Mount Macedon Primary Newsletter

Care - Create - Collaborate

Mount Macedon Primary School aims to develop positive, independent, resilient and inquiring students who are ready for the future.


Principal's Report

Tuesday 11th October 2022

Hello Everyone,

Congratulations to Lucy Damen who has been awarded first prize in the Berthe Mouchette French Illustrated Poetry competition. Her work was judged the best in the State. We are very excited for Lucy who will attend a special awards ceremony in November.  

Yesterday most of our students headed down to Stanley Park to look at the waterfall which has an amazing amount of water running through it at the moment. It was a good opportunity to talk about natural resources and also to remind us all that we live in a beautiful area.

Fete is now racing towards us. I know that there will be a lot asked of you over the next few weeks – baking, goods for the hamper, second hand toys and books etc. Please just give us what you can because every little bit helps to make the fete a success. There are plenty of notices for you in today’s newsletter. 😊

Thank you SO much to everyone who is already putting in so much effort to make this fete a success.

Last Friday night’s Pop-Up Café was a wonderful success. In the short space of 45 minutes, from start to finish, $900 was raised for the school. It was so nice to be out there catching up with parents and watching the happiness and excitement on the children’s faces as they saw the delicious treat that had been made for them to buy. Thanks Amanda Hurren and her amazing team of bakers and servers for the lovely event.

Over the last couple of weeks, I had had three different parents tell me that they don’t read the newsletter. It is disappointing from a couple of perspectives – it is the main source of our whole school news, and a lot of time and effort (mainly on Naomi’s part) goes into creating a newsletter that has lots of articles and pictures about the daily happenings at the school. I have been wondering if people would prefer to receive and read a “paper” version of the newsletter instead. Some of the parents said they would read it if it was “in their hands” but that they don’t make the effort to access it online. I would really appreciate your feedback on this, or on any other ideas you have, as it is important that we engage all parents in the school news.

This week we received our results from the Parent Opinion Survey which was run by the Department of Education and Training (DET) last term. Eighty- four families (everyone) were invited to participate, and we had 28 families take up the offer to tell us what they think about the school. It is lovely to see that the General Satisfaction factor was at 96%. Thank you for your opinions, which we have already unpacked as a staff, and will also be unpacked at our next School Council meeting. Your thoughts and ideas really matter to us and we will be developing a plan of action to change some areas of the school in line with suggestions that were consistently made in the survey.

Last night we also looked very closely at our student survey results (also conducted by DET last term). The results were excellent in most areas, but we need to continue to work on: - Resilience and Bullying. We will be making sure that we look at best practice programs to support us to prevent bullying in the school and to help our students build their resilience.

Another area that we discussed was the amount of time on electronic devices that our children spend each day. I have included the results for this below. We estimate that our senior students spend between one and two hours per day at school using their computers for work at school. You will see that the use of electronic devices is increasing significantly. As a staff, we have spoken about the need to ensure a strong cyber safety program and the need to encourage the students to also look after their physical health through regular exercise. I also ask you as parents, to also consider these things at home as well, so that we have a strong coordinated approach to supporting the children to have a balance between the two.

I know that we are asking a lot of you this month, but we are also supporting Gisborne Foodbank too. If you have any spare pantry staples to donate to the Foodbank, that would be lovely. There is a box for the goods at the front office.

Have a lovely week everyone.

Kind Regards,

Trish

Fete News

Join us at the Mount Macedon Primary School Spring Fete on Saturday 12 November for a day of family and community fun as we fundraise for a new outdoor learning area to benefit our children and for generations to come.

Please "Like or Follow" our Fete social media pages and share them to your "Friends & Followers" :

 

Lemon Donations Appreciated!

We are calling for donations of lemons for the Lemonade Stand at the Fete. If you have a lemon tree that is very giving or would like to donate some lemons to help out please hand them in to the school office, we would very much appreciate it.

MMPS Update by School Reporter Eliza

Hello Everyone,

Each class in the school does six inquiry units throughout the year (only four in Foundation). It's a different broad subject each time that they learn more about. It’s part of our PYP (Primary Years Programme,) which means we have a choice in what we want to learn within the major inquiry. 

Grade 4 / 5’s current inquiry is around their Central Idea ‘Major events can shape a nation’s history’. In the unit all the students are getting to choose an event that has happened, and because of the PYP, they are researching their topic, and excited about learning about it. Some events the students have chosen to look at include the Queen's death and the war in the Ukraine (just from the time of their own lives). They will be researching this and learn more about these events. 

The Grade 2’s are studying the Arts. They have learned about Cubism, where artists make art with small cubes. Artists try to make it have a different POV to express their ideas. Next week they will choose their own art style to study. They all enjoyed learning about this style of art and are excited to learn about more. 

Everyone is enjoying their inquiry. We all like the freedom of the PYP, because we get to learn what we are interested in. We are all excited about what we are studying, and want to learn more about it. 

Eliza

Grade 3/4 Quantum Excursion

Last week, our Grade 3 & 4's were lucky enough to go on a STEM excursion to Quantum in Melbourne. It was a fun day with lots for the students to see and learn. Below is a report of the day by one of our Grade 3 students Mirra, along with some photos.


Grade 3 and 4 Excursion:

On Thursday the Grade 3 and Grade 4 students went on an excursion to Quantum Victoria. Quantum Victoria is located the other side of Melbourne. It took over 1 hour to get there on the bus. Quantum teaches primary and secondary schools STEM, which stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths.

We were taught about how different machines and systems help with recycling. We did 3 activities. One of them was using Lego Technic machines that separate different materials. They were paper, cardboard, glass, hard plastic, aluminium and steel.

Then we used this program called AR that stands for Augmented Reality. The program was looking at machines that are in a recycling centre. Then we went to a big science room and learned about how magnets are used in recycling.

After that we worked in teams to solve a challenge which was to design our own program for a recycling centre.

By Mirra 

French Update

It's great to be back with the Foundation students this term. They are such enthusiastic learners and love trying new things. Today we talked about Spring, or 'le printemps', then the students drew some very colourful pictures. Let's hope we do get some 'beau temps', (beautiful weather), eventually!

Digital Technology at MMPS

So, you may think one gets into the teaching profession to empower young people to learn, I mean, that is somewhat right, but also, it lets me do stuff I think is excellent (and if the students also think it is excellent, well, that is a bonus)

That was definitely the case in our last digital technologies class when I introduced students to the creativity and power of A.I and Machine Learning tools DALL-E 2 and Craiyon.

Now, you will need to excuse me as I geek out a little here, but these pieces of software use machine learning models and Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3 language models to generate digital images from natural language descriptions.

Ok, so what did I just say? - Well, basically, we can type in a string of text, such as "A photograph of a sunflower with sunglasses on in the middle of the flower, in a field on a bright sunny day" and the AI will create that image for us, and it does it not by combining different images from the internet, but by actually creating it from scratch, that image below never existed in the world before that string of text was typed in and it was generated (oh, and when you generate an image from a string of text you input, it becomes your creation, you own it

We looked at how it worked (here is a video that explains it all nicely: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVcsDDABEkM) and then talked about the can of worms that is the morality and ethics behind being able to create something from nothing (this was a fun conversation, but students did bring up some good points, such as it is a great tool for those of us that may not be so artistically skilled, but still have great ideas they want to set free)

And then, of course, they had a go themselves... and that was even more amazing.

But, the best way to see this in action is to do it yourself, which you can do from the links below.

Dall-E 2 is by far the most powerful (think of it as a 2-year-old... but in Machine Learning years that is an age) but does require an email address to register (it is free to use)

https://openai.com/dall-e-2/

Craiyon doesn't require any logins, and you can use it as soon as you click the link (but it is more like a slower, 6-month-old)

https://www.craiyon.com 

Enjoy! 

Mr Garcia 

Oh, and here is A photograph of a sunflower with sunglasses on in the middle of the flower, in a field on a bright sunny day:

Our Walk to Stanley Park

On Monday, our students were treated to a mini break from class activities and went for a walk to Stanley Park. Due to the recent rain, the Waterfall and Turitable Creek at Stanley Park was full and flowing strong. It was a sunny, warm spring day, and a great opportunity for our students to get some fresh air, exercise and explore our local environment. The waterfall was gushing and the students all enjoyed seeing it flowing full and vibrant with water, carving a path through the natural bushland. Even Rufus our school dog enjoyed a bit of a splash and play through the water (and mud!!) Below are some pictures of the walk and some reflections from the students. How lucky are we to be able to have this area of natural beauty to explore and experience right at our doorstep.

Helping to Protect Wild Gorillas

One of our Grade 2 students Liam, is calling upon our help to recycle our old mobile phones to help protect wild Gorillas. As part of the Grade 2 Sharing the Planet inquiry, Liam is instigating action and calling on our community for help. Please read Liam's message below. Liam has set up a collection box for your old and used mobile phones at the school office. What a fantastic project and a great way to raise awareness and interest in this important world issue.

Hats in Term 4

Just a reminder to ensure that students have their hats to wear at school during recess and lunchtimes, as well as any other outdoor activities they may be participating in. It is important that we are all being sun smart and ensuring our children are protected from the harmful UV light that is at it's highest peak during the months of August to April, where UV index levels regularly reach 3 or above. Please also remember to name your children's hats as they quite often are lost, misplaced or left in the playground and it is handy to know who the hat belongs to! Spotted on the grounds were some of our students wearing their hats today.

COMMUNITY NEWS

Beleza School Uniforms

Wooling Hill Run 2022

Spring Bliss Festival

Car Boot Sale for Dementia Fundraising

Kyneton Agricultural Show Leggo Competition

Macedon Ranges Gift Shop

Macedon Junior Netball

Woodend Summer Season Netball

Macedon Junior Cricket

Macedon Cricket Club is running Woolworths Cricket Blast again this season. It’s a fun and fast programme for kids of all abilities to learn the skills and play Australia's favourite sport.

5 - 10 year olds. All welcome. 

It doesn't matter if you've never picked up a bat or ball. (We use rubber balls - not hard cricket balls).

Learn some skills, meet some other locals and most importantly - get out there and HAVE FUN.

Come and join the fun at Macedon Cricket Club (Tony Clark Reserve), Sunday mornings from 9:00 - 10:00, starting November 6th.  

Registration will be online via the Playcricket website.

You can find general details at playcricket.com.au. Any queries please contact Andrew (andrew.jeanes@robertbird.com.au

For any budding cricketers 10-12 years of age Macedon Cricket Club would welcome enquires to come and join our U11 or U13 sides.  Please contact Todd (todd.c@qubedadvisory.com.au) or Clint (clint.grobler@gmail.com).

 

Macedon Women's Cricket

Macedon Cricket Club Sponsorship

Calling for any friends or families of the school that might be interested in sponsoring the cricket club. Please see attached Sponsorship Presentation, and more information. Please contact the Macedon Cricket Club at macedoncc@hotmail.com if you are interested. Thank you.
Download

Important Dates

Tuesday 18th October - Regional Athletics

Thursday 27th October - District Orienteering

Monday 31st October - Pupil Free Day

Tuesday 1st November - Cup Day

Saturday 12th November - MMPS School Fete

2022 Term Dates

Term 1 - Monday 31st January to Friday 8th April

Term 2 - Tuesday 26th April to Friday 24th June

Term 3 - Monday 11th July to Friday 16th September

Term 4 - Monday 3rd October to Tuesday 20th December