Campus News
Congratulations Year 8s
Congratulations to our graduating Year 8 students who have moved to Pre-Senior for Term 1A. Our School Captains, Timothy Dang and Ellie Gianakis, were excellent role models for their peers and I commend them for their efforts.
Indeed, the way in which every student conducted themselves throughout the year is highly commendable and yet another indication of the true spirit of this remarkable Year 8 cohort.
I remind them to reflect on the past and to look forward to the many opportunities available in the future. Our students are well prepared for entry into Pre-Senior and Newlands will remain part of their journey.
Orientation Days
With the easing of COVID-19 restrictions, we are pleased to conduct our student Orientation Days in preparation for 2022. The dates are as follows:
Saturday, 27 November—ELC students
Thursday, 25 November and Friday, 3 December—Prep students
Friday, 3 December—all current and new students
Information sessions:
Monday, 22 November—Middle School information webinar
Tuesday, 30 November—Prep information session via Zoom
All information has
been communicated to families via the myHaileybury app.
Early Learning Centre
Nipping Bias in the Bud
Newlands ELC educators recently attended a professional development evening presented by Alistair Gibbs. Alistair is an Early Learning Manager for Gowrie Victoria and is the Vice-President of the Victorian Branch of Early Childhood Australia.
He is a renowned advocate for inclusive environments and has a particular interest in Anti-Bias curriculum. He received the 2018 Anti-Bias Award from the Social Justice in Early Childhood Foundation.
During his thought-provoking presentation, he challenged how educators approach anti-bias themes within early childhood. He raised staff awareness into analysing how environments are established, how language is used and how picture books convey information to children.
Newlands ELC educators will continue their journey with Alistair next year and will audit the Centre’s resources. As staff reflect and strengthen their understanding and knowledge in this area, they will share the outcomes with families and the wider community.
PMP in the ELC
This year, Haileybury Chair of Athletics Mark Reed has trialled an innovative Perceptual Motor Program (PMP) with the Pre-Prep children. Mark wrote the Program and has involved the children in weekly activities to enhance their gross motor, eye-hand and eye-foot coordination. Children have been able to build their sense of balance, visual motor skills and their body and spatial awareness.
This Program has been an outstanding success in supporting children’s physical development and their ability to use their senses to interact with their surroundings. It will be extended to Reception classes next year.
Junior School
Wild Action Zoo
In the final weeks of online learning, Prep students were treated to a Zoo Zoom by TV Zoologist Chris Humfrey at Wild Action Zoo. Chris introduced different native Australian animals to the Preps who’d been learning about them in their Inquiry unit.
Chris shared his passion and knowledge about Australian animals with the students and explained how we can help the animals around Keysborough. He introduced students to a giant burrowing cockroach—much to the dismay of the teachers!
He then toured his personal zoo and introduced a variety of other native species. The session ended with an interesting question and answer session.
Year 3 Students Takes HEART
Year 3 students participated in a ‘Zoom-cursion’ by youth leadership experts yLead. The program aimed to support next year’s Junior School leaders who were introduced to HEART—an anacronym that helps define good leaders:
H elpful: looking out for everyday actions that enrich the lives of others
E veryday Heroes: identifying attributes of role models and how to recreate those individually
A ware and Active: becoming more aware of personal strengths and how they can be used to take positive action as a leader
R espectful Relationships: tips to create and maintain positive and respectful connections
T eam player: the importance of working with others in an encouraging and supportive environment.
Students thoroughly enjoyed this experience and look forward to leading by example.
Staying Safe in Every Way
This term, the Year 4s have been participating in sessions dedicated to their health and development. Sex Education Australia’s (SEA) health and human development programs help students gain age-appropriate information about growing up, puberty, body safety, anatomy and reproduction.
The focus of the
program is on young people getting accurate information that will help keep
them physically, socially and emotionally safe and healthy. SEA is inclusive
and respectful of the wide-ranging values and beliefs that families have and
this is an important part of the Year 4 Child Health and Safety curriculum.
Middle School
StartUp Showcase Success for Newlands
The second annual StartUp Pitch Showcase event for Haileybury was hosted by the Head of Entrepreneurship, Mr Damien Meunier. It showcased entrepreneurial pitches from 10 groups across Newlands, City, Edrington, Castlefield and Darwin, with each group presenting their unique and ingenious business ideas.
The pitches were judged by a distinguished panel, namely the Principal |CEO of Haileybury, Mr Derek Scott and Ms Anna Sever, Mr Simon Terry and Ms Felicity Furey.
The comprehensive feedback from each judge highlighted the outstanding quality of pitches and made the process of picking a winning group for the Year 8 boys and girls extremely difficult.
The winning team for the boys voted was VIPT from the City campus. The VIPT group is seeking to develop a rideshare service app that assists the visually impaired and was inspired by wanting to help one of their peers.
For the girls, our very own Newlands team consisting of Ellie Gianakis, Ruby Molnar, Zoe Berends and Brooke Lew, took out first place with Coco Cosmetics. This group recognised a gap within the market to create a tinted acne cream that is an alternate solution to covering up breakouts with makeup. The cream also acts as a cleanser, covering up any red spots while simultaneously helping to eliminate them. It can be customised to suit different complexions. The group’s vision is to create an organic, vegan-friendly product, with an SPF rating of 30+ and subtle scent, that is backed by dermatologists. The passion and determination shown by this group throughout their StartUp journey has been exceptional. We hope to see this business idea get off the ground one day!
Well done to all the teams involved and to their StartUp teachers who helped each group produce a quality pitch.
Mr Whippy and Roller-Dancing
Thankfully, with the easing of some Government COVID restrictions, we could hold some events to celebrate the end of Middle School and the end of the Newlands journey for our students. We have been incredibly proud of how this year level has been able to step up and lead in spite of so many changes to their learning throughout 2021.
In their final week, they enjoyed a pool session in our Haileybury Grenda Aquatic Centre and an excursion to Caribbean Rollarama for some 80s inspired roller-dancing fun. On their Graduation Day, they watched some beautiful heartfelt farewells from teachers while enjoying a lovely lunch and ice cream from Mr Whippy—thanks to the HPFK!
We wish all our Year 8s a wonderful and successful journey into Pre-senior and beyond.
The Year 7 boys celebrated the end of their academic year in style. After what has been a challenging year, the students were excited to complete their final examinations and enjoy a range of fun and engaging activities.
At the Aqua Park, students bounced, slipped and splashed their way along bridges, down slides, over trampolines and through different barrels of doom. As the clouds cleared, students also planned, built and tested solar powered vehicles. A highlight was seeing the students cheering on their vehicles in the Boys Middle School Quad, as they raced to find any available sunlight.
As part of the post examination days, the Year 7 boys welcomed The Man Cave presenters back to Newlands. This workshop focused on guiding students to build healthy relationships across all domains of their life. It explored conflict resolution, how to empathise with others and what is means to have a respectful relationship. From these experiences, students will transition to Year 8 with the tools and resources to support their personal wellbeing.
The Year 8 students enjoyed their final graduation lunch on Friday 12 November in the Sports Hall. It was a wonderful way to celebrate their completion of Year 8 and get together for one last time. While the rain teamed down outside, students were able to sit together and reflect on their time at Newlands, shoot some hoops with each other and be entertained by a final rap send off from the Big Jaya, Fitness Tiem and their dance crew. Mr Whippy arrived on time to provide ice-cream delights and then students retreated to their homerooms to watch the graduation video that was recorded earlier in the week. As a special treat, staff had also made a farewell video with some classic ‘send offs’ and ‘visual gags’ that was well-received by all. The afternoon finished with the traditional final ‘walk out’ with all the Year 8 students marching out of the BMS Quad, led by the Pipes and Drums with every BMS student from Years 5-7 forming a guard of honour and applauding them. It was a just reward for our students who have been through so much in the last two years. Well done to them all.
As our Grade 6s missed their camp due to lockdowns over the past two years, five days of incredible experiences have been arranged for them over the last few weeks of term. Please keep an eye out for the Consent2Go and further communication regarding these events.
Jane Gibbs
Head of Newlands (Keysborough)
Haileybury Parents & Friends Keysborough (HPFK)
HPFK Christmas Stall
We are very excited to announce that the HPFK Christmas Stall will be held on campus on Thursday, 2 December. Gifts are priced from $1 to $5 and we ask that students bring monies for the stall in a zip-lock bag. All Junior School students will visit the Christmas Stall during the day.
HPFK Uniform Shop
We are finally on Instagram! Please search for haileybury_hpfk and follow us. Our first 100 members will be entered into a draw to win a bottle of Veuve Clicquot Champagne.
If you would like to connect with our Facebook community, please join our Facebook page by clicking here:
If you have any queries, or would like to contact the HPFK, please email: HPFK@haileybury.vic.edu.au.
Lenice Norris
President, Haileybury Parents & Friends Keysborough
