In today's world, where the internet plays an integral role in education and entertainment, ensuring the safety of our children and young people online is of paramount importance. As we embrace technology for its innumerable benefits, we must also be vigilant about protecting our children from potential risks that accompany online interactions.
The internet offers a vast world of knowledge and opportunities, but it also exposes children and young people to various dangers such as cyberbullying, inappropriate content, online predators, and scams. These risks emphasise the necessity of educating ourselves and our children about cybersafety practices.
At school we are committed to promoting cybersafety through education programs and workshops. In Term 1 our Cycle 4 students participated in their annual SAPOL workshop as part of their Wellbeing Conference. This term Cycle 3 have worked through a program with their teachers and Alice Bradley (Wellbeing Worker). In Term 3 Cycle 2 students will also work through an age appropriate program with their teachers and Alice. The ongoing lessons, skills and conversations will help equip our students with the knowledge and skills they need to navigate the online world responsibly and safely.
The Australian Parenting website outlines the four main risks of internet safety for children:
https://raisingchildren.net.au/school-age/media-technology/online-safety/internet-safety-6-8-years
Content risks: For school-age children these risks include things that they might find upsetting, disgusting or otherwise uncomfortable.
Contact risks: These risks include children coming into contact with people they don’t know or with adults posing as children online.
Conduct risks: These risks include children acting in ways that might hurt others or being the victim of this kind of behaviour.
Contract risks: These risks include children signing up to contracts, membership agreements, or terms and conditions that they aren’t aware of or don’t understand.
As a school, we encourage parents to:
· actively engage in open and honest discussions about cybersafety at home
· establish clear guidelines regarding screen time and the types of websites and apps your child/young person can access
· monitor your child/young person’s online activities periodically to ensure they are adhering to your guidelines
· teach your children about the importance of safeguarding personal information such as their full name, address, school details, and passwords
· remind your child/young person never to share such personal information with strangers online
· help your child/young person to distinguish between reliable and unreliable sources of information online
· discuss the impact of cyberbullying with your child/young person and encourage them to report any instances of bullying, whether they are the victim or a bystander
· utilise parental control tools available on devices and internet browsers to restrict access to inappropriate content and monitor online activities
The school has a Screentime Guidelines document that we encourage parents to read and use as a guide for your family around using devices outside of school. You can access that document here.
An excellent resource for schools and parents is the eSaftey Commissioner’s website: https://www.esafety.gov.au/ which provides very helpful information and an array of resources.
By working together as a community, we can work towards mitigating the risks associated with online activities to create a safe online environment to enable our children and young people to reap the benefits of the internet safely.
Cathy France
Principal
In Week 7 at the Sharing Assembly, Sue from St Vincent de Paul Society visited and spoke at the assembly to convey her appreciation for the generosity of our community. For several years now our school has donated food to St Vincent de Paul for their Christmas Hampers. With the cost of living crisis hitting more and more families and other vulnerable members of our local community many families are struggling and/or experiencing poverty.
St Vincent de Paul provide immediate, emergency assistance and they can also provide long term support. At Christmas time, their hampers provide a window of relief for families doing it tough.
We thank our school community for their generosity each year in donating food for the Vinnies Christmas hampers. This is a very worthwhile cause that our school will continue to support into the future.
Last week we held our first ever event for members of The Hills Montessori School Foundation (HMSF). A small group of HMSF members gathered for drinks and nibbles at Wairoa. It was wonderful to come together with past parents, staff, old scholars and current staff and parents. Meg Barker (past parent and HMSF member) was the guest speaker and breifly spoke about the impact that The Hills Montessori School has had on her and her family's life.
Here is an excerpt from Meg's speech...
"It's hard to describe our first response to Montessori from surprise; 'We didn't realise school could be like this', to relief, 'At last, like minded families and leaders who created a sense of belonging'.
We had found our flock, a bunch of beautiful, colourful, big and small birds all flying together. That sense of belonging galvanises your parenting, gives you confidence that home and school can be in step"......
"A bit like the new world Maria Montessori faced at the end of WWII, our new world will require a radical reset for the restoration generation and it's my view that Montessori schooling offers this chance to young people."
We encourage current and past students, parents, staff, friends and supporters to become a member of the HMSF and enjoy a lifelong connection with the School. We hope the HMSF will give everyone the opportunity to actively contribute and stay connected to a community that represents part of their identity.
You can become a HMSF member by visiting the HMSF webpage https://www.montessori.sa.edu.au/foundation/ and completing the membership form along with a one-off payment of $150.
You might like to make a tax deductible donation before the end of this financial year. You can visit the Hills Montessori School Foundation webpage at this link to make a one off or recurring donation. Every gift, large or small, will help us achieve our vision to achieve financial sustainability and opportunities for our young people into the future. Your involvement and generosity will help us create an exceptional future for Montessori education and our school.
We invite you to make a tax deductible donation if you are able to or would like to.
Over the past few weeks in Infant Program we have been enjoying the beautiful book ‘Whoever You Are’ by Mem Fox. This book explores the diversity of childhood all over the world. To extend this, we have had the opportunity to create faces using the loose parts. We have loved seeing the diversity of everyone’s artworks.
On the shelves, we have enjoyed many hands on learning experiences including sorting, stacking, ordering and pre-writing activities.
The favourite practical life experience over the past few weeks has been making juice from fresh oranges. We have really enjoyed the cutting and squeezing but mostly loved the drinking!
This term we have had a primary focus on the cultural area of botany. This has included a large variety of activities exploring all things plants!
An extension of this has been to also focus on plants as part of our Practical Life Curriculum -care of the environment and food preparation.
Students have been engaged in preparing plants for food and nutrition. We have juiced oranges from Susan’s tree, peeled and cut fruits and vegetables and particularly enjoyed fruit salad. We have also used our skills to cook and spread toast – warming in this cooler weather!
Students have also been caring for the plants inside our environment – observing, watering them, cleaning their leaves and observing their growth. One of our favourite flowers has the most beautiful pink flowers at this time of year.
Students have also enjoyed propagating plants from seed and working in our garden. We have planted and watched grow: snow peas, broad beans and sugar snaps, which will then be transplanted into the preschool vegetable garden.
All of these activities help students develop their connection to their environment, and a care for living things whilst also developing their concentration, coordination,hand strength and control.
In Cycle 1, students explored the world of magnets and electricity through hands-on experiments and observations. They created a roller battery using two round magnets, magnetised a needle to make a compass that turned a foil boat to face north, and explored static electricity with balloons! Students also built electrical circuits, discovering the flow of electricity and its power to illuminate and connect the world around them. Through these activities, they developed essential skills in scientific inquiry, critical thinking, and problem-solving.
This term Cycle 2 has been very busy undertaking research on topics about the natural world, examining lines, shapes and angles in geometry, preparing for our winter solstice celebration, determining if we have a real life meteorite in our classroom and exploring states of matter.
We have been learning that there are different states in which matter can be found: liquid, solid, and gas. All these states are the result of the addition or removal of heat.
Solid is a hard matter with molecules that group tightly together, liquid is a state of matter where molecules take the shape of the container they are in and gas molecules move freely about. We have drawn models of how molecules look in each state and even created a states of matter dance interpreting the space between molecules with solid, liquid and gas dance moves.
We have experimented with water in all its states, making ice and clouds. This inspired a whole range of experiments and activities including growing our own crystals and making jelly for our winter solstice party.
Quotes from students:
"Angles are all different. There are acute, right, straight and obtuse angles." Eleanor
"I'm researching black holes. NASA think more than a million black holes could exist." Albie
"Hair is a solid and the ocean is a liquid." Tanush
"The jelly and popcorn were good at our solstice party. It was so warm in my PJ's." Soraya
"We are trying to make crystals in a jar." Henry
"A hexagon is a polygon, it has six sides." Alice
"We made lanterns, I got to take mine home. I had it on the kitchen table while we had dinner." Zeke
Montessori Young Entrepreneurs is in full swing, and excitement is in the air! Our students are diving into the world of business by forming small action teams dedicated to creating sustainable products. These products are designed to help people live more sustainably or be made from sustainable materials.
Each action team functions like a mini-business, with students taking on key management roles including Leader, Marketing Manager, Design Manager, Production Manager, and Finance Manager. Every role comes with its own set of responsibilities, giving students a hands-on experience in various aspects of running a business.
As part of the Montessori Young Entrepreneurs program and the ‘Going Out’ initiative, students recently visited the Stirling Library in their respective roles to gain insights from a guest speaker. Leaders engaged in discussions about team dynamics and tackled real-world challenges. Production Managers delved into the complexities of manufacturing processes, while Finance Managers refined their financial planning skills and Marketing Managers honed in on promotional strategies.
So far, the teams have brainstormed and developed their products, conducted market research, and chosen business names. They presented their ideas in a thrilling 'Dolphin Tank' session, where they pitched for business loans and received valuable feedback from our esteemed panel: Cathy, Paul, Sam, and Christine.
Currently, students are in the refining phase, incorporating feedback, solving production issues, and perfecting their logos. Their goal is to kick off production at the start of Term 3 and gear up for a sustainability market happening mid-Term 3. Stay tuned for more updates as our young entrepreneurs bring their sustainable visions to life!
All the world’s a stage, and all the Wairoa students merely players…
It’s that time again: the Coffeehouse Cabaret is upon us. One of our more significant events of the year, Cabaret is a showcase event, not only of our students’ abilities on stage, but also of their abilities to be flexible, resourceful, and compassionate collaborators. Our students host; perform; run sound and lighting; create props, costumes and sets; cater; and produce publicity materials. If it gets done for Cabaret, a student is doing it.
With links to most learning areas, our Coffeehouse Cabaret is rich soil for student growth, and many of our students cite it as a formative part of their time with us.
In 2024, our theme is Try Not to Laugh, and will feature a variety of acts, including magic tricks, music performances, classic comedy skits, Dr. Seuss-inspired acts, original poetry readings, as well as the one-act play Little Red Reboot.
All Montessori families are invited along to Coffeehouse Cabaret. Delicious meals are served throughout the night, and guests are encouraged to bring something to drink. Tickets are now on sale for this catered evening of fun and frivolity - though they’re selling fast!
During our music lessons, students practice several cross-curricular skills. Classes have been writing notes onto musical staves within set frameworks of time, reading lyrics and/or if they’re beginning readers, following the words with their finger. We use musical rhythmic figures as a means of accessing numbers and maths concepts. We have discussed song meaning in the context of culture and begun to look at a musical timeline from 3500BC, to the current decade, highlighting the evolution of technologies via artifacts.
Students engage with song using their whole body and are beginning to discuss the value of taking your whole being inside of a song, as opposed to being an external observer only loosely partaking.
The first semester is heavily peppered with a deeper engagement with the music elements of rhythm, beat and structure. In the second semester, students will focus and engage more on the melodic and harmonic aspects of music, culminating in the end of year concerts.
Cycle 2: Mastering Algorithms and Block Coding
Cycle 2 students have dived into the world of algorithms, using Beebots to experiment with sequenced instructions and patterns. Their challenge was to navigate a Beebot through a maze, helping them grasp the basics of block coding while honing their problem-solving skills. Through fun and engaging coding games on Code.org, an educational computer science platform for kids, they developed their coding abilities further.
Cycle 3: Delving into Game Design
Cycle 3 students have been utilising design thinking processes to explore how games are designed, created, and played.
To start, students reviewed a variety of educational and age-appropriate Scratch games, analysing what makes a game enjoyable and effective. They focused on elements such as audience, narrative, graphics, audio, sound effects, and game controls. Using this understanding, they developed ideas, mapped out plans, and created and refined their own games using Scratch. This project will continue into Term 3 and when complete they will showcase their creations to their peers, demonstrating the knowledge and skills they've acquired.
Special Projects: 3D Modelling with TinkerCAD
Additionally, two small groups of students opted to create 3D models using TinkerCAD to present their learning from a science investigation. They quickly mastered the art of working in three dimensions, overcoming challenges related to scale and precision. Their project included a mini excursion to Wairoa, where they had the opportunity to 3D print their models.
To help reach our fundraising goals, the school is once again taking part in the People First Community Lottery (originally known as the People's Choice Community Lottery).
We get to keep 100% from every $2 ticket sold and our goal is to sell enough tickets to raise at least $2500 to contribute towards improvements at both Yultiwirra and Wairoa.
Tickets are only $2 each and by buying from us, not only do you support us, you also go into the draw to win one of 52 prizes worth over $300,000.
Head to the link below to buy tickets. Each ticket is another entry to win!
Ways to pay:
Please feel free to also send this on to your family and friends. The Lottery closes on Thursday 25 July.
Thank you for helping us to meet our fundraising goals.
Thank you to our parent volunteers who assisted at the recent Bunnings Sausage Sizzle. We greatly appreciate you giving your time. We raised $1206 which will go towards our 2024 fundraising goals.
A note has been sent home in preparation for our Term 3 Sausage Sizzle in the 1st week of next term (Friday 26th July). Orders must be in by the last day of THIS term. Class Parent Reps are organising and hosting this special lunch for the students to celebrate the beginning of Term 3!