BACIRC

It has become a tradition in our library for all of Year 9, on February 14 each year, to take part in ‘Speed Dating’.  Books are pre-selected from all genres with appropriate but varying levels of reading.

Senior students observing the ‘set-up’ this morning could be heard reminiscing about their own experiences doing this three years ago. Clearly it was memorable and favourable!

Statistics are kept from the ‘rating’ sheets to make a display of most popular ‘dates’ and many students come back for second dates.

Library’s Lovers day!!

By Hayley B (Year 9 student)

Today was Library’s Lover’s Day 9. Our English class made their way down to the IRC where we stood behind a table, which was very prettily decorated, and which made us feel as if we were in a restaurant with our date sitting there staring at us. On the table next to our ‘date’ we had a cute red heart chocolate. Everyone was nervous for their first date, sitting down and opening to the first page and getting to know all about their date. After four minutes everyone rated their date and moved on to a new date and did the same thing all over again.

I think being at Library Lovers Day today was a great experience for everyone to perhaps find the right book for them, one which suits them best or maybe not even finding the right date at all but reading a variety of books.

The steps of the IRC formed the stage for our annual Christmas celebration for the whole school community. Senior High School students took part in the nativity play whist choirs and an orchestra of both Junior (P-6) and Senior (7-12) schools students sang and played to accompany community carol singing.

We took full advantage of our country setting and celebrated the real reason for the season!

Yesterday we held a combined Book Week and National Literacy Day event for the Junior School (Years Prep-6). The day began with The Great Parade of Champions reflecting the theme for Book Week “Champions Read”. This was held in the Sports Centre – appropriately decorated with an Olympic theme. Parents and Grandparents then stayed to read their favourite children’s books to students in the classrooms.
The classes were all rostered in Stage Groups to come to the IRC throughout the day to have a book talk and a story and activity from one of this year’s CBCA Short Listed Books. The books were read and discussed using our new Interactive Whiteboard with web camera attachment.

For the Senior School (Years 7-12) we launched our eBook collection (Wheelers Books) with an invitation to log in on their devices and become Champion Readers!

More photos of Book Week activities and displays here

Every year during Science Week our Year 8 students come to the IRC and read the books they have created as a Science project for our Prep students. The time together often goes beyond the sharing of a book as they begin to talk about the story and enjoy each others’ company.

The online edition of the Guardian for 25 July has an animated history of the Olympic Games – so many years rolled into a 2:43 clip!
The IRC was very crowded before school today and cheers rang out for every basket as students watched the live basketball match between Australia and the United States. Unfortunately the bell rang just into the second half and students had to go to class! I am sure they will be back at lunch time to see the replays.

Our coverage of the Olympic Games before school and at lunch time has been very popular. The area TV area becomes very crowded before school – partly to catch up on Australia’s medal count and also to get inside out of the cold as it has been around five degrees most mornings this week!

We are all watching with interest and enthusiasm as our teams compete in London. The IRC is showing the Olympic Games via Foxtel every day before school and at lunch.

The link below is to an article written by Jim Dayhew – who was a teacher at Broughton five years ago.It is on the site Fervr that holds daily articles, reviews and videos for Christian teens. In this article Jim discusses the motivation to win at all costs and the race we all need to consider above all else.

As we celebrate the games and the striving for gold medals, let’s remember that while the Olympic games are a great human pursuit, there is something worth more than gold. Faith through Jesus is what is most important. The Apostle Paul reminds us of this when he writes:

Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. (1 Corinthians 9:25)

The English Department organised a Shakespeare Day for all Secondary Students yesterday. Every High School English class studied a work of Shakespeare last term.

Students and all the teachers took part  in activities set up for each year group in different areas of the school. Within each group, performances of the play they had studied took place followed by rotating activities based on the play for that group.

Of course the final activity was a feast of gigantic proportions! Most students and teachers ‘dressed up’ for the occasion and here are two of our PDHPE staff dressed as Romeo and Juliet!

The IRC is currently displaying all the new equipment that has been provided through the Coles Sports for Schools program that was so well supported by our Broughton Community. Thank you to all the people who collected and sent in their shopping dockets to make this happen.

Yesterday we celebrated reading and picture books by taking part in the National Simultaneous Storytime event. Right across Australia, in schools and public libraries, children gathered to read The very cranky bear by Nick Bland at 11:00AM.
Three Kindergarten classes came to the IRC where they were enthralled to see and hear the story unfold through the use of the iPad App “The very cranky bear” which was screened on the Smart Board.

A group of Year 10 students then performed a Reader’s Theatre production of the book

…after which the children heard the story again – taking the part of the bear. Roars of sixty very “cranky bears” filled the IRC followed by the appearance of Happy Bear masks at the end of the story.

Not many of the thirty Senior Year 12 students “studying” in the IRC did much work that period – they also chose to enjoy the experience!

Students and staff returned from the Easter break today – just in time for a public holiday on Wednesday when Australia remembers all of our Armed Forces but in particular the ANZACs

ANZAC is the acronym formed from the initial letters of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, the formation into which Australian and New Zealand soldiers were grouped in Egypt prior to the landing at Gallipoli in April 1915.

The word was initially used to refer to the cove where the Australians and New Zealanders landed and soon after, to the men themselves. An ANZAC was a man who was at the Landing and who fought at Gallipoli, but later it came to mean any Australian or New Zealand soldier of the First World War. An ANZAC who served at Gallipoli was given an A badge which was attached to his colour patch.   (http://www.awm.gov.au/encyclopedia/anzac/acronym/)

The IRC has a display of just a few of the books from our collection on Gallipoli and the ANZACs for students to browse. (Note the recipe for Anzac Biscuits – these were sent to the troops from the home front and were notorious for “keeping well” for so long!)

The website advertised in the display www.anzacsite.gov.au links to many other online resources from a number of collections. It is the official Australian Government site for ANZAC information.

After discussion with the English teachers, it was decided that Year 9 would take part in our literacy event for Library Lovers Day and the launch of the National Year of Reading – Speed Dating some carefully selected books!

Fiction, Non fiction, graphic novels, biography and even poetry books were gathered and set on the tables. Students read a book for 5 minutes before rating it and moving to another table and repeating the exercise.

Students enjoyed eating a chocolate heart during their first ‘read’ and many rated their ‘dates’ with the top option on the rating sheet: “I have had a wonderful time! Could we please meet again very soon”. There were also some honest students who opted for the rating “That seemed like a very long five minutes. You’re just not my type!”

This was a very successful and interesting way to expose students to genres and books they would never have found on the shelves or tried to read. Hopefully some “lonely” books will soon be borrowed!

2B and their teacher Mrs Kate Bradley, enjoyed a Literature Unit on Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne.

They discussed all the characters and their relationship with one another dealing with issues such as tolerance, perseverance and friendship.

Ultimately the children created five characters of their own and then wrote poems and stories about each one. A model for each character was simply crafted out of a bottle and was “dressed” with its own carefully designed emblem to indicate something of the personality.

The ‘characters’ and associated writing were then displayed in the outdoor IRC area, which is currently awaiting renovation. The “wasteland” of weeds and tall thistles became the Hundred Acre Wood and, with their wonderful imaginations activated, the children eagerly drilled holes in the hard clay next to their ‘characters’ to insert a stick to support their pieces of writing. Some children preferred to tie their writing to the fence. Most of them proudly brought their parents through the IRC and out to the back enclosed area to show them their work.

Year 10 Prefects and SRC had a Crazy Hat day fundraiser for ANGLICARE -Toys ‘n’ Tucker on Friday 18 November. All students could wear sports uniform on the day and had to bring their crazy hat to wear for judging in the Quad at lunchtime.

On Friday 28 October five of our Year 10 students who have been studying “Issues in Australian Society” presented their work in the IRC Theatrette. They were sharing their personal perspective of the use of Guided Inquiry as a research process for their unit of work in Commerce. The occasion was a Network Meeting of Teacher Librarians of the Association of Independent Schools (AIS) and over twenty Teacher Librarians from across Sydney were in attendance .

The students described the Information Search Process and examples of the scaffolds they used to enable them to delve deeply into their selected topic areas. James then gave a four minute presentation of the answer to his self constructed question “Should nuclear energy, keeping in mind financial and environmental impacts,be implemented as a major source of electricity over the current major sources of electricity in Australia?”.

The students had used a wiki for storage of their work and to share their learning and this included peer review at the end of the unit of work.