Library News | Junior School

Display Highlight: Attributes of the PYP Learner Profile

During Terms 2 and 3, we have a new regular PYP display fixture which focuses on the tenAttributes of the PYP Learner Profile. Every fortnight we will select a different learner profile attribute, and display books from the collection which highlight people who demonstrate this attribute.

Our first display is for the Learner Profile attribute of ‘Principled’. According to the IB if we are principled we “act with integrity and honesty, with a strong sense of fairness and justice, and with respect for the dignity and rights of people everywhere. We take responsibility for our actions and their consequences”. This display includes books about Nelson Mandela, Malala Yousafzai, Jesse Owens, Ruth Bader-Ginsburg and Rosa Parks.

We also have a section in the display where students are encouraged to record the name of someone they know who demonstrates this learner profile attribute. We invite you to participate in this discussion by chatting to your son/s about what being principled looks, sounds and feels like, and sharing with them someone you admire who shows the attribute of being principled.

This focus on being principled links nicely with the Library lessons Years 4-6 did on Academic Honesty last term, as we focused on the importance of acting with integrity and honesty during the research process. Boys were shown how to clearly acknowledge their sources in a bibliography, encouraged to use a range of valid and reliable sources of information, and practiced demonstrating their understanding of an issue/concept by writing their findings in their own words.

Library Champion Book Review

This term we are also pleased to introduce our Library Champion Book Reviews. Our four Library Champions will be reading and reviewing books from the Library collection, to share in our Years 3-6 Junior School assemblies on Mondays and in our Junior School newsletter. This term the boys will all be reviewing a picture book and a novel from the shortlisted books for the CBCA 2022 Awards, which are awarded during Book Week.

Thanks to Lachlan Davies for our first review of this powerful picture book.

The Inheritance by Armin Greder

(on the 7-9 Premier’s Reading Challenge List)

The book is set as the main characters’ father, a business owner, is dying and his three children are inheriting his business. It is a book that represents some problems that are happening at the moment including climate change, pollution of the oceans and destruction of the environment with oil wells.

The daughter is aware of this stuff because she has travelled the world, but the sons only care that they are going to inherit a lovely, valuable business. They think that their children will just go on keeping the business running and make lots of money, but their sister thinks that they should teach their children differently. The others just laugh at what she says and say that there is nothing wrong with their business.

I think it is an amazing book and my summary of it is that there are problems that humans are causing in the world, and we need to stop before we further wreck the environment.

Year 6 How We Organise Ourselves Library/UOI lesson – Preferential Voting

This week in our Year 6 Library/UOI lesson we explored the concept of preferential voting. We started by reading the picture book ‘Vote 4 Me’ where the boys learnt about how a preferential vote election works through the story of the students at Mount Mayhem Primary School voting for a student representative.

Having shown us that they understood the rules of a preferential vote, and the importance of ensuring that their vote counted, we proceeded to undertake our own preferential vote.

The boys had to vote on a name that Year 6 should submit for the new Junior School lizard. There were three name options which the boys needed to vote on – the class teachers had chosen these, to show it’s not always a democracy here in the Junior School! Once the ballot papers were distributed and the boys had marked their papers clearly with the numbers 1-3 to indicate their choices, the ballot box was opened and the votes were counted (with scrutineers observing the count to ensure no foul play ensued)!

Perhaps unsurprisingly, there was a clear majority winner from the options of Patricia, Deanna and Jenny after the 1st choice votes were counted, negating the need to proceed to redistributing second choice votes! However the boys thoroughly enjoyed the process and now have a better understanding of some of the intricacies of preferential voting, ahead of their visits to Parliament House and the Parliamentary Education Office later this week.

Year 6 will proceed with submitting Patricia as their suggested lizard name, and hope it is the name drawn out of the hat and bestowed upon our lizard for posterity!

Miss Gillian Gratton | Teaching and Learning Librarian