Enrichment in the Junior School

Autumn Term is almost complete and the boys are continuing to engage in a multitude of opportunities that cater to the wide and diverse range of abilities and learning styles that our students possess. Through in-class inquiry, differentiated lessons, competitions and co-curricular clubs, the aim is to enrich and extend all children and below, I have detailed only a few of the wonderful activities that are on offer.

In Year 5 the boys have all been engaged in Speakers Challenge, writing their own original speeches and delivering it to an audience. Three finalists were chosen from each class and they proceeded to the school finals. William Macknay, Daniel Weustink, Leon Hugo, Harry Nicholls, Hamish Byass, Cooper Royle, Thomas Lovegrove, Alexander Griffin and Luke Schaufler are to be congratulated on their outstanding presentations, making the judges' decision an impossible one. However, three students were victorious and will represent Scotch College at the Inter School Speakers Challenge, to be held at the Dickinson Centre on Wednesday 3 July. We wish the very best of luck to William Macknay, Hamish Byass and Harry Nicholls.

Junior School continues to develop relationships and collaborations across the three sub-schools, utilising the talents and skills of our older, more experienced students and staff members from both Middle and Senior School. Along with the Year 6 students, the Year 5 boys are busy preparing for the Da Vinci decathlon where they compete against other schools, across ten disciplines, to test their academic knowledge, creative thinking and collaborative skills. We have guest presenters and workshops organised in order to hone their skills in readiness for the competition day. Good luck to Jack Mayo, Oliver Campbell, Thomas Lovegrove, William Macknay, Jake Cuomo, Logan Herbert, Leon Hugo and Guillaume Daoud.

As part of the co-curricular club, seven Year 5 students have been embarking on a journey in FIRST Lego League (FLL), a first for Scotch College. In FLL students build, program and compete with a robot, while also learning about a modern problem in science and engineering and developing solutions for it. The boys have been practicing on last year's table where the theme was Into Orbit. This year the competition starts on Thursday 1 August with boys working on solving a real-world problem based on the theme of City Shaper. Boys will need to present their solutions to a panel of judges. The second component is the programming of the robot to compete on the FLL table. The boys will have 2 minutes 30 seconds to complete as many missions as possible to earn as many points as possible for completing missions successfully using their EV3 robot. The last component is for the boys to be using the FIRST core values of discovery, innovation, impact, inclusion, teamwork and fun. The team will compete at the regional final in Carramar on Saturday 30 November and if they get through that, will compete at the WA Championship on Saturday 14 December. Following that there is the possibility of heading to the nationals in Sydney and then the World Championships the following year in America.

As you can see, holidays will be well deserved for everyone. Junior School certainly is a busy and enriching place to be.

Mrs Alison Webster
Junior School Enrichment Coordinator