Newlands

Campus News

LEAP Week

The theme for this year’s LEAP week is Reconciliation and it will begin a week before National Reconciliation Week. There will be a broad range of activities and presentations for students and staff. Students can find the LEAP Week timetable of events displayed outside the library and on bulletin boards throughout the School.

Some of the highlights of LEAP Week are:

Junior School

• Junior School students will be guided to design their own personal Acknowledgement of Country.

• At the Junior School Assembly on Friday, students will be entertained by Didgeridoo Australia who present engaging educational programs on Australia’s First People for schools.
  

Middle School

• The $20 Boss Market and Environment Club Recycled Goods stalls will run again in the Boys Middle School Quad. All proceeds will be donated to a selected charity.

• On Friday, students will be entertained by our student buskers at the market.

• Lionel Launch, CEO of Living Culture and a proud Gunditjmara Kirrae Wurrung-Bundjalung man residing in his home country on the Mornington Peninsula will visit and give a presentation on Indigenous bush tucker and medicine plants.

• During the Middle School Assembly on Thursday, students will be introduced to a local Indigenous dance group from the City of Casey, Bandok Tati (Small Ant Bros). These young men range in age from 8 to 20 years old and will present traditional dances they have been taught by their elders, and talk to students.
  

• Art Club, Drama Club, Debating, National History Challenge, Tournament of the Minds and Compass all have sessions throughout LEAP Week.

All students and staff are welcome to come along, find out more about these amazing programs and join in the activities here.

Early Learning Centre

Linguistic diversity within the ELC

Newlands campus has many bilingual children and families within our ELC community. We proudly deliver a Mandarin program to the Pre-Prep children who continue their learning in Junior School.

During a recent staff professional development day, Linton Roe, a Language Education Consultant, presented information and research highlighting the importance of maintaining children’s first language. A recent analysis of NAPLAN results shows bilingual learners outperform other learners in literacy, numeracy and in learning and cognitive performance generally. Our educators have many practical ideas on how to support children’s home language in the English-speaking ELC environment.

Activities for Mother’s Day

The children took great delight in welcoming their mothers and special friends to an afternoon of activities to celebrate Mother’s Day and the children were encouraged to share their knowledge about their mums and special friends with their classmates.

Alex: “Mum is 10. She likes to work and always eats carrots. I like to play with her.”

Elijah: “My mum always wants mushrooms and carrots and she is a beautiful girl.”

Leon: “Mum likes to cuddle me and eat happy meals.”

Vinya: “I love my mum because she makes me milk in the night.”

We thank HPFK for providing the children with the opportunity to purchase gifts for their mums at the annual Mother’s Day stall.

Junior School

Junior School celebrations

Junior School celebrated a wonderful Mother’s Day afternoon last Friday. Mums arrived for a delicious afternoon tea and catch up, before heading off to take part in a multitude of activities. Mothers collected their children from classrooms before setting off to areas around the school to play games like Can You Draw It? and to make art and craft masterpieces and complete challenges together.

It was an enjoyable end to the school week and the students loved being able to share it with their mums. We hope all mums had a lovely Mother’s Day and were truly spoilt.

Middle School

Middle School exam Help Desk

During Weeks 3 and 4 students will be offered Help Desk sessions for all subjects involving an examination.

A schedule has been sent to students offering sessions in person during lunchtime or after school from 5:00 pm – 5:30 pm on Zoom.

We strongly recommend students meet with teachers to gain feedback.

Environment Club recycle stall

Students in the Environment Club are running a recycled goods stall during LEAP week from Monday, 22 to Friday, 26 May. They would like to collect donated goods in clean condition to sell. All money from the stall will be donated to a wildlife charity.

Collection tubs will be in the foyer at Berthon Hall until Friday, 19 May.

Aerobics regional winners

Our Newlands Years 5–8 Dance and Aerobics teams went to Rowville Secondary College and competed in the Regional Competition recently and we are pleased to announce that many teams will be going through to the State Finals in June.

Results:

Mother’s Day Breakfast

What a wonderful, record-breaking turnout for the first Mother’s Day and special friends breakfast at the leafy green Southern Golf Club. It was a special morning with guests treated to a light breakfast against a backdrop of beautiful music and surrounds.

Well done and thank you to all involved for your tremendous effort celebrating this special day.

Mark Harrop

Acting Head of Newlands (Keysborough)

Lenice Norris
President, Haileybury Parents & Friends Keysborough