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 2 | P a g e 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. 3 | P a g e 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 4 | P a g e 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! 5 | P a g e 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.