Hearingunitnewsletter term3 2017

Yarra Valley Grammar Hearing Unit Newsletter www.yvg.vic.edu.au

Telephone: +61 3 9262 7700

Facsimile: + 61 3 9876 1077

Term 3

Email: reception@yvg.vic.edu.au

September 2017

Unveiling the Hearing Unit Citizenship Award Honour Board

TABLE OF CONTENTS: FROM THE HEARING UNIT ......................................................................................................................................................... 2 SPEECH SPOT ............................................................................................................................................................................ 3 TERM 3 IN PREP ........................................................................................................................................................................ 4 PRODUCT DESIGN TECHNOLOGY - WOOD.................................................................................................................................. 5 CONGRATULATIONS BEN! ......................................................................................................................................................... 6 CONGRATULATIONS EMILY! ...................................................................................................................................................... 6 HEARING AWARENESS WEEK IN JUNIOR SCHOOL ...................................................................................................................... 6 YEAR 7 SCIENCE......................................................................................................................................................................... 7 YEAR 2 ROBOTICS ...................................................................................................................................................................... 8 LOCHIE’S STORY ........................................................................................................................................................................ 9 YEAR 9 DIVERSITY WEEK .......................................................................................................................................................... 10 JUST ONE DAY – YEAR 4........................................................................................................................................................... 11 HEARING AWARENESS WEEK................................................................................................................................................... 12 HARMONY DAY IN THE JUNIOR SCHOOL .................................................................................................................................. 13 GABE’S RECOUNT .................................................................................................................................................................... 14 YEAR 5 .................................................................................................................................................................................... 15 REMINGTON’S NEWS REPORT ................................................................................................................................................. 16

FROM THE HEARING UNIT The month of August is always a busy time in the Hearing Unit with Hearing Awareness Week, the Parent Information Evening and the announcement of the Hearing Unit Citizenship Award.

This year we invited back past Head of Hearing Unit, Ms Jenny Rolleston to unveil our new honour board for the Hearing Unit Citizenship Award. It was Jenny’s idea to have such an award 12 years ago so it was fitting that she unveiled the board. Jenny’s idea was to develop a culture of service to others from the Hearing Unit students.

On stage at the Hearing Awareness Week Assembly we had the Hearing Unit’s patron Mr James Calvert-Jones, one of the Hearing Unit’s foundation students, who presented Adem Goktepe of Year 9 with the Citizenship Award. Congratulations to Adem who involves himself in extra-curricular areas and enjoys helping and assisting others in the Hearing Unit. The assembly and unveiling of the board was a wonderful occasion for the Hearing Unit, it highlighted the wonderful camaraderie between staff and students alike and continuing keen interest in the unit from people who have had a long association with the unit.

Once again this the sale of butterfly badges in support of the Deafness Foundation was well supported by the Hearing Unit students and the greater school. Congratulations to all the Hearing Unit students for their efforts in selling the badges.

I would also like to congratulate Ben Baulch of Year 4 who during the term progressed to the nationals for cross-country in the multi-class. Ben achieved a 3rd place. This is an amazing effort. We are very proud of Ben’s efforts.

Congratulations to Emily Baulch of Year 8 who made to the State finals of the National History Challenge. A great effort.

Our Parent Information Evening was certainly well attended on the 21st August. Our guest speaker was Paula Zalcberg. Paula has 40 years’ experience as a Teacher of the Deaf and Counsellor for deaf and hard of hearing students and their families throughout Victoria. Paula raised many interesting questions and ideas to do with young deaf and hard of hearing people and their families. It was an excellent night.

When we return it will be time to prepare for examinations in the Senior School. This is always a busy time and wish all of our students good luck as they prepare.

Mr Ian Saynor Head of the Hearing Unit

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SPEECH SPOT

We have been very fortunate to have a final year Speech Pathology student working in the Hearing Unit this term. Alice Keith is from Australian Catholic University, and will be working with us until the end of the school year. Speech Pathology courses offer students a broad education in audiology but no specific training in working with children with a hearing impairment so we feel privileged to be able to offer Alice such an experience. Alice has done a great job so far in getting to know our wonderful Hearing Unit students and has started to develop her skills in working directly with a number of them.

Speech Pathology Week was held in August. This year the focus was on developing “communication access�. Communication access is about creating a world where people with communication difficulties can communicate successfully with everyone. It is about all forms of communication being respected and understood. With around 5% of the Australian population experiencing a communication disorder, this is an important message to highlight.

Mrs Anneke Flinn Speech Pathologist

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TERM 3 IN PREP During the second week of this term we celebrated 100 Days in Prep. The classroom was decorated with fun things and we all had to bring in 100 things in a small bag. We read the book “ 100 Hungry Ants”, wrote 100 words, made a number line, turned ourselves into 100 year olds and also did lots great maths throughout the day.

We are so lucky at Yarra to have Bek from Australian Hearing come and visit us each month. When she comes to the school she checks our ears and equipment, but this term she visited the Prep classroom to talk about having a hearing loss. We all got to listen through stethoclips to get a better understanding of how hard it is when everything around you is amplified. The Preps asked Bek many interesting questions about ears and deafness.

The Preps hosted their first assembly. They all had to get up on the big stage and perform to the audience. Indi was also very brave and spoke on the microphone.

Nutrition has been a big topic this term. We have talked about healthy foods and learning all about the different foods that we eat. We had a lady from “DalyNutriton” come to talk to us and we made yummy healthy snacks that looked like faces. We also visited our local shops and bought food for our Prep restaurant. It was lots of fun shopping and cooking.

We recently had a “Robotics and Coding” day. We firstly made a maze and then programed our little robot to move through the maze without crashing. We had to learn about forwards, backwards, quarter turns and rotations. It was lots of fun and we have continued to use them during our maths sessions too.

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PRODUCT DESIGN TECHNOLOGY - WOOD During Arts Week (Monday 21st August – Friday 25th August), a large number of student art pieces were showcased in Foundation Hall. This stunning coffee table, by our very own Joshua Randall, was of particular note. We are all very proud of Joshua’s piece and amazed by his talent.

YEAR 2

In Year 2 at Yarra Valley Grammar all children have the opportunity to learn a string instrument. At the conclusion of their lessons the children hold a small concert for the parents to show off their new skills and talents. The children were outstanding as they concentrated and counted the beats. I am always amazed at how children with a hearing loss are able to play musical instruments so competently.

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CONGRATULATIONS BEN! Ben Baulch in 4M represented Victoria as a member of Team Vic at the 2017 SSA Cross Country National Championships, which were held from Friday 11 August – Monday 14 August at Rokeby Police Academy in Hobart, Tasmania. Participating states and territories included ACT, NSW, NT, QLD, SA, TAS, VIC and WA as well as a team from New Zealand.

Running as a deaf athlete in very challenging weather conditions, Ben came 3rd in his age group earning a Bronze Medal. The Team Vic Multi-Class team also came 3rd overall in Ben’s age group earning him a second Bronze medal.

We are all very proud of Ben and his efforts.

CONGRATULATIONS EMILY! Congratulations goes to Emily Baulch who made it to the State finals for this year’s National History Challenge.

HEARING AWARENESS WEEK IN JUNIOR SCHOOL One of the most exciting times for us in the Junior School is Hearing Awareness Week. There is always a buzz in the playground during the sale of butterfly badges that are sold by the children from the Hearing Unit. Patience is necessary as the long line of customers check out the new colours and patterns that are available. Many children buy the complete set and display them proudly on their blazers and jumpers. All money raised goes to the Deafness Foundation to help other Deaf or hard of hearing people in the broader community.

As part of this special week we also host a Junior School Assembly. This year the theme was all about ‘How Loud is Too Loud.” Videos were taken in different environments and the children in the audience had to guess how many decibels they thought the noise was. This gave everyone a great understanding of how volumes vary depending on the environment and how difficult it is trying to hear when there is a lot of noise in the background. A special thanks to Remington from Year 5 and Hamish from Year 4 for putting this video together. You both did a fantastic job.

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YEAR 7 SCIENCE

Riley Gurry and Abbey Gartlan with zookeeper Andrew and ‘Buster’ the snake.

On Thursday 31st August, all Year 7 students went to the Melbourne Zoo to broaden their understanding of classification. The students had a booklet to complete where they answered questions about different animals and how these animals are classified. The students were also required to create an iMovie of one of the endangered animals living in the zoo. All Year 7s had the opportunity to spend some time with a zookeeper to learn about the endangered animals and the work that the zoologists do. Year 7.3 were very lucky to spend some time with Andrew and they were able to have a pat of ‘Buster’ the snake.

Riley Gurry was lucky enough to be one of a small group of students who grew crystals in Science.

Riley’s crystal is shown above in one of the bushes, outside the Science building.

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YEAR 2 ROBOTICS This term we had Bricks4kids come to visit Year 2 as part of the Robotic and Coding day in the Junior School. The children needed to carefully follow instructions to build a carousel made of Lego.

Once the build was complete they were required to code to make the carousel turn three times in one direction and then twice in the other directions. Speed had to be adjusted so that the little Lego people met Health and Safety standards. It took a lot of team work and problem solving to get the ride to work correctly.

We had so much fun in this robotic session.

Here are some thoughts from Matthew Layhe in Year 2.

“ I noticed that the person who came to our school had Bricks4Kids written on her shirt. (I have done bricks 4 Kids before) Her name was Jo and she explained how the different size gears would change the speed. We got into partners. Jo said we will need one computer, one box of Lego ( ours didn’t have all the parts)

Jo went around and got us the instructions on the computer. When we got our instructions we started building a ride. Next we had to do come coding to make it work. It was really hard but we did it and we felt very proud of ourselves.

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LOCHIE’S STORY Lochie read an article about an unusual friendship between a diver and a Port Jackson shark. This inspired him to create his own story about an unusual friendship…

The portal trip

By Lochie Baulch CHAPTER 1 A long time ago, when Lochie was going through the Overworld desert, he found an egg. He didn’t know then that it was a time scorpion! He cared for the egg until it hatched.” AAAAAAHHHHHH!” screamed Lochie, “a scorpion”! Lochie had a book of scorpions. He looked through and in the ‘rarest scorpion’ section he found what he was looking for: A time scorpion. A time scorpion has magical powers. They could make portals with their claws that allowed the scorpion and his owner to travel through to different dimensions in time. “I will call you…Scorpy and we can travel around the globe together”.

CHAPTER 2 Ten years later…

Lochie and Scorpy had been going through time portals all of the time. They had so many adventures going through the portals that Scorpy made. One day they went through a portal that took them to Demon Island. When they got to Demon they were attacked by ferocious demons. Scorpy used his claws and poisonous tail and Lochie used the Sword of times. Lochie had found the sword of times in the Isle of Dragons. The sword created a force field that protected its owner and travel mate.

THWANG! WHOOSH! A demon arrow was shot and it hit Scorpy in the back. Then Lochie’s sword made a force field so that when the demons touched it it killed them. Lochie pulled the arrow out of Scorpy’s back. Scorpy stung him by accident but luckily Lochie had an antidote that could heal people. Scorpy was patched up by Lochie and he made a portal to go back to the Overworld.

CHAPTER 3 Lochie and Scorpy arrived back in the Overworld just as Lochie’s school bell was about to go. Lochie arrived at school but something was wrong. No one was there!!! Lochie had a bad feeling about it.

Scorpy was posed for battle and Lochie grabbed his sword but then… “tick, tIck, tick, BANG!!!!”

The blast threw them back and Lochie broke his leg. He had to go to the hospital and get a cast on.

Lochie was so upset because he knew he couldn’t go through the portal with his cast on. Scorpy wanted to help Lochie so he made a special medical portal. Then something amazing happened as they went through the portal. Scorpy’s bandage came off and Lochie’s leg healed. The medical portal healed every medical problem.

When they got through to the other side of the portal Lochie found a crossbow. Little did he know how his life was about to change…

TO BE CONTINUED

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YEAR 9 DIVERSITY WEEK

Posing for a Picture Outside the Jewish Museum

Outside the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre

Diversity Week was an interesting week as we learnt about many different cultures and religions that lurked in the streets of Melbourne. We visited the Jewish Museum and learnt about how they celebrated festivals using the Lunar Calendar. They ate sweet foods to represent the joys and fun times of life. We also learnt about the clothing that Jewish wore during weddings, which was golden-laced clothes.

We explored St Kilda looking for culture in shops and restaurants. We found stores that sold typical everyday foods such as hamburgers with a twist to it. There was a fish and chip store that was themed Mexican, and had many different types of foods that you wouldn't normally see.

In Footscray, where the ASRC was located, you could see many different people from around the world living their lives and the stores sold exotic foods. In the ASRC, it was shocking to find out that Australia don't take in as many people as most countries. Finland take in one million people per year while Australia takes in one hundred and fifty thousand.

Overall, Diversity has left us an important message, every single person, culture and religion is special in its own way as they celebrate what is most important to them and others but we are all the same in other ways such as we may all like the same show, the same colour or even have the same hobbies.

Adem Goktepe 9.6

Melbourne is one of the most diverse cities in the world, possibly the most diverse in Australia; throughout the week our group was constantly being put in the right place to understand our unique and diverse city. I am quite disappointed to say that I did not get to enjoy the first two days of the week as I was away, but for the few days I was in the city, I got to go to a Jewish school, a delicious Chinese restaurant, a Jewish museum, the asylum seekers centre and I also got to go on an insightful tour of the city by bike.

At the end of the week after we had got back from our Friday morning activities, we all sat down for a chapel service, and after we had sung a few hymns we were invited to take turns to share what we had learnt throughout the week. It was a great way to express to each other how we felt about diversity and what we had learnt about it.

Diversity week was an amazing and fun week that I'm sure every student enjoyed.

Naish Dare 9.6

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JUST ONE DAY – YEAR 4 For “Just One Day” the Yarra Valley Junior school community were asked to live simply and experience the difference that poor people in developing countries may live with. In classroom discussions our Hearing Unit students raised the idea that poor people would not have access to the medical and technological support that allows them to hear with hearing aids and cochlear implants. These students chose to challenge themselves and go for a period of time without their listening devices. This is their reflection: Hamish: Why –We took off our hearing aids and cochlear implants so we could see what it’s like for people in other countries who don’t have access to hearing aids or implants.

It felt really strange to take off our devices. I couldn’t hear as much as normal. It felt like I was in a sound proof room and could only hear the people in the sound proof room with me.

When I took off my aids people were shouting a lot more and talking louder at me. Even though they were talking louder it was still harder for me to hear. Other people said I didn’t interrupt as much because I couldn’t hear ¾ of what they said.

I found it annoying because it was harder to hear and I had to work even harder than normal. After that day I was very tired.

It makes me quite grateful that I have hearing aids because people in poor countries don’t have them.

I’ve learned that I lip read better than I thought.

Ben: We took our ears (implants and hearing aids) off, all of the deaf kids in Year 4, to see what it’s like for deaf kids in 3rd world countries.

I had my jotter and a pencil and when people wanted to say something they wrote it down. I found lip reading tricky.

When I took my ears off it felt weird, I could feel the magnet in my ears but it wasn’t sticking to anything.

I felt relaxed when I took my ears off because I didn’t have to listen to anybody. Other people said I looked relaxed, but I wasn’t really joining in.

It would be weird if it was like this all of the time. I could die because I couldn’t hear things to be safe, like fires and cars.

I know that people in other countries don’t get help with their hearing like I do. I wouldn’t get to hear my family and that would make me sad. I am grateful that I have hearing and if I hear cars coming I can move out of the way quickly.

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HEARING AWARENESS WEEK

Our cheeky Year 4 boys!

Mr Ian Saynor with Adem Goktepe, Citizenship Award recipient

The T

The

Mr James Calvert-Jones awarding Adem in Assembly.

Ms Jenny Rolleston in front of our new honour board.

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HARMONY DAY IN THE JUNIOR SCHOOL Our diversity makes Australia a great place to live. Harmony Day is a celebration of our cultural diversity – a day of cultural respect for everyone who calls Australia home.The message of Harmony Day is ‘everyone belongs’, the day aims to engage our students to think about their community, respect cultural and religious diversity and foster sense of belonging for everyone. In the Junior School we celebrated Harmony Day in our CAB (Cross age buddies) groups. We talked about why Australia is a great place to live and why respecting others is so important.

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GABE’S RECOUNT Year 4 were asked to write a recount of an experience. Gabe wrote this unedited text about the time his implant magnet was dislodged.

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YEAR 5 The Year 5s have been looking at the early years of Australian exploration. They have researched a specific explorer and written a diary by a fictional explorer. Here is Arthur Flinders’ diary by Remington. Ryan researched Burke & Wills.

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REMINGTON’S NEWS REPORT

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JUNIOR SCHOOL FOOTY DAY

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