From the Head of the Junior School
Dear Parents and Friends of the Junior School,
Thoughtful Thursday seemed to strike the right notes of appreciation, wellbeing and care yesterday, coming just in time for boys and teachers who are showing understandable fatigue after nine weeks of remote learning. A few similar activities will be spread across next week at teachers’ discretion to get boys through the final week of term. We suspect that even the most dedicated of our students will be running on empty by next Friday, so teachers are planning some reflective activities for the final morning. Specialist teachers will still post tasks in the afternoon but these should be considered optional.
Yesterday, I also briefly updated parents on the outlook for Term 4, our intentions with Reporting and the importance of making the upcoming break a healthy break. If you are yet to watch yesterday’s update video, please use the link below.
Next week will also be Grandparent’s Week. One of the disappointments of this term has been missing the opportunity for K-2 boys to invite their grandparents to school for performances, time in the classroom and morning tea. This is always a very special morning and has been much-missed. With no prospect of running this event later this year, we did not want to let such a valued experience for boys and grandparents completely pass. So next week, we will encourage those boys who are able, to reach out to their grandparents and do something creative together. We will provide some suggestions (many of them achievable from a distance) but the activity does not really matter. We know that not every boy will be able to communicate with grandparents – in these cases, maybe an uncle/aunt or elderly neighbour may fill that void. We are not restricting this activity to K-2 boys – any boy across Junior School who wishes to participate can. Just like with Father’s Day, we’d love the boys to share an image of their time with their grandparent/s via our Photo Wall and to tell others about it in class discussions.
We have arranged for Melba Photos to deliver class and individual portraits taken earlier in the year to homes. If you wish to keep these, you do not need to do anything and payment will be processed through your School account. If you do not want these photos, please let the Junior School Office know and we will not process the payment – you will be required to return the package to the Office when your son returns to school next term. We have not yet completed all photos for the year but some sport and group photos taken in Semester 1 are now available for viewing and purchase via this link to the Melba website. (the password is triangle)
The Move-a-thon seems to be working! At the time of writing, we were already closing in on 1000 hours of moving and 164 boys had posted at least some movement. Keep it up! Parents, please give your son/s some guidance with getting sponsors and please also keep an eye on the hours they are posting…we don’t want to question too many but have had to make some polite enquiries about the size and accuracy of some early postings that demonstrated particular enthusiasm! The forecast looks perfect to get outside and amass some more moving minutes over the weekend – enjoy!
Mark Dunn | Head of the Junior School
Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.
Ephesians 4:2
