What a Term!

Congratulations to all Prep School families for adjusting, guiding and persisting in order to help the children navigate what has been an extremely busy term. There was a time when I can recall third term was not as busy as the beginning and end of the year, and it was a chance to consolidate and catch breath. The 2020 version has been anything but, as we have done our best to fit everything in to ensure that the children don’t miss out on too many experiences. We have been able to complete an abridged season of winter sports, much to the delight of the students.

Thank you to the parents who went out of their way to support their child by attending three-way interviews last week. Hopefully this gave parents, the students and the teacher the chance to celebrate student strengths and focus on what can be improved during the remainder of the school year.

I hope that the students enjoy the approaching holiday break and use it as a chance to recharge. At the beginning of next term, we go straight into Swimming and Aquatic lessons as well as the commencement of the summer sports.

Chinese in the Early Learning Centre and Prep School

The Mid-Autumn Festival 中秋节 is also called the Moon Festival. It traditionally falls on the fifteenth day of the eighth month in the Chinese lunar calendar, which is the time when the Moon is the roundest and brightest during the year. This year the Moon Festival will be held on Thursday 1 October 2020. Last week Ms Liu took the ELC Karalta groups to Ms Le's classroom and had a joint Chinese lesson with the Transition classes. All the children were very excited to see their old friends. Together they sang the Chinese song '小星星 (Twinkle Twinkle Little Star)'. The children shared their ideas of how people celebrate the Moon Festival in China and watched a shadow puppet show about the legend of the Moon Festival. They were engaged in a craft activity where they made a full moon and drew a picture of the night sky. We wish everyone a Happy Mid-Autumn Festival 中秋节快乐！and hope you enjoy the brightest full moon of the year.

Ms Liu and Ms Le

Traffic Management

We all know how busy Alison Ave can be around school drop-off and pickup. We respectfully ask that all care is taken when travelling along Alison Ave and entering/exiting out of Gates 1, 2 and 4. The speed limit is clearly signed within the School grounds as a maximum of 10 km and coming into and out of the grounds has to be done at a reduced speed. Outside, the School zone effectively runs from the Prep crossing south to the roundabout at Shetland Ave. It is a large zone that requires all drivers to be mindful and watchful of pedestrians (students and passers-by) and all other road users (parents, local drivers and cyclists). We sincerely thank you for your understanding and effort to be vigilant, courteous, alert and safe at all times in our School zones.

Parent Survey

ISV, the survey research company, still has the School Satisfaction Survey open and is asking parents to please respond in order to build the best picture possible as to what our parent community feels about Westminster School. A reminder will be emailed to all parents before the end of Term 3, asking that you do set aside a few minutes to complete the survey, even if in the school holidays. As individual responses are completely confidential, we are unaware who has responded or not so please accept our apologies if you receive a reminder, even though you may have previously submitted a response.

Poetry Recital

As part of our Year 5 English studies the students have explored poetry. As a culmination of this, the students performed poetry as part of their studies. Two students from the year level were selected to participate in the IPSHA Poetry Recital Competition, held on Wednesday 16 September at Loreto College. The students had to memorise a set poem, ‘We Celebrate’ by Christopher Cheng, as well as deliver a poem of their choice. Max Junge presented ‘Fire’ by Jackie French and Ben Gomez presented an abridged version of ‘The Sash’ by Stephen Whiteside. Both boys did extremely well and delivered memorable poems. Max Junge received a high commendation and participation, and Ben Gomez received second place overall with his stirring and emotional rendition. We congratulate both boys on their fantastic efforts.

Mrs Mori

Visiting Author

Earlier this month the Junior Primary students were lucky enough to have a visiting author come into classrooms to run small writing workshops. Charlotte Barkla is an Adelaide-based writer who has written picture and fiction books for younger audiences. Charlotte’s debut picture book, All Bodies are Good Bodies, and her first novel Edie’s Experiments were both published at the beginning of 2020. In these workshops the students explored the process of writing a picture book. From planning, storyboarding, writing, illustrating and publishing, Charlotte took our students right through the whole process of producing a picture book. It was wonderful to see our students’ imagination and creativity come to the fore as they spent time developing their own characters and narratives. These sessions directly link to our Bookmaking Literacy units that sit within each Junior Primary year level at Westminster. We thank Charlotte for spending time with us and for sharing her journey as a published author.

October Vacation Care and New Staff

At OSHC our Vacation Care programs are often a highlight and the chance for students to enjoy some well-earned fun during their holidays. Our October program is no exception with plenty of new and exciting activities on offer. Book in now before spots fill up! Please contact Joel Steer via Email for bookings or if you have questions regarding OSHC.

We are also very lucky to have some new additions to our OSHC Staff. Our Assistant Director Tayla has already done an outstanding job running OSHC whilst our Director has been away on teacher placement. Along with Tayla, we have our new Casual Assistants, Meg and Jess who have also fitted in nicely – join us in welcoming them.

Please enjoy some happy snaps below from our Student Free day where our staff organised a Vacation Care style day for students. It was a great success.

Battery Recycling

Thank you to all our Westminster students, families and staff for continuing to support our recycling of batteries. To date we have collected just over 20kgs. Thank you to the staff members who have kindly taken small amounts to local recycling drop off points while shopping at Aldi and IKEA.

If you would like to send in your old batteries there are collection tubs in the ELC, Junior Primary (1S) and the Middle Primary (4S) for you to access. We appreciate your contributions knowing that we are carrying out small steps to ensure our environment can thrive and continue for generations to come.

Please continue to bring in your batteries instead of putting them into your household rubbish bins.

Mrs Schreuder

Bread Tag Collection

Aussie Bread Tags for Wheelchairs is a company that has been appreciative of our contributions of bread tags. This year Harry Panton (Crown), Sterling Gianni (Charter) and the students in 4S have been driving this initiative. The bread tags that we collect are donated to Aussie Bread Tags where they are recycled into seedling trays. The proceeds of these trays are used to provide wheelchairs for those in need. This company supports the Bread Tags for Wheelchairs group in South Africa, where up to 500kg are collected per month to recycle and then support those in need.

This year we have collected just over 22,000 bread tags.

Earlier this term 4S spent time in Rec P counting the bread tags as the Reception students were learning how to count in hundreds. We didn’t count all the 22,000 bread tags but we gave it a good try. It was a lot of fun making tallies and counting in hundreds.

Thank you to the students, families and staff at Westminster for bringing in their bread tags and continuing to support this initiative.

Mrs Schreuder

South West District SAPSASA Representatives

School Sport SA sprang back to life in Term 3 and Westminster students have played a big part in representing our district and school. Congratulations to these students.

The following players were selected for the South West SAPSASA Soccer team that competed in the Metropolitan carnival during Week 4 this term. Our boys came 8^th place in Division 2 this year, winning one game.

Axel Tucker (Year 6 Wyvern)
Zachary Tucker (Year 7 Clark)
Seven Ding (Year 7 Fricker)

The girls had a great carnival winning eight games and having a draw. They came equal first.

Aijay Willoughby (Year 6 Charter)

Adelle Parkinson-Need (Year 6 Abbey) was selected for the South West SAPSASA Hockey team that competed in the Metropolitan carnival during Week 4 this term. Adelle's team came 4^th overall in the competition, winning six out of 11 games.

The following players were selected for the South West SAPSASA Football team that competed in the Metropolitan carnival during Week 6 this term. The boys came in 3^rd place, winning six of nine games.

Charlie Bradford (Year 6 Charter)
Tim Alver (Year 7 Woollacott)
Jack Alver (Year 7 Woollacott)
Patrick Hutchins (Year 7 Kelly)
Lucas Doe (Year 7 Fereday)

The following players were selected for the South West SAPSASA Netball team that competed in the Metropolitan carnival during Week 6 this term. The girls came equal 2^nd after winning seven of their nine games.

Eliza Maloney (Year 7 Carter)
Amahli Siebum (Year 7 Heaslip)
Sophia Edwards (Year 7 Woollacott)
Harriet Robertson (Year 7 Forder)
Milla Liptak (Year 7 Dunstan)
Jazz McKay (Year 7 Clark)

2020 High Performance Junior Tennis Academy

We have been thrilled to get our inaugural Year 5 to 9 Tennis Academy underway this term. Under the tuition of James Calder and Tom Cross these students are undergoing a seven session intensive training block over four weeks. They train from 7.00 to 8.30 am, two mornings a week in preparation for our Term 4 Tennis season.

Student Achievements

As alluded to above, Aijay Willoughby (Year 6 Charter) has had a very successful term of sport. As a member of the title winning SAPSASA soccer team, Aijay scored 10 goals during the tournament, including a penalty and hat-trick. Soccer isn’t her only passion as she also was selected in the Under 14 SACA (Scorpion) cricket academy. The photo below is of the winning South West team with several female Adelaide Reds players.

While mentioning cricket, Haider Imran (Year 4 Wesley) has been recognised as 'Best Spin Bowler’ of the 2019/2020 season by the Mitchell Park Cricket Club (MPCC) who he plays for.

Code Camp

In the upcoming holidays, Code Camp are excited to be returning to Westminster School from Wednesday 30 September to Friday 2 October to teach your child to code or continue them on their coding journey!

This season Westminster School will be hosting the following programs:

Spark, Ages 7-12 years, (for new students)

Fun, engaging and challenging and our most known Code Camp that over 25,000 students have completed. Code Camp Spark is where every student in Years 2 to 6 should start their Code Camp journey. Your child will design an engaging platformer game (similar to Mario Bros.), and then bring it to life with intuitive, yet powerful, drag and drop code. Learning the fundamentals of coding gives children the confidence and knowledge to be in control with technology – not just as a passive consumer, but as a creator, problem solver, and digital storyteller.

Ignite, Ages 7-12 years (returning students)

We asked 10,000 Spark kids what they would love to create next, and then put our creative team to the task of bringing this to life as a new course. Mission accomplished! We also added more logic, more code, more problem solving and introduced JavaScript, the language of the web. The next step in your child's game making and coding journey. Your child will confidently learn the code and logic to create flashing gems, invisibility cloaks, spinning platforms, mini-games, bouncing clouds, shrinking potions and so much more.

Web Builders, Ages 8-13 years (Advanced)

Your kids can now build their own website at Code Camp. Starting from scratch, students will learn HTML, CSS & JavaScript to create a multi-page website on a topic of their choice. Please note due to the amount of typing required at this camp, it is recommended that students be fairly confident with keyboards.

Book now using discount code ‘SPRING20’ to take advantage of the $20 Early Bird Discount running until midnight Sunday 30 August.

Bookings can be made via this link: www.codecamp.com.au/westminster

For more information, visit codecamp.com.au or contact the Code Camp team at hello@codecamp.com.au

Diary Dates

End of Term 3, dismissal at 1.00 pm - Friday 25 September
Code Camp will be back at Westminster School from 30 September to 2 October
Term 4 commences – Tuesday 13 October

Grant Bock
Head of Preparatory School