Year 5

SANDY GIPPEL

Year 5 Coordinator

I have heard people say ‘If you want something done then give it to a busy person’. Well this has certainly applied to our Year 5 boys this year. They have navigated their way through an extremely busy year and only became better at managing it with each new challenge put before them. Mrs Aquilina, Mr Batty, Mr Trevethan and I are proud to be sending them on to be leaders of the school next year.

NUMINBAH VALLEY CAMP

The chance to attend camp in the Numinbah Valley so early in the year set the foundations for great relationships between the Year 5 teachers and students. Experiencing the boys outside the confines of a classroom gave great insight to their personalities that may not have surfaced in the normal dayto-day teaching environment. As the boys pushed themselves it allowed relationships and strong bonds to develop, benefiting all of us when we returned to school. I can’t say that all of the teachers bonded with the large mountain that needed to be climbed, OK, maybe that was just me, but I was so lucky to be accompanied on my journey up and down by a group of the most encouraging and optimistic young boys. One comment in particular warmed my heart no end, ‘For an older lady, Mrs Gippel, you did pretty well’.

GPS SWIMMING We were very fortunate to experience many excursions this year, and this type of learning outside the classroom is so valuable as it connects the real world with teaching. Our history excursions took us to the Brisbane Commissariat Store Museum. The boys made many connections even at this young age during this visit. Perhaps an even more valuable lesson was the one in social skills that was inadvertently given as we attempted to walk 78 boys through Queen Street Mall. At this age they are not overly aware of anyone else’s need or right to use the walkway, but they did much better on the return journey and we even got a few comments from passers-by who said how courteous they were.

COMMISSARIAT STORE MUSEUM

The more hands-on side to history involved our excursion to Eureka Goldfields, which is tucked up in the middle of residential acreage at the back of Beenleigh. This much anticipated excursion is always fun and the boys are treated more like they would have been in the 1800s and less like we treat them now, which is with compassion and care. They strangely loved the idea of how rough and rugged it was. Many boys said they would have loved to have lived in that era, but I wonder if they really meant it, as they asked for the airconditioning to be cranked up to high and a movie to be played on the in-car DVD player on the bus during the trip home.

Our field trip for geography took us to the Q1 to view the waterways from a fabulous vantage point and really appreciate the characteristics and changes that have occurred in this fast-developing city of ours. The boys delighted in pointing out their own

houses and the proximity to waterways, both natural and man-made. It was a great excursion and even more enjoyable when experienced through the enthusiasm of young, interested boys.

TRIP TO THE Q1

The trip each year to the Queensland Museum and the Gallery of Modern Art at Southbank never disappoints, as we chat to those boys who whether they knew it before or not are drawn to the intriguing, alternate and often bizarre artwork and artefacts on display. As adults we read the description on an exhibit when visiting an art gallery to help us determine what we are looking at, but the boys like to sum it all up just through just one look, and we were amazed (and often amused) by so much of what they interpreted and said about the art. What a wonderful chance this was to expand their minds and instil a sense of wonder. Memories that left them thinking long after the bus pulled away from the bay. Making a list of all of the other things we attended this year, I started to wonder how we managed to fit it all in. Life Education, Family Planning, Chinese New Year, Visiting Authors, Writing Workshops, GPS sporting events, Coding Week and Buddies just to mention a few.

BUDDIES WITH PRESCHOOL

Academically, in the confines of the classroom the boys were exposed to a very multimodal delivery of lessons this year as they were required to include the iPad as one of their compulsory learning tools. This was utilised not only as an extremely easily accessed tool for research, it was also used to set reminders, record events, capture learning moments that could then be reviewed later, and it also gave the boys a good understanding of how to become savvy users of technology. Interestingly, many boys still often opted for traditional methods of research or delivery of their work, and this was great to see as they started to view their device as merely another tool used to help them question rather than answer the inquiry. Whether we like it or not, NAPLAN was also a prominent date on the Year 5 calendar, and the boys were steadfast in their approach as they dutifully completed the three days of testing. They did not disappoint us or themselves, as they produced results that had them ranked amongst the best performing of their age group on the Gold Coast. The results were also a great record of their academic journey and showed that they have improved greatly since they last sat the test in Year 3. Along with the extremely busy year we have had both in and out of the classroom just covering the curriculum, the boys have managed to keep up with the many other activities that they committed to this year. Training and competing in sports and athletics, practising and performing music, Public Speaking, Debating, Chess, Robotics, Gateways, Choir, attending tours, the list goes on.

PUBLIC SPEAKING

If I had to sum up this busy, busy year in a few words I would borrow these from Nelson Mandela…

‘It always seems impossible until it is done.’

YEAR 5A

SEATED ROW: C. PALMER, J. PEGLER, T. CHEN, C. AMOS, A. VAHIDY, J. DEBELAK, A. HUGHES, A. CHANDLER SECOND ROW: T. TRAN, P. ANTOINE, R. PYKE-NOTT, L. MAIR, Y. WHALA, G. BURDON, Z. NEWMAN THIRD ROW: C. HAWKINS, T. DAVID, T. KENNEDY, L. ROWLES, S. FERRIS-NATHAN, B. HOLLEY, N. AIVALIOTIS TEACHER: MRS K. AQUILINA

YEAR 5B

SEATED ROW: J. WEI, A. O’KEEFE, J. SLATER, C. SULLIVAN, G. SMITH, M. KANNEMANN, Z. HOWARD, J. MCQUILLAN SECOND ROW: L. WHELAN, C. CARTISANO, E. RAMEAU, J. LEE, E. KAY, D. NEAL, V. STERGIOU THIRD ROW: Z. DART, H. O’CONNOR, J. BOLTON, M. BEXTON, R. STUCKEY, W. ELL, C. VEIVERS TEACHER: MR T. BATTY

YEAR 5RG

SEATED ROW: J. STUART, J. CATHCART, T. QUINN, O. DUNN, J. HARDY, H. GRAY, R. SAMPSON, W. MARSHALL SECOND ROW: Z. YOUSUF, J. BULAT, J. SA, H. SPITTLE, R. PAYTEN, E. SPITERI, A. SKAWINSKI THIRD ROW: J. FABER, O. BEECH, M. BRANCH, J. KELLY, W. WORBOYS, M. DAVIS TEACHER: MRS S. GIPPEL