FROM THE MIDDLE SCHOOL
Year 7 Grandparents’ and Friends’ Day
This morning Year 7 celebrated Grandparents’ and Friends’ Day with over 100 grandparents and friends spending the morning with our Year 7 students. At the assembly, guests received an insight into what have been some of this year’s highlights from our Year 7 students which included:
SOC2CITY – our out-of-the-classroom unit exploring the liveability of Launceston,
World Peace Game – which involved solving interlocking crises on the world (game) stage, and
The survival-themed Education Outdoors ‘Valley Life’ camp experience.
Our visitors also heard from some students, here is an excerpt of one of them:
“My name is Gina Kumar. Unlike some of my other fellow year mates that will speak today, I have been at Scotch Oakburn since, only, the start of this year. In fact, I only moved to Australia, 11 months ago. I was born in England; and when I faced the challenge of leaving my friends behind, I was devasted. Finding friends can be tough; however, I was extremely lucky to find great friends to support me through my journey.
My Grandparents live halfway across the globe, in Pakistan. Growing up, I had a challenging time getting to know them. There was a huge obstacle in the way… the language. They do not know how to speak English, and I did not know their mother tongue. Little did I know that spending time with them was the way to learn the language. On one of my many trips to Pakistan, I began to listen hard to what they were saying. Now, a few years later, I can speak the language fluently. This gave me an insight to how important the bond with our grandparents is.
Today we are surrounded by so many of our friends. As I was thinking about what I wanted to say to these friends, I asked myself a simple question. What is a friend? We all have different opinions; however, I believe we all agree that a friend is someone who cares, and treats us with kindness, honesty, and loyalty. Think of someone who has all these qualities. Sometimes we can mistake friends for only our age group, however, in my experience, my parents and grandparents share these values. So, are they my friends? I will let you decide that!”
Grandparents and friends then had a student-led College tour before sharing morning tea together. It was wonderful to be able to host our Year 7 students’ grandparents and special friends and celebrate our wonderful caring and supportive community.
Sam Nugteren
Head of Year 7
Year 6 Digital Technology
Students in Year 6 have been learning about circuits in Science. As a lead in to learning about circuits, students used Makey Makey Kits to understand how electrical energy is transferred through objects. Students used their knowledge of programming in Scratch to code simple games that used the Makey Makey kits as controllers. Some students extended their thinking by creating plasticine controllers powered by the Makey Makey kits.
Meg Hughes
Teacher