Message from Shona

B E E S C R E E K P R I M A R Y S C H O O L

Newsletter 0 8 / 0 6 / 2 0 1 7

89833222 Administration Hours: Monday—Friday 7.30am to 4pm During School Terms

T E R M 2 W E E K 8

Sports Carnival What a fantastic couple of days we had! Congratulations to Strauss, our 2017 winning team! I am really happy to say that good sportsmanship was witnessed throughout Thursday and Friday, by all students, which is a real credit to them, their parents and their teachers! Thank you to Mr Dunbar, all our wonderfully dedicated staff, parents and all the students for such a great event. A particular-ly big thank you to the amazingly helpful SEDA students too – they really did make the event run extremely smoothly, so we are very appreciative of their efforts. Maker Space Our Maker Space group of students are working with Sally Clayton in the library every Friday afternoon, in a bid to get our Maker Space up and running as soon as possible. There are 8 children involved: one from every Year 3 to 6 class. The students were picked by their teachers, simply according to their interest in this sort of initiative. The students have worked diligently to include ‘student voice’ and have created, issued and retrieved all students in Years 3 to 6’s ideas about what they would like to see in the Maker Space. Please read Lucy’s update and their survey results (also featuring in this week’s newsletter on page 10). Once the Maker Space is up and running, the idea would then be to add one other student from each year 3 to 6 class (resulting in a total of 16) and the original students would mentor the new

students in robotics and other areas they have begun to master. The idea then being that all 16 students would bring their new found knowledge to their classes and the expertise would then begin to spread across the school. We are also considering the idea of including buddy classes so the whole school can benefit. The future is quite likely to be that we have maker spaces in each block eventually as well and perhaps we can get to a point where we have something like a ‘maker hour and a half’ every Friday afternoon across the school. We are very mindful that we want this to be driven by students, so it is an ever-evolving space and it will be exciting to see how it all unfolds. The Maker Space kids and I will look forward to keeping you up to date. Staffing Update Unfortunately Gemma Berry is having to return to England mid-year, due to unforeseen family circumstances. Gemma has been an absolutely fantastic addition to our teaching staff this year and we are extremely sad that she is leaving us. The good news is that we do have a r e p l a c e m en t . S c a r l e t t Fairweather will be joining us in Term 3 to teach D4 for the

remainder of the year. Scarlett comes to us, also from England, with glowing references. We will look forward to welcoming her to Bees Creek. And …. congratulations to Lauren Erichsen, our Special Education teacher, who is having a baby! Lauren will be leaving us around mid-Term 3. Again, we have been successful in finding a suitable replacement, which is quite a feat in itself, given the extreme shortage of teachers available in the NT just now. Rose Pattison will be joining us in Term 3 to take over the Special Education role. Rose is originally from New Zealand and has a keen interest in special education. Term 3 will also see the addition of two more teachers: Kate Kilgour and Alicia Strong. Kate will be working an additional 2 days per week in the Transition to Year 2 classes, teaching History as a specialist subject. While Alicia will be working 2 days per week in the Year 3 to 6 classes teaching Health and Wellbeing as a stand-alone subject. Shona Henderson Principal shona.henderson@ntschools.net

W A Y S T O H E L P

Please let the front office know if any of your contact details have changed

D A T E S T O R E M E M B E R :

Thursday 15th June School Photos for absent students

Monday 7th August Picnic Day

Monday 12th June Queen’s Birthday

Friday 23rd June Colour Fun Run

Friday 23rd June Final Day Term 2

Tuesday 25th July Students return for Term 3

P A G E 2

N E W S L E T T E R

Well our little demountable is slowly turning into a circus tent. We have been practicing some circus tricks. The morning group have been lion tamers and ballerinas. The afternoon group have been tight rope walkers and muscle lifters.

Preschool News

Late Notes Term 2 Week 7

137

School Attendance

Term 2 Week 7 A1 86%

A2 87%

A3 97%

B1 94%

B2 95%

B3 92%

B4 89%

C1 89%

C2 93%

C3 87%

C4 91%

D1 99%

D2 86%

D3 95%

D4 91%

PR1 91%

PR2 90%

How clever are we? We took photos at the sports carnival while having a picnic!

100% Attendance

This week at assembly all students who are on 100% attendance will go into the draw to win one of two 3 day hot passes kindly donated by Kezia Purick

MLA & Gerry Wood MLA. We also have an

Entertainment Book to give away in the draw.

P A G E 3 T E R M 2 W E E K 8

B4 and their Amazing Shapes B4 have been learning about 2D and 3D shapes. We can name shapes and identify them by their sides and vertices. We are pretty good at drawing them too!

Fishing Competition

P A G E 4

N E W S L E T T E R

Sports Carnival being first over the finishing line but to still go in the race and run all the way is admirable and “gutsy”. Well done to all those students. Thanks to the SEDA students who ran with these students to keep them company in what is a very lonely place. I would like to single out a few roles played by our staff. Mr Phil Cain did an excellent job preparing the oval and putting up shade. Mrs Lynda Stanwix ensured the scoring was spot-on and produced the Carnival program. Mrs Alison Dixon kept all the judging and timing on the bal l and the other Ali , Mrs Holmes, marshalled like there was no tomorrow. Probably the best starter in the world, Mrs Gardner, did a great job as did the heavily face-painted announcer, Mrs Erichsen. All other staff members played their role really well, and a special

shout-out goes to the Early Years teachers who organised the tabloids. SEDA students were a great help to us and a credit to their school. They performed all of their specific jobs thoughtfully and expertly, and interacted with our students in a friendly, kind manner. Get ready for Preschool’s big sports day, still to come. Next year we plan to follow a similar format except the 800m and 200m might be run after an assembly prior to Sports Day. Once again congratulations to everybody for a great job.

Robert Dunbar

Physical Education teacher

The Sports Carnival held over Thursday and Friday of last week was a great success. We had beautiful weather, great parent support and a wonderful donation of fruit from Woolies. Our students participated with a healthy competitive spirit whilst still being happy to support their friends wearing different house colours. The saying that “There are always winners and losers.” doesn’t really apply at our school. Sure we have winners, Strauss was the winning house, and the age champions will be announced at this week’s assembly, but we don’t see all the other participants in a lesser light. For example, everybody was impressed with the boy who stopped and went back to help a friend who had fallen. They both got up and finished the 200m (well done Brodie). Some of us are never going to be close to

800m Under 10 Girl Madison Dehne 2016 Under 10 Boy Bailey Moffatt 2016 10yr Girl Madison Dehne 2017 10yr Boy Junior Harris 2013 11yr Girl Diana 2017 11yr Boy Jared Mayoh 2014 Patrick Snell 2016 12yr Girl Grace Goodman 2010 12yr Boy Robert Rainger 2016 13yr Boy Alexander Parsons 2017 200m Sprint Under 10 Girl Indya Kinna 2011 Under 10 Boy Ethan Wilkin 2009 10yr Girl Jamie Middlebrook 2011

10yr Boy Ethan Wilkin 2010 11yr Girl Georgia Moffatt 2016 11yr Boy Junior Harris 2014 12yr Girl Bronte Pearson 2009 12yr Boy Kahne Lees 2017 13yr Boy Alexander Parsons 2017 100m Sprint Under 10 Girl Ruby Holmes 2015 Under 10 Boy Lee Ehrlich 2016 10yr Girl Georgia Moffatt 2015 10yr Boy Patrick Snell 2015 11yr Girl Diana 2017 11yr Boy Patrick Snell 2016 12yr Girl Azaleah Grant 2016

12yr Boy Robert Rainger 2016 13yr Boy Alexander Parsons 2017 Discus Under 10 Girl Sophia Sowry 2013 Under 10 Boy Jack Hayne 2009 10yr Girl Natasha Clayton 2010 10yr Boy James Halse 2009 11yr Girl Diana 2017 11yr Boy Ayden McGregor-Baptista 2009 12yr Girl Billee-Joyce Harrington 2009 12yr Boy Jacob Davis 2009 Long Jump Under 10 Girl Sophia Sowry 2013 Under 10 Boy Jayden Walker-Fletcher 2009

10yr Girl Kaitlyn Sowry 2011 10yr Boy Thomas Mack 2014 11yr Girl Kaitlyn Sowry 2012 11yr Boy Junior Harris 2014 12yr Girl Teresa McCallum 2013 12yr Boy Liam Hepburn 2012 13yr Boy Thomas Gray 2010 High Jump Under 10 Girl Amelia Hore 2013 Under 10 Boy Sam Stokes 2012 Boyd Bishop 2013 Jason Moore 2013 10yr Girl Sian Wright 2009 Karina Walker 2013 10yr Boy Jeffrey Stafford 2010 10yr Boy Patrick Snell 2015

11yr Girl Jamee Dean 2010 11yr Boy Evan Wright 2009 12yr Girl Bronte Pearson 2009 12yr Boy Zain Bishop 2010 Shot Put Under 10 Girl Chelsea Shiosaki 2017 Under 10 Boy Will Rowlands 2014 10yr Girl Brooke Hayne 2012 10yr Boy Kaiden Oats 2010 11yr Girl Diana 2017 11yr Boy Kaiden Oats 2011 12yr Girl Bronte Pearson 2009 12yr Boy James Wadsley 2017 13yr Boy Alexander Parsons 2017

And the winner is: 1st STRAUSS 704 2nd SATTLER 688 3rd PELL 684 4th LIVINGSTONE 590

Thank you Woolworths Coolalinga for you generous

donation of fruit for our sports Carnival

BEES CREEK PRIMARY RECORD BREAKERS

P A G E 5 T E R M 2 W E E K 8

Sports Carnival

P A G E 6

N E W S L E T T E R

Questacon wind tunnels went. I very much enjoyed it and it was a great experience. The main thing I learnt was that failing is the most important key to being a STEM worker.

Lucy McDonnell

30/5/17 Questacon – Wind Tunnels Today, we went to the school library for Questacon, a Science group who travel around Australia, to schools like ours. The people who came were named Josh and Sean and they gave us challenges involving wind tunnels and certain materials. Our first challenge was to make something that would either stick, fly, hover or sink. All we had was coloured paper, electricians scissors and sticky tape. Our goal to beat was to create 60 or more prototypes in 10 minutes. We smashed it and got 104 (they didn’t count two), so of course we beat 60. Our next challenge was to make some-thing that hovered inside the wind tunnel for 6 seconds. Cooper and I teamed up. We completed the challenge first try! Then we got another challenge, to do the same thing, but with half the materi-als. The materials we had to halve were aluminium foil, paper clips, tissue and black straws. Then Cooper and I, after completing the second challenge, moved into our third and final challenge. We had to make something fly out of the wind tunnel in two seconds or less. Cooper and I had a really hard time completing that challenge. Then we went over what we had learned and then we went back to class. Alex Parsons On Tuesday 30th of May, the year sixes from Mrs Blake's and Miss McSkimming’s classes went to the library for the Questacon. The people running the Questacon was Josh and Sean. Josh and Sean came from a big science, technolo-gy and engineering centre in Canberra. They travel to all the schools in Australia to teach us all about those three things. Today

they had some big tubes attached to the tables and at the bottom of the tubes they had a fan. We had to do a workshop called wind tunnels. First thing we did was we sat down in front of a big whiteboard and they started to talk to us about what they do and introduced themselves. They gave us a few tips and let us go on to our first challenge. Our first challenge was for all us kids to try and make up to 60 random paper models and then test them all out with the big fan and tube with just paper, scissors and sticky tape. Our goal was to try and make 60 paper models under 20 minutes but all of us kids got up to 102. The second challenge we did was we had to get into pairs, my partner was Gracie and for this challenge we had to make something that would float for six seconds and the only things we could use was sticky tape, straws, foil, paper clips, tissue and scissors. The first model Gracie and I made was sort of like a parachute. We laid down some foil and stuck three straws on top like a 3D triangle. We then cut around the bottom and got rid of the excess foil and then we added two paper clips to the top of the straws for some weight we tried it and it didn’t work. We then got some foil and rolled it into a small stick like position and thread that through a straw and we managed to get it to float for ten seconds. After Gracie and I did that challenge we asked what we had to do next and this challenge was to see if we could get our model from the bottom to the top in 2 seconds. We accomplished that challenge and as soon as we finished we had to go down in front of the whiteboard and we had another small discussion and the last thing we had to do was fill out a small piece of paper then go back to class.

Rahni Nickolls

On the 30.5.17 Tuesday the grade 6 students were invited to a Questacon held event run by two hosts Josh and Sean. Together they told us that Questacon is a place in Canberra where they explore STEM (Science, technology, engineering and maths). They showed us the cycle of how to invent or build something (innovation process) we had to think, prototype, try and refine to complete the process. They had set up some big wind tunnels that we had challenges to do on.

Our first challenge was to make as many prototypes as possible and then put them under one of the 4 categories; stick, fly, hover or sink. Our target was to make 60 as a big group but we smashed 60 and made 102. Altogether I made around 10 mostly sticking to the side of the tunnel. We were only allowed to use scissors, paper and masking tape.

Our second challenge was in partners and we got to use Aluminium foil, straws, masking tape, paper clips and tissue. We had to make a prototype that would hover in the wind tunnels for 6 seconds. My partner and I made a prototype that achieved the goal and it was really cool because it was spinning insanely and Josh was about to take a video but unfortunately it stopped.

Our third challenge with the same partners we had to make a prototype that would hover for 10 seconds but we had to use all the materials. My partner and I struggled and we finished around 10 attempts later.

Our fourth and final challenge was to make the prototype hover in the same spot for 6 seconds with all the materials. It was super tricky. We tried and failed heaps. Unfortunately we didn’t achieve in time.

Later Sean and Josh gave us a survey on how we felt the

Questacon gets us thinking

School Photos On Thursday 15th June, Michael from Infocus will be back at the school to take photos of any students who were absent during the week we took school photos.

P A G E 7 T E R M 2 W E E K 8

end it collapsed. Things that worked well was the supports that we had in the structure and also our team-work was good. We all listened to everybody’s ideas and even if the ideas didn’t work we modi-fied them from there. Next time I probably wouldn’t use as much blu-tak towards the top because it weighed the structure down which is what made it fall over. The team that won’s structure had a really good base and it was supported really well. It looked a bit like the Eiffel Tower too. I felt like my team did good but

we still could have done better. It was an extremely enjoyable activity. Our next activity was building paper planes that had to fly across the length of the class. Everybody’s planes were definitely all different and in the end it came down to five planes that travelled so far we had to measure them on the basketball court. Everybody looked like they really enjoyed the activities. This was really great and I hope we get to do more STEM activities soon. By Jordan Lake

In the morning our class (D1) and D2 split off into two groups – year 5s and year 6s. the year 6s went to Questacon in the library. Us year 5s stayed in our room. Year 5s had two main activities, the first was building. We were building the tallest tower we could out of 50 straws, ½ a strip of blu-tak and 20cm of masking tape. We got told to get into groups of 4, my group was made up of Rhys, Bayley, Daniel and I. Our structure wasn’t the best to start with so we kept making modifications to make it stay up. But in the

Year 5 Stem Activities

Do you have what it takes to save a life?

Your child does! Recently the Year 5/6

students at Bees Creek Primary School took part in the St John Ambulance NT free First Aid in Schools

Program. This program has been designed to meet our

aim of making first aid accessible to all Territorians

and what better place to start than with our children

and youth. Students were enthusiastic and excited to share their first aid stories with us in class and we were just as

eager to listen! Have you or your child ever used first aid skills as a result of learning

first aid with St John? We’d love to hear from you. Send us your first aid stories

and First Aid in Schools program feedback to:

mark.ferguson@stjohnnt.asn.au .

Inviting students, parents, teachers and principals to take part… all submissions will go into a draw to win a St John Ambulance First Aid

Kit.* Good Luck!!! Do you have what it takes

to save a life? Now it’s your turn!

To find out more, to

register for a first aid course or to bring your first aid kit up to date visit our website www.stjohnnt.org.au or call

1300 ST JOHN.

Fundraising gets exciting There are so many ways to help… come to craft days, or-ganise sponsors, co-ordinate the event, volunteer time on the day.

If all of our amazing parents donated 1 hour of time per child at the school that would be approximately 360 hours of volunteering covered. We

would be having a short meet-ing after assembly on Friday. If you can’t attend the meeting, you can either email the school council with your details and I will contact the office. Many hands make light work.

Sara Lake

Fundraising Co-ordinator

We have a few more exciting events taking palce this year…. Fun run, Father’s Day stall and breakfast, school play, 20 year anniversary celebrations, Christmas photos and Fete.

These events take a lot of time to organise and put on. We are seeking volunteers to ensure these all go ahead.

P A G E 8

N E W S L E T T E R

On Monday the 5th of June, Musica Viva sent a performing group called Makukuhan to our school. The students in Transition to Year 6 have been studying the music and instruments that Makukuhan play. This performing group provided a very interactive and funny show for us all to enjoy. The i r per formance was extremely impressive and the students laughed and learned. Have a look at some of the photos provided here of this wonderful performance! How lucky are we at Bees Creek to have access to such amazing musical programs provided by Musica Viva!

Makukuhan comes to Bees Creek Well done Girls Last weekend Ruby Holmes & Isabelle Brown participated in the marathon4kids. Well done girls, we heard you did an awesome job!

“quoted”

P A G E 9 T E R M 2 W E E K 8

Music School Play Day

Dental Clinic

For any dental enquiries, to arrange an appointment or

for dental emergencies, please call

8922 6466

On Friday the 26th may The NT School of Music had their annual Play Day at Bees Creek School. Instrumental students from Girraween, Humpty Doo, Berry Springs and Howard Springs joined Bees Creek stu-dents for fun filled day of learning and working together. The students learnt new songs and practiced them before performing the pieces to a large audience of Bees Creek students, parents and teachers.

It was the best time, I have never had a better time with my instrument. I learnt the song BOP. Carleigh Wadsley I really enjoyed it. I learnt new things and the teachers were funny and helpful. Emily Gornall It was lots of fun and I liked the songs we learnt. Chelsea Pears

It was my second Play Day and this one was well organised. I got to learn new songs and my teachers were funny and nice. Nathan Gardner I felt really proud that I learnt 2 new songs and I really liked the Play Day. Elsie McDonnell

Cash for Cans Don’t forget to drop all of your recycling containers to school. Please make sure all lids are removed and containers have been rinsed. We accept glass bottles, aluminium cans, plastic bottles and cardboard popper containers. Please make sure all contain-ers have a 10c refund in NT, SA/NT or SA label on them. If you are unable to drop containers to the school please contact us, Diane has generously offered to collect from homes if needed. Please do not place 2 or 3 litre milk containers in the collection bins. Thank you

P A G E 1 0

N E W S L E T T E R

Maker Space Questionnaire Summary Findings

Question 1 Question 2

Question 3 Question 4

Question 5 Question 6

Question 7

Update from the Maker

Space Student team

As part of our findings we discovered that the majority of us knew what a maker space was. Most people were interested in drones, robots, crafts and Lego. We are unsure about drones because there is no learning intention towards them. We are recommending the idea of having our space in the chess area next to the li-brary as we found that it is not really used (and the learning center and library). We are trying to open as soon as possible and we already have a few things

P A G E 1 1 T E R M 2 W E E K 8

Maker Space Mind Map

Mega Merit Awards 5 Maxi Merit Awards = 1 Mega Merit

Awards will be handed out at this weeks assembly.

Maxi Awards Ella Smith Jayla Green Jake Newman Riley Cooper x2 Hunter Lees Thomas Hinds Blake Overend Ethan Gleeson

Bailey Moffatt Kaylee Smidt Mega Awards Bailey Moffatt Danni McDonald Maddison Pavlou

Maxi & Mega Merit Award Congratulations! Well done

everyone!

Maxi Awards 5 Mini Merit Awards = 1 Maxi Merit;

Special thanks to Kezia Purick,

Member for Goyder for sponsoring our Mega Merits every

week

FYI Students from C3

Scott will be performing for you at this week’s Assembly

Bees Creek Primary School is raising funds. Here's how you can help...

Your 2016 | 2017 Entertainment Membership expired on 1 June

2017. Please continue to support supporting our Makerspace program by buying the NEW 2017 | 2018 Entertainment Mem-bership from us today. You'll receive hundreds of valuable of-fers for everything you love to do, and help our fundraising at

the same time! Use only one or two of these offers, and you'll more than cover the cost of your Membership!