Category Archives: News and Events

ANZAC Day – Remembering our ‘Diggers’

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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.

 

Library Lovers Day @ Broughton: Speed Dating with a difference

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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 finish the year with Winnie the Pooh and the Hundred Acre Wood

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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 students present their Guided Inquiry work at TL Network meeting

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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.

Is the ‘book’ dead?

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We are in the middle of a very successful Book Fair where students are pouring into the IRC and dragging in their parents after school – to purchase books!
The success is largely due to the fantastic “Book Talks” by Murray from Scholastic. The books came alive as he spoke about them.
Even more exciting was the new merging of book and web as he demonstrated the “Clone Wars” website where students can interact choosing their own adventure/ending through gaming on the website then reading the resulting text page given to find out what happens next.
Reading books is certainly not dead or even dying at Broughton – but promotion of reading is very important. As technology and books merge an exciting future is developing.
This clip is worth watching:

Paper folder leaves mysterious gifts in libraries

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With this gift was the tag “For @scotstorycenter – A gift in support of libraries, books, works, ideas….. Once upon a time there was a book and in the book was a nest and in the nest was an egg and in the egg was a dragon and in the dragon was a story…..”

See a collection of all the paper foldings left at libraries in Edinburugh on the Central Stn blog

I wish one was left at our Information Resource Centre!

Book Week! “One world, many stories”

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Displays, online activities, and an author visit set the scene for a week long focus on books and reading.

Children’s author and humanitarian refugee worker Andrew McDonough visited Broughton for two days. On the first day he spoke to Year 11 about his work with refugees as they come into Australia. He then spoke to Years 7 & 8 about writing and illustrating books for children.

Andrew McDonough returned for another day and spoke group by group to the whole Junior School (K-6) about his writing and illustrating. His story telling was amazing and he demonstrated some of his digital illustrating techniques.

Vote for the ‘best-dressed’ Phoebe!

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Recently our K-2 classes took part in the National Simultaneous Storytime event. They enjoyed the book Feathers for Phoebe by Rod Clements and each class then decorated their own class “Phoebe”.  We would like everyone to vote for the best-dressed Phoebe and a prize will be then awarded to the winning class! Voting closes on 20 August with prizes being awarded in Book Week.
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Go Go News: Kids News

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This news site for young people states “Children are curious and interested in the world around them. GoGo believes in satisfying and encouraging this curiosity by publishing real news stories that are not only relevant to them, but also capture the silly and the serious goings on in the world today.”
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National Simultaneous Storytime: “Feathers for Phoebe”

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At precisely 11:00AM today our Kindergarten to Year 2 students gathered for a story. The picture book Feathers for Phoebe by Rod Clements was selected by The Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) to be read simultaneously across Australia – the aim being to improve literacy and promote reading.
The students were totally engrossed in the story which was shown digitally and each of the nine classes left with a little grey bird and a packet of feathers to go towards an ‘outfit’ for Phoebe. These will enter the “Best Dressed Phoebe” competition and be judged next week. As they left teachers could be heard muttering “…hot glue gun” and “wait till you see ours” ; so next week we should have a wonderful library display!

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2011: United Nations International Year of Forests

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Welcome back to a new school year and welcome back to our IRC Blog!
Many Broughton students will be studying ‘forests’ in various subjects across the curriculum – each having their own ‘slant’. The ecology of forest life and the global effects of deforestation are favourite areas of study.
We celebrate this International Year of Forests with a display of books in the IRC and also with weblinks on the IRC website.
Welcome back to school - 2011!

Broughton Reading Challenge – Awards 2010

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Many Broughton Students completed the Premier’s Reading Challenge and were awarded certificates yesterday.
Flowing on from that we encourage students to keep reading beyond that challenge and record even more titles – still read within the guidelines and times of the PRC.
The two students who read the most books in each year group were awarded Broughton Reading Challenge certificates and book prizes at Assembly:
BRC Award Winners