoyed getting to know the children and building relationships with all the families.

The first few weeks of Preschool focuses on new routines and expectations, whilst building upon the children’s confidence in new and social settings. We are starting to explore our Term one Unit of Inquiry Who We Are, using quality literature books to understand that people are unique, and that we all play a role within relationships.

Reminders: • Please don’t forget to label all items, including lunch containers and drink bottles. • Your child’s teacher will be posting pictures and announcements on the Seesaw App so please ensure that you are connected using your individual QR code.

We thank you all for your continued support to maintain social distance measures and signing in via the CBR app each time you enter the Preschool premises. We look forward to a fun year together!

Preschool Team

Week One &

Two Fun!

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JUNIOR SITE NEWS

Music Specialist music lessons started this week, with students in years 1 to 6 beginning to think about who we are as musicians in the music classroom. For the rest of this term, and into term 2, we will be examining what musicians do – it’s more than just singing or playing an instrument! As always, we will be learning through songs and rhymes, movement, and games.

On Wednesday the year 5 students sat an aptitude test for the school band. A letter was sent home to all year families last week, outlining the testing process, as well as the benefits of being a part of the band. Students who were absent on Wednesday will have an opportunity to be tested next week, and as soon as all results are in, letters will be sent out to 22 lucky students, inviting them to join the band.

A reminder also, that at Gold Creek we are lucky to have professional instrument instruction through Musicorp, who visit the school during the week. If you are interested, brochures are available at the front office.

Jaki Fraser

PE Gold Creek Junior School welcomed back all students to the PE classroom during week 2 and it was great to see so many eager students participating in our first unit of learning which focuses on team and belonging. The PE specialists for 2021 are Anthony Dimoski and Tim van Dalen.

The key events in PE for term 1 will be the school swimming carnival, and netball. The school swimming carnival will be held on Wednesday 24 February (week 4) and will be held at Big Splash in Macquarie. This year students will not only have the chance to compete in their age group for age championships, but will also have the opportunity to have some more fun with novelty events and a selection of slides that will be available throughout the day. On the 2 March (week 5), Gold Creek Junior School will compete in the Primary Legends Shield (Rugby League) and on the 24 March (week 8), the school will be competing in the Years 3 and 4 Netball Gala Day (north ).

As always students are remined to check the PE notice board for any upcoming events or speak with either Mr. Dimoski or Mr. van Dalen. For parents and carers it is important to note that all sport and PE activities conducted throughout 2021 will be compliant with COVID-19 safe recommendations, this will mean that some changes to how sport and PE events are conducted will need to be undertaken, these will be communicated ahead of time.

Kind regards Tim Van Dalen

Japanese Year 6 students spent their first week in Japanese celebrating the New Year by making ema, a wooden wishing plaque often displayed at shrines in Japan. Sold at shrines in a range of designs, people hang them up after writing their wishes on it. Many students like to wish for success with their exams and studies. Other common wishes include good health, safety, and love. We have decorated our ema with motifs considered lucky for the New Year, including the ox to celebrate the coming of the 2021 Lunar New Year.

Anita Lenug

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Korean This is year is an exciting year for Korean at Gold Creek! Not only is it the first time the Year 1 students begin learning a second language, but Gold Creek School is now the only school in the ACT offering Korean for primary and high school students. Last year’s Year 6 students have now transitioned into high school and Korean will be offered to students at the Senior Site. 2021 also marks the 60-year anniversary of friendship between Korea and making it an exciting year for students who have begun their learning journey in Korean.

Nam Kim

Year 2

Year 2C have been investigating the connections they have to other countries and have put flags on the wall that show what they found out. Can you see a flag you know? Do you know the flag of any other country?

Libby Glasgow (junior site)

SRC This year we have started the GCS SRC (Student Representative Council) on the junior site. The GCS SRC supports the inclusion of student voice and leadership across the primary site. This will allow students to develop their leaderships skills as well demonstrate the IB Learner Profile Attributes. The SRC will work closely with the school captains and teachers to implement student voice and actions in areas of the school community. This week all interested students (105 in total), met with Ms Bull and talked about what it would mean to be an SRC representative. The SRC is made up of one student for each class. We would like to congratulate the following students for being selected as their class representative for term 1. Each team there will be a new student selected.

Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5/6

Ella Dana Lola Will Olive Rose Amelia James Natalie Parissa Evelyn Indie Jasmine Katelyn Semyon Axel Kylie Lillian Phoebe Jacob Bella Renae

Bec Bull Year 2 7 | P a g e

SENIOR SITE NEWS

PHE Welcome to another action-packed year for the Physical and Health Education (PHE) team. Supporting your PHE & Sport journey for 2021 we have: Brent Felix, Aaron Harding, Tash White, Izzy D’Ambrosio, Hamish McDonald (Outdoor Education) and Brad Lynch as the acting SLC.

It has been a busy start to the semester conducting our annual fitness tests. We do this at the start of every year so students get a get a base line for their fitness results, and then use these results to develop fitness goals and fitness plans for the year through their Criteria B – Planning for Performance and Criteria D – Reflection assessment tasks. Each term, students will get the opportunity to retest to track their performance.

Since 2020, we have started a record board for each test for both male and female students. Congratulations to the following students who broke the records for each year group. We look forward to seeing your performances on the sporting field this year!

Test Student Result Year Beep Test Joshua Lobo 11.7 7 Beep Test Khoa Hoang 11.5 8 Beep Test Jessica Pearson 8.4 7 30 meter sprint Joshua Lobo 4.36 secs 7 30 meter sprint James Gao 4.34 secs 8 30 meter sprint Annalise Stockl 4.88 secs 7 Illinois Agility Test Joshua Lobo 18.73 secs 7 Illinois Agility Test Elizabeth Gillion 18.03 secs 8 Illinois Agility Test Laelani Dunn 19.54 10 Push Up's (minute) Yaroslav Malakhov 43 8 Push Up's (minute) Lachlan Jewell 51 9 Wall Sit Braydon Bolton 12:02 mins 7 Standing Long Jump Erson Santiago 255cm 8

Next week our students will start their first units of work. Year 7 and 8 will be focusing on Cultural Games and Fundamental Skills, whilst our senior students will start their first Health units. Year 9 will be exploring Nutrition, and Year 10 will be focusing on Sex and Ethics.

Practical classes At GCS PHE we value personal hygiene and self-care. With this in mind, we ask that ALL students bring with them to practical lessons:

• Water bottle (refillable) • Hat + sunscreen (and if necessary, sunglasses for outside activities) • the navy blue GCS PE top • Suitable footwear for active participation on surfaces. Unfortunately, some of the currently ‘trendy sand shoes’ provide no structural support for growing feet, muscles, bones and joints, and limit students to perform at their best. They are also a safety issue for student injuring themselves by rolling on their ankles. • Personal asthma and severe allergy medication We DO NOT allow the use of aerosol deodorants inside buildings. Aerosols leave behind invisible particles that hang in the air causing severe allergic reactions for several of our GCS population. For this reason, we encourage the purchase of roll on deodorants for students to use.

Swimming Carnival The Senior School Swimming Carnival will be held on Thursday 25 February at Big Splash Water Park. It is a great opportunity for students to display their swimming ability, display team spirit and continue to build on newly formed friendships. All students are expected to attend as the whole school will relocate to the pool for the day. Students are encouraged to dress in house colours to support their respective House on the day.

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Students are to bring swimmers, towel, sunscreen, food/water and any other items they might need for swimming. Appropriate clothing/ swimwear needs to be worn on the day.

Swim test: Students will participate in a swim test to determine their swimming ability and be given an appropriate coloured wrist band (proficient swimmer or non-proficient swimmer) before free time after the carnival concludes. Non-proficient swimmers are still able to access the slides at Big Splash but are unable to access the 50m swimming pool.

Kiosk The kiosk will be open from 11:30am- 1:30pm. Students can pre purchase food (order by accessing the following link: https://roller.app/bigsplashwaterpark/products/schoolsmealsinternal#/) or on the day via card payments only. They will NOT be accepting cash on the day.

COVID-19 Big Splash have developed a COVID-19 plan for schools, this can be accessed on their website for more information (https://bigsplashwaterpark.com.au/covid-terms-and-conditions/). Students have received the excursion notes in their PHE classes. If your child hasn’t received their note, please ask them to collect it from the PE office. All forms need to be returned to the front office by Thursday 18 February. From the PHE team!

Gold Creek School Sport

My name is Brad Lynch and I will be coordinating School Sport for Gold Creek in 2021. Gold Creek will be participating in the School Sport ACT competitions that are held during the school day against other ACT High Schools.

If your son/ daughter would like to trial to be selected for a team at GCS, they will first need to register/ sign up to each of the sports they would like to trial for. These lists have been placed on the noticeboard in the gym. These lists will be available until Tuesday week 3. It is important that students register their interest in the sport. If there is not enough interest, the school will not be holding a trial or placing a team in this competition.

There will be two ways students will be notified when each of the sporting trials will be taking place: • During PC time via the Daily Bulletin (notices read out by the PC teacher) • Gold Creek School Sport Google classroom page (students can sign up to the classroom page using the following code: kk7phok

The main form of communication for school sport will be through the google classroom page. Trial information, team selection, training sessions will be communicated through this page by myself or the other staff coaches.

Excursion notes: Once selected for a team, students will receive an excursion note and a medical form to be signed. These notes must be filled out, signed, and returned to the Front Office. Please do not return these notes to the coach, teacher or PC teacher. In an effort to assist organisation and staffing, there will be a strict cut-off date for the return of these notes. This will be one week before the event. If we do not have enough notes returned by this date to safely compete on the day, the team will be withdrawn from the event.

School Sport costs:

• If the sport is a School Sport ACT sanctioned event, the cost to participate will be $10. This charge is a levy set by School Sport ACT for all students participating in their sporting competitions to cover venue/ court hire, referee/ umpire costs, administration, and Sports Medicine ACT trainers at all events. • If the sport is on the Community calendar, it is up to the individual ACT sports association to charge their own cost to run the competition. Some of these competitions have a cost, some do not.

An example of this would be: • ACT Badminton – they hire the ANU courts, have umpires officiate the games, hire a sports trainer for the day. Schools are then charged a team cost which is then passed onto the student. 9 | P a g e

• – run the day with their development officers and the organisation covers the cost for the field hire, sports trainers, referees. Therefore, there is no cost to the student (using last year as an example).

School Bus When possible, the school bus will be booked for School Sport (if available). This will incur a $4 transport cost. Sometimes there are reasons why the school bus is unable to be used (to many teams/students participating on the day to all fit on the bus, staff unavailable to drive the bus, bus is booked for another excursion).

Semester 1 Sports The following sports below have been confirmed to run during semester one. Gold Creek students will also participate in the North Schools and ACT events for Swimming and Cross Country (by qualifying through the school events) on: Secondary Combined Swimming – Wednesday 31 March ACT 12&U Swimming – Wednesday 28 April ACT 13&O Swimming – Wednesday 5 May Secondary North Schools Cross Country – Wednesday 26 May ACT 13&O Combined Cross Country Championships – Wednesday 16 June

Week Day Sport Year Group Gender 4 Monday 22nd Feb Tennis 7-10 Both 5 Thursday 4th March Touch Football 7-8 & 9-10 Boys 5 Thursday 4th March Touch Football 7-8 & 9-10 Girls 6 Wednesday 10th March Water Polo 7-10 Boys 6 Wednesday 10th March Beach Volleyball 7-8 & 9-10 Boys/ Girls Term 1 6 Friday 12th March ACT Softball 7-8 & 9-10 Boys 7 Tuesday 16th March 7-8 & 9-10 Boys 7 Wednesday 17th March Water Polo 7-10 Girls 7 Friday 19th March Softball 7-8 & 9-10 Girls 8 Monday 22nd March ACT Futsal 7-8 & 9-10 Boys 8 Monday 22nd March ACT Futsal 7-8 & 9-10 Girls 8 Tuesday 23rd March Basketball 7-8 & 9-10 Girls

3 Monday 3rd May ACT Golf 7-10 Both 3 Tuesday 4th May Buroinjin 7-8 & 9-10 Boys/ Girls 3 Friday 7th May Volleyball 7-8 & 9-10 Girls Term 2 6 Wednesday 26th May Rugby Union 7's 7-8 & 9-10 Boys 7 Wednesday 2nd June Volleyball 7-8 & 9-10 Boys 7 Wednesday 2nd June Rugby Union 7's 7-8 & 9-10 Girls 8 Tuesday 8th June Rugby League 7-8 & 9-10 Boys 10 Wednesday 23rd June Hockey 7-8 & 9-10 Both

School Sport ACT Information regarding School Sport ACT will be on the Google Classroom. I will place information regarding trial dates for students to participate in the selection for ACT teams to participate in the School Sports Australia National Championships. I will also place this information in the school newsletters. If you would like to access the School Sport ACT page, please click the following link: 10 | P a g e

https://www.schoolsportact.asn.au/ If you would like to access the School Sport Australia page, please click the following link: http://www.schoolsportaustralia.edu.au/

Registering your child for trials School Sport ACT enters representative teams across 17 sports to attend School Sport Australia Championships each year. To register to attend a trial the parent must first register for an account. If you already have an account and for more information on opportunities available check out the Sports tab at the top of the School Sport ACT homepage for your specific sport. If you would like to register your child to trial, please click the following link: https://schoolsportact.org.au/parents-registration/

Upcoming School Sport ACT trial events:

Trial Start date: 11/02/2020 and 18/02/2020 ACT 18&U Location: Narrabundah Ballpark 3

http://www.schoolsportact.asn.au/

Trial date: 24/02/2020 ACT 18&U 9am - 1pm Canberra Tennis Centre Lyneham Tennis

http://www.schoolsportact.asn.au/

Maker Space now open at Gold Creek Join Mrs Machen and Mr Jurd on Monday afternoons from 3:15pm to 4:30pm at the Maker Space on the Senior Site in SG120 (South Building opposite the Woodwork rooms). Things we do:

• Learn to Code • Program a Robot and join our Robotics group • Design something for the Laser cutter or 3D Printer • Learn new skills and make new friends. • Join us in SG120 (opposite the Woodwork Classroom) from 3:15 pm to 4:30 pm on Monday afternoons.

Please ensure that you have arranged transport home from school at 4:30 pm.

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Science Experiment

Our SGP class performing a science experiment on Wednesday, launching mini missiles in the concourse.

COMMUNITY NEWS

GOLD CREEK SCHOOL BOARD ELECTIONS 2021

We want YOU for the GCS Board! If you’re keen to contribute to the governance of GCS, you should nominate for a position on the GCS Board. No prior experience is necessary.

The following positions are vacant:

• 1 x staff member positions; (2 year appointment) • 2 x P & C member positions; (2 year appointment) • 1 x student member positions; (2 year appointment - year 9 student)

Nominations open 11.00 am, Monday, 8 February 2021 and close on 11.00am Monday, 22 February 2021. You can pick up a nomination form from the GCS front offices on the junior and senior sites during normal business hours (9.00am to 3.00pm, Monday to Friday), or request one be emailed or faxed to you.

You can submit your nomination by:

• hand delivery to the GCS front offices and place it in the secure box. • email to margaret.o’[email protected] • mail to ARO, c/- GCS front office

For more information, contact the Assistant Returning Officer, Margaret O’Brien on 614 21301

Expression of Interest Expression of Interest for a Financial Literacy course that is taking place in Term 2. This course will be run over 2 days at school. It is open to students aged 15 years and over. Upon successful completion, students will be awarded a Certificate I in Financial Services. This is a great opportunity for students to learn about finances and provides skills for life. We have limited places, so please let me know if your young person would like to attend – the course is free. Contact: [email protected]

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THANK YOU SUPABARN! Once again Supbarn has come to the rescue in supplying the school with a $1500 donation to run our Breakfast Club. This is the second year in a row that they have been able to assist and without their contribution we would struggle to sustain the increasing costs associated with running such a valuable initiative.

Breakfast Club is a school-based club run by Student Services each Wednesday (Weeks 2 to 9) on the Senior Campus (Kitchen 2) from 8am to 8:40am. The aim is of the club is to provide a free breakfast to all students and allows staff (in particular, the Youth Worker, Eva) to connect with the attendees in a positive, safe, and relaxed environment.

It is wonderful to see first-hand the positive difference that this contribution makes to the overall health and well-being of our students. From the Students Services Team

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Hi everyone! We’ve had such a great first two weeks here at before and after school care. We’ve made a few changes and all the children seem to be jumping on board with them. The biggest of these changes being to the room for the older children. Rather than having two different spaces for them, we’ve combined them into one big room which allows us to offer different options to all children from grade 3 to 6. Just a gentle reminder to check your term 1 bookings, we may not be able to take walk ins throughout the term so it’s vital that you have bookings for when you require care. If you need some assistance in doing this or making amendments to your bookings, please feel free to contact me on the details below.

Parent Information

OSHClub Nicholls Phone: 0402 611 484 Program coordinator: Emma Wink OSHClub accounts: 1300 395 375 Program email: [email protected] All families must be enrolled to attend the program, remember enrolment is Free!! Please create an account online at www.oshclub.com.au. All bookings and cancellations can be managed via your online account. For on the day bookings please contact the Coordinators directly on the above number.

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