Cross Curriculum Priorities

Welcome to the October 2016 edition of news from the Cross Curriculum Coach. The WA

Curriculum identifies three cross curriculum priorities:

Sustainability

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultures and Histories

Australia’s Engagement with Asia

These priorities are embedded across a wide range of learning areas, from Mathematics to English,

Science, The Arts and Humanities, as well as Health and Physical Education.

Sustainability

Eco Footprint

1. Biodiversity Action:

River Rangers

Two Year 6 River Rangers attended the three-day Millennium

Kids Conference for Future Thinkers during the October school

holidays. The aim of the conference was to particiapte in ‘1000

actions to help the planet’. Our River Rangers conducted an

outstanding and confident presentation on their butterfly

studies. They demonstrated their leadership skills before, during

and after the conference.

Students – Marianna and Drew - rehearsing their presentation

during the last school holidays.

Students presenting at the conference during the

holidays.

After the conference the students have been working on their projects to ‘help the planet’.

Congratulations to our River Rangers!

Roots & Shoots Club

Our Roots & Shoots have been very busy this month.

They have particiated in a wide range of activities such as:

Left: Collecting tree guards

from the bushland now that

the seedlings planted in July are

established.

Right: Maintaining the hanging

baskets around the school

verandah including planting

flowers.

Another fabulous Roots & Shoots activity has been

designing a ‘peace pole’ for installation at Perth

Zoo. The design needed to be based on a natural

bush or forest setting. Our children painted a

scene from our own bushland.

The Peace Pole will be installed at Perth Zoo in

November.

Roots & Shoots meetings are held every Tuesday lunchtime. Many thanks to all our Roots &

Shoots members for your excellent work caring for the environment.

Turtle Tagging

Our Kindy children have been learning about turtles:

Children role played the life cycle of a marine turtle. This

photo shows the children facilitating the egg laying stage on

the beach!

Here our young scientists are role playing different jobs

scientists undertake in the field, such as, measuring,

recording and tagging turtles. The tag was a wooden peg!

The children thoroughly enjoyed these role plays … and what

a great job they did remembering all the stages!

Cooking

The Kwobadarn Kitchen was very busy during October, for

example, Year 6 (Room 11) cooked chocolate cakes as part of

their Chemical Science program. They learnt about reversible

and irreversible processes.

Student Authors … Butterfly Book Published and Available for

Purchase!

The whole school, K-Year 6, participated in the butterfly project. All

classes had butterfly kits to demonstrate the life cycle – eggs,

caterpillars, chrysalis and butterflies for release.

Students releasing one of their butterflies:

Buy your copy of the butterfly book, Kaadadjiny Bindi-Bindi, now!

All these, and more, stunning artworks are included in the book. It is available from the school office

at a cost of $40 each. This price is the cost of publication.

Wildlife at School

Fledglings and bobtails have filled our school yards with excitement and wonder! Nathanael Howard

photographed these fabulous pictures of Magpies - parent and fledgling - on the school oval.

Thanks Nathanael for bring us close to the wonders of wildlife in our school yard!

Rahnae Hawkins photographed these two bobtails at the ELC door:

… and Elaine Lewis found this bobtail promoting recycling outside the Kwobadarn:

Thanks to Parent Volunteers

Sincere thanks to parent helpers for:

Maintaining the Kwobadarn – cleaning and checking equipment/stock

Helping with cooking lessons

Weeding

Providing plants for the assembly garden stalls – huge thank you to Leonie Tanner for plants

and herbs all year!

Without parent help we wouldn’t be able to provide the amazing learning opportunities that we do!

Many thanks to all parent helpers.

2. WasteWise:

Room 2 Year 4 students are the Waste Warriors for

Term 4. They collect food scraps and recycle them in

worm farms and compost bins. Great job Waste

Warriors!

Students learn about the benefits

of worm farming and care of worms:

The special focus of our Waste Warriors, with the support of the Year 1s in Room 1 and Year 4s in

Room 2, was the promotion of Nude Food. Please support Nude Food Tuesdays – student

lunchboxes will be checked to determine the percentage of nude food lunches in each class.

Information about healthy, nude food lunches may be found at:

https://www.kitchengardenfoundation.org.au/content/pick-mix-1-6-lunchbox-poster

Please continue to support the various wastewise initiatives across the school. We recycle …

batteries

used toothbrushes and oral care packaging

mobile phones

plastic bread bag clips

old pairs of glasses

ink cartridges

paper and cardboard

All these bins are at the Kwobadarn (student kitchen).

Thank you for contributing to our Wastewise initiatives.

3. WaterWise:

National Water Week was held at

Coolbinia PS in Week 2 of this term. Here

are some photos of the great water-based

learning and outdoor activities for K-Yr 6

children:

Left: Perth Catchment

Model

Right: Floating and

sinking Experiments

See our students promoting National Water Week on the Water Corporation website:

https://www.watercorporation.com.au/about-us/media/media-releases/media-

release/coolbinia-primary-school-celebrates-national-water-week

Year 3 students in Room 5 are the Water Warriors

during Term 4. Student collecting rainwater for

watering the gardens and hanging baskets, as well

as topping up the bird baths and frog habitat

ponds.

As an active Waterwise School we have representation on the Water Corporation’s Teachers

Reference Group.

Education is the key for water saving at home. Visit watercorporation.com.au/save-water

and watercorporation.com.au/whatsyourwaterstory to find out how you can save water.

4. EnergySmart:

Our 73 solar panels continue to reduce our electricity costs and carbon footprint. Whole school daily

actions to reduce electricity are also being implemented, contributing to our EnergySmart goals.

On 11 October our solar power system had generated 76979kWh and saved 72621kg of CO2 from

being released into the atmosphere since 13 September 2012.

A professional energy audit was conducted this month to determine new ways we could reduce our

electricity costs and carbon footprint. These will be investigated and implemented over the coming

months.

5. TravelSmart:

Coolbinia PS was awarded Platinum level in TravelSmart (TS) Awards last year. This year we are going for the Double Platinum Award.

Year 5 students are involved in organising TS events. The Term 4 TS team, from Room 12, prepared posters and make announcements to promote our ‘Walk Over October’ Day at the start of this term. Raffle tickets, stickers and other prizes were distributed to children coming to school in a TravelSmart way. Please continue to support TravelSmart: every Friday is a Fume Free Friday! Social Handprint

1. Student Wellbeing:

Four Year 6 students are preparing to visit RSL Care on 11th

November for Remembrance Day. The students will read a poem,

participate in a wreath-laying ceremony, sing the National Anthem

and talk with the residents.

This community service opportunity will enhance our students’

presentation skills, as well as their personal confidence.

2. Aboriginal Cultures:

An aspect of our engagement with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait

islander Cultures and Histories Cross Curriculum Priority was demonstrated by Noongar artists

working in our school. Sharyn Egan, Noongar artist, worked with children from Years 1-4, creating

paintings of their class butterflies. The photos below show these paintings made into signage in our

butterfly gardens.

3. Cultural & Social Diversity:

The annual review of the Australia’s Engagement with Asia Cross Curriculum Priority will be

conducted next month. The school reviews the effectiveness of the implementation of this, and the

other two priorities, every year. Cross curriculum Priority plans for 2017 are then developed based

on the review findings.

4. Community Partnerships:

As a founding member of the Global Citizenship Schools program, our school was invited to

participate in the first United Nations Association of Australia WA Division’s conference: Tomorrow’s

Citizen Leaders – Local to Global.

During October four Year 5 students prepared for the conference, which will be held in early

November at Parliament House. The students will present a project they have developed to address

gender inequality, one of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. This project will be

implemented next year, when these students will be Year 6 leaders. All Year 6s will be invited to

participate in organising the school-wide project.

We greatly appreciate the support provided by United Nations Association of Australia WA Division,

enabling our children to participate in this citizenship experience, which will be an outstanding

educational opportunity.

5. Economics & Built Environment:

Boya Currency Boyas are our local currency created to acknowledge and reward environmentally and socially supportive actions. Boyas are spent at assembly garden produce stalls, the canteen and the Year 6 fete.

Aboriginal Cultures and Histories

PALS Grant

In September the school submitted a final report to acquit our 2016

Partnerships Acceptance Learning and Sharing (PALS) grant. This

year we addressed the ‘Environment Award’ category, focusing on

the conservation of local butterfly species. For example, Jade

Dolman, Noongar artist, worked with Kindy and PP children

creating two paintings of their class butterflies.

Australia’s Engagement with Asia

Asian Butterflies

One of the main learning activities for Australia’s Engagement with

Asia Cross Curriculum Priority this year has been the creation of

our stunning Wild Ways Conservation Art Project banner, featuring

local and Indonesian butterflies. This banner was on display at

Perth Zoo for the last two months. It has now been returned to the

school and will be displayed in the Kwobadarn, next to previous

Wild Ways banners.

Sustainable Development Goals

The other key focus for the Asian Cross Curriculum Priority has been based on the Sustainable

Development Goals (SDGs):

Coolbinia Primary School supports the achievement of these goals by having active membership with

the One World Centre and the United Nations Association of Australia WA Global Schools Project, as

well as the actions we take to address the various sustainability issues outlined in the SDGs.

Throughout the year our school works to contribute to Global Goal 13 (Climate action) through our

work on our 200 tonne carbon emissions reduction plan. Further actions based on other gaols

include for example:

Global Goal 3 (Good health and wellbeing) though participation in the Yolanda Frank Art

Award.

Global Goal 5 (Gender equality) by participating in the Tomorrow’s Citizen Leaders – Local to

Global, conference at Parliament House.

Global Goal 15 (Life on land) through our planting and nest box programs.

Global Goal 16 (Peace, justice and strong institutions) by attending an incursion called “In

search of safety”.

Sincerely

Dr Elaine Lewis

Cross Curriculum Coach

River Rangers Coordinator

Roots and Shoots Coordinator

[Part time role; located in the Kwobadarn on Tuesdays & Thursdays]

31 October 2016