Thank you to Ms Sneesby and the Year 2 students for sharing a great presentation about Australia at this week’s Junior School assembly. The next Junior School Assembly will be held at 8.30am on Wednesday 9 September. Year 1 will be making a presentation and Merit Certificates will be awarded to selected students from each class. At this stage, parents will not be able to attend due to the ongoing government restrictions in place, but we will keep you informed of any changes. School TV Special Report As Mrs Cuthbert has indicated, just a reminder of the new report from renowned Australian psychologist, Michael Carr-Gregg titled, ‘Riding the Corona Coaster’ on the School TV online resource on our website. I encourage you take the time to view this report and also explore each of the series and resources available. School Colour Explosion The School Colour Explosion™ run will be held on the last day of Term 3, Friday 18 September. The day’s focus is on fun and fitness with the added benefit of raising funds for our school. The more money we raise the more we can provide for the students through vital school projects, in particular building our resources to enhance our digital technology curriculum. Please note: this event will be run in the afternoon and is purely for fun. It is totally separate from the morning’s Cross Country race. There will be more information regarding the run and how to fundraise placed on Parent Portal in the coming days. Class News from 2LS During Term 3 Year 2 students have been completing a weekly STEAM Challenge. STEAM incorporates Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths. It allows students to be involved in a creative process that promotes problem-solving, asking thoughtful questions, looking at different techniques and ways to solve a problem and collaborating with peers through meaningful dialogue and compromise. Year 2 have taken on each STEAM challenge with lots of enthusiasm and excitement. During our first challenge students were given a 30cm piece of aluminium foil. They were challenged to see which group could build the strongest boat that could float holding the largest number of blocks. They had to collaborate to discuss and draw their design and then make their boats. On their first float we discovered some boats held 10 blocks while other boats held over 150 blocks! Students then had the opportunity to re-design and build another boat to test. During our second challenge pairs were given a pack of playing cards and challenged to build the tallest tower. Our classroom was instantly filled with enthusiastic noise only to be met with silent disappointment five minutes after we started. The students really had to work hard to display resilience and perseverance to keep on trying and challenge themselves to think about different ways to make the cards stand upright. Each group displayed concentration and excellent communication skills as they slowly and carefully built their towers. In our latest challenge, small groups were given wooden skewers and a roll of sticky tape, without a dispenser. It was interesting watching students come up with their own ideas about how to cut the tape and stop the end of the tape from getting stuck back to the roll! Again, extreme persistence was displayed, and students enjoyed this challenge so much that we followed up with it again the next afternoon so they could continue their problem solving and building skills. Great discussions were had about the type of structures that were built and what foundations worked well to support the height and weight of the towers.