Newman Newbies: From the Leader of Wellbeing Early Childhood
The Marian Campus offers a wide variety of learning spaces and opportunities to our students which facilitate engagement in a broad selection of educational experiences. The Early Years Learning framework discusses how indoor and outdoor environments should support all aspects of children’s learning and invite conversations between children, teachers, families and the broader community. The College’s ability to offer outdoor play spaces that allow children to connect with nature, encourage open-ended interactions, exploration and discovery are all key aspects to the provision of a quality Early Childhood Learning experience. By providing our students with diverse environments and opportunities, such as the Nature Play spaces, our sustainability projects such as the worm farms, small world gardens and vegetable planters, children are able to explore and make sense of the world around them whilst developing an appreciation for God’s creation.
Our teachers utilise learning environments in a variety of ways to promote opportunities for collaborative learning, community engagement and play-based learning, all of which facilitate a supportive environment where children can ask questions, problem solve and engage in critical thinking.
STEM Festival
The STEM Festival provided a fantastic collaborative learning opportunity for students to come together. With a broad focus on sustainability, the Year 9 students from Marcellin Campus assisted our Marian students to build marble runs and musical instruments from recycled materials, explore the environmental impact of oil spills and create rain gauges. The hands-on collaboration that resulted from each of these tasks, was a perfect example of our Vision for Learning, Shine through Discovery in action.
Fitness Friday
Fitness Friday has proven to be an excellent opportunity for community engagement and the promotion of extra-curricular involvement for our Early Childhood students. This Term, we continued to offer Lego Club, Running Club, Go Noodle, and Dance Aerobics. We have also introduced Art Club and board games. We encourage families to come down each Friday morning and enjoy our Coffee at the College facility, meet new families and provide students with an opportunity to be active.
Marian Parent Workshops
Our recent Parent Workshop evening was very well attended, with the aim of the evening to strengthen the bonds between home and school and enable parents to develop some skills that would support their child’s learning. The feedback from parents has been very positive and we look forward to extending on these opportunities in the future.
Book Week
There was lots of smiles and laughter as the annual Book Week parade was conducted earlier this Term. This year’s theme ‘Reading is my Secret Power’ was the perfect tool to illustrate to our students the power that reading can bring to their lives. Students have also been engaged in a number of author and storyteller incursions, all in further celebration of the Book Week festivities. Click here to read more and see more photos from the events.
Fathers Day Celebrations
In the lead-up to Fathers Day, the Marian Campus hosted our Dads for a special sausage sizzle breakfast. It was fantastic to see the big smiles of the children as they celebrated the deep love that they have for their Dads. The breakfast was followed by a beautiful Liturgy at St Cecilia’s Church, lovingly prepared by our Year 1 students. Click here to see more photos from the day.
Great Vegie Crunch
This Term, we participated in the Cancer Council WA “Great Vegie Crunch” event, joining schools from across Western Australia to simultaneously crunch on fresh vegetables. The Great Vegie Crunch aims to increase the number of school aged children who eat the recommended daily intake of vegetables and educate students on the importance of eating vegetables.
The College provided students in Kindy – Year 2 with a vegetable snack and the ‘Crunch-o-meter’ measured that together they crunched as loud as a crocodile. The students also enjoyed a fun quiz about vegetables and had the chance to win some fantastic prizes!
National Health and Physical Education Day
Thursday 12 September was ACHPER’s nationwide initiative to highlight the importance of health and physical education in the Australian Curriculum, and its influence on the learning and development of children. Our Physical Education Teacher, Mrs Stella Northey coordinated a range of activities at lunchtime for our children to participate in. These included tug-of-war, hopper balls, hula hoops and egg and spoon relays. Research indicates that students’ participation in physical activity leads to better engagement and improved academic achievement.
