There was a trace of Cup Fever during the Year 1 students’ Science, Literacy & Maths investigations into Mini Beasts & School Yard Safari recently. The Year 1A students cheered on their Gastropods & raced their snails in the inaugural 'Timboon Cup'. Winners yet to be announced… For the 3rd year running we were nominated as a finalist in the Victorian Education Excellence Awards in the Outstanding School Advancement category at the Plaza Ballroom in Melbourne. Some of our dynamic group of TAP educators were on hand to receive our Education Excellence Award certificate from the Minister of Education, The Hon James Merlino. We are extremely proud of our consistently high student engagement, community involvement, creative teachers & the improved achievement levels right across our P-12 school - confirmed in NAPLAN, VCE & VCAL results. Congratulations & thank you to everyone who has been involved in this innovative project which is embedded in our local agriculture industry & community.
As part of the Year 9/10 Business/Politics unit, Adam Jenkins, the Victoria UDV (United Dairyfrmers of Victoria) President described the role that imports, exports, tariffs, quotas & trade play in the viability of Australian agriculture. He outlined the size of the Australian & Chinese economies & population implications & the importance of the CHAFTA (China - Australia Free Trade Agreement) to this region. Students role played as buyers & sellers (New Zealand, Australia, Europe & China) buying milk powder on the world stage to understand the implications of tariffs, quotas & trade economies. Once again, we are very fortunate to have someone of the calibre of Adam explain these concepts to our TAP students Catherine Grist, the Education Officer from Wannon Water, visited the Year 7 Science class to outline how we need to manage water wisely as one of our precious resources. Students participated in various experiments including building an aquifer, making a filtration system & investigated what happens to things that go down the drain & the implications for us all. Catherine explained that water needs to be managed & protected within a community & how this management impacts on the water cycle.
The Year 6 students are proud to announce the arrival of 5 Silkie/Frizzle cross chicks that they incubated from 12 eggs that were posted to them from a breeder. There is an ‘old wives tale’ about thunderstorms affecting the viability of full term eggs & we had a beauty on Sunday… something else to research!
In conjunction with the National Trust of Victoria, Year 6 students have been asked to design a chook shed for construction at Nehill Brother’s Farm. After months of work researching heritage chook breeds and their needs, the students created their own design for a chook shed and the completed entries were sent to Melbourne for consideration by Martin Green, the Learning and Interpretations Manager of the Victorian National Trust. Last Thursday, Martin travelled from Melbourne to meet with the students and hear from them about their research and ideas. He was most impressed with the enthusiasm and thought the students put into their work. Martin described the role of a Project Manager & outlined that it was an exciting and creative job planning projects from their conception to their completion and could cover everything from designing software games to building dairies or chook sheds! Over the next few months, a Timboon P-12 chook shed will be built at Nehill Brother’s Farm and our future project will be to stock the chook shed with heritage breeds so visitors can gain an appreciation of these older breeds of chickens. The students of year 6 would like to thank Martin and the National Trust for this opportunity and look forward to following the project to completion. |
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February 2024
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