Campus News
International Teachers’ Day
We thank all families for their generosity and kind messages of support to celebrate International Teachers’ Day. Our staff felt incredibly valued by our Haileybury Parents & Friends (HPF) community. It is a privilege to work with your children and young people and they continue to astound us with their resilience and commitment to their own learning in challenging times.
The smiles and kind messages from students and the invisible support from families behind the cameras has been inspiring. We are so grateful to be in partnership with our City families. Our staff returned the appreciation with a beautiful collection of messages to our parents that were uploaded to read over a virtual coffee.
Online Tours and Enrolments
The challenges of lockdowns have meant families interested in learning more about Haileybury City have been doing so online through our Virtual School Tours.
Our City Leadership Team and I showcased our ELC, Junior, Middle and Senior School programs to the many hundreds of people who visited our Online School Tours and also the thousand-plus people who viewed our Haileybury page.
At Haileybury City, we continue to run enrolment interviews on Zoom for families for 2022, 2023 and beyond. If you have friends waiting to see our campus in person, please encourage them to complete an application form so they are on the list and don’t miss out.
I am always delighted to show people around our campus—even virtually, as the view from the rooftop is still just as good!
Early Learning Centre
Shaking Up Our Emergent Curriculum
Children’s interests guide our emergent curriculum in the ELC and, following recent events in Melbourne, our investigations have shifted to natural phenomena, including earthquakes. Discussions have focused on what causes earthquakes and what we can do to keep safe during an earthquake.
Our ELC educators are incredibly skilled in discussing emergency evacuation procedures with children in a calm and age-appropriate way. They have introduced new language to explain procedures for ‘tucking under a table’ or ‘tucking like a turtle’ in the event of an earthquake and you may hear this language coming home.
Adaptability and Growth
The ELC children have transitioned well with the change to drop-off and pick-up procedures. There is an element of excitement from children who are now arriving and departing from our Basement and King Street entrances.
Each child’s independence has been highlighted as they pack, prepare and carry their bags to and from the ELC each day. The adaptability and growth seen throughout this year are extraordinary and something we celebrate and recognise each day as we reinforce these important skills.
Junior School
Enrichment Wednesday
Each Wednesday from 2.00 to 3.00 pm, students are given agency to carefully select a learning experience from our extensive list of options. From wellbeing and mindfulness activities to growth mindset and communication tasks, our students have a vast array of engaging and meaningful experiences to choose from.
‘Bucket filling’ and ‘Love Your Selfie’, where students drew a self-portrait and added positive hashtags to describe themselves, have been popular. The Most Magnificent Thing by Ashley Spires allows students to focus on the concept of resilience and identify it in the story.
In another activity, creative minds were unlocked when the children chose and then explored what that key unlocked. Our students are demonstrating their ability to be independent and to build on their creativity each Wednesday afternoon.
House Arts Event
We love the Arts at Haileybury City and on Monday in Week 4, Junior School students will be able to excel in one aspect of the Arts while also collaborating as a House. From 2.00 pm on that Monday, students will join their fellow peers in the House groups of Elliot, Main, Na and Newton. Each House will complete a creative task in either Art, Dance, Drama or Music.
The theme for the event will be based on the book Respect by Aunty Fay Muir and Sue Lawson. We look forward to our students’ creativity shining throughout the Junior School.
Middle School
Exciting Times Ahead
We have many exciting events planned for our students and wider community over the coming months and we are thrilled that many of these will be held face-to-face with our students.
Our Music Ensembles are looking forward to coming together and rehearsing in person in preparation for Speech Night, our young artists are getting their works ready for the upcoming City Exhibition, and all students are looking forward to Sport training and competing once more.
Our Middle School exams are coming up soon. The timetable has now been shared with students and revision material will be released on Monday, 18 October. We encourage our young people to set goals and to work hard on preparing for their Years 7 and 8 examinations.
As recognition of the completion of exams and everyone being back on campus, our Boys and Girls Middle School ‘Nights In’ will take place on the afternoon of Tuesday, 9 November. This will be followed by two days of special activities for Years 7 and 8 students to celebrate our Middle School community being together again.
Further information regarding these special Middle School events will be distributed to families on the myHaileybury app.
"And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer." —F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby.
Caroline Merrick
Head of City
Haileybury Parents & Friends City (HPF City)
International Teachers’ Day provided an opportunity for our City parents and carers to show their gratitude to all our wonderful teaching and support staff. Many families took time to express their thanks for the hard work and dedication in providing a positive, engaging and purposeful online education for our children. On behalf of the HPF City, we cannot thank our teachers enough.
We wish all our Year 12 students the very best in the lead-up to their final examinations. Your resilience and determination over the last two years of schooling is inspirational. No doubt this experience has developed your grit and ability to focus on the task at hand and to achieve your best and reach your goals now and in the future, despite external circumstances.
As a token of support, HPF City provided a small gift and card to each Year 12 student on the day of their General Achievement Test (GAT) on Tuesday, 5 October. We hope this brought you some comfort and helped you smile.
The HPF City Annual General Meeting will be held on Tuesday, 9 November from 7.30 to 9.00 pm via Zoom. If you would like to get involved as a Social Representative or as a member of the Executive Committee, please get in touch. All details are available via the myHaileybury app. We hope to see you there.
To the 2021 HPF City Executive Team, a very big ‘thank you’ for all your hard work and dedication in bringing our community together, fostering connections and for your thoughtful contributions during a challenging year.
Nina Brooks and Nadine Bissland
Co-Presidents, Haileybury Parents & Friends City
