What’s been happening in Year 6!
Reflecting on our Primary School Years
Last week, the students were asked to think back and reflect on their St Mary’s experience. As a year group, the children reflected on the teachers who have taught them, the excursions that they have attended, the sports carnivals, the musicals, the Sacraments, and of course the life lessons they have learnt along the way. It was throughout these conversations that we found out the students had been keeping a few sneaky secrets over the past few years! Below are some of their written reflections of their wonderful memories.
Lucinda: One of my favourite primary school memories was being part of the Peter Pan Musical. I liked being part of the backstage team - because without the backstage crew, the musical wouldn’t have gone so smoothly. I loved being involved as part of an important team, at such a special school event.
Ashton: Back in the day, Sonny and I got told to show our work to Year 6, it was at this point that we decided we would go one better and took ourselves straight to the Principal's office to show Mr Lowe because he was a legend, and liked giving out awards! He checked it and then he gave us a Principal's award. So we went back to class and Sonny had the award in his hand and proceeded to show everyone.
Kobi: What I will remember for my whole life, is when I got House Leader at the end of Year 5. It made me feel accepted and valued. I was so excited when I found out because I got to put a smile on peoples face and got to cheer on my fellow housemates. GO HOWARD!!
Jack: My primary school highlight was our first school camp. We had never been on a school camp before but we were pumped. It was very exciting, the pancakes were the best and it was only us there. I will be very sad to leave St Mary's but I am very excited to see what the next chapter holds!
Kaleb: The highlight of primary school was working with Mrs Wiggins. Personally I don't know how she does it - working with kids all day. She is amazing! She is kind and funny. I have missed her because she was the best teacher and helped me to read. For me, Mrs Wiggins is the highlight from all my primary school years.
Charlotte Ellis: When reflecting back on all of my primary school memories one of my favourite is when we had our year 5 fun day. For our fun day we got the chance to have a tarp acting as a slip ‘n’ slide, laid on the hill of the oval starting from the bell tower going down to the bottom of the oval. IN THE RAIN!! At first I didn’t think it would be that fun, Although after all the bubbles and water guns I ended up being one of the last people to get off the waterslide. After all of the fun was over we found a comfortable spot in the classroom and settled down while we munched on popcorn and watched a movie.
Emily Kate: Yr 6! My last year at St Mary's Primary School Moruya. I can still remember all those hilarious and funny memories I shared with that group ever since kindergarten. Like that one time when Mrs White asked Kai to move the screen up but instead of rolling the screen up with the mouse he lifted the actual computer up. Everyone was cracking up laughing at Kai. It was hilarious.
Jonah: One beautiful evening…. BANG! I was just going to brush my teethy pegs, when Jack opened the door on me. OWWW! Alec laughed so hard until I pulled the sock off and the room went silent. OMG! There's so much blood. Mr Bateman looked at my toe - next minute, Mr Bateman was nearly fainting on my bed. My teacher, Mrs Grant zoom zoomed us to the hospital where I saw my beautiful friend Rita. Year 6 camp was eventful to say the least!
Samira: Sugar can really send you to sleep. When I was in Yr 5 camp, I was in a cabin with Ruby, Charlotte and Ashleigh and someone (no names) bought lollies… We were all given lollies, even though it was against the rules, and obviously we ate it… But then I fell asleep while eating Sour Patch Kids and no one knew it…Suddenly, Mrs White came and told us to go to sleep and everyone layed down apart from me, after Mrs White told me to go to sleep another two times I finally flopped down and slept peacefully for the rest of the night, until the next morning of course….The best thing about the experience was Mrs White never caught me breaking the rules…Until today, one year later, I dobbed myself in without even knowing! Whoops!
Taylah: My whole primary school journey was filled with amazement, joy and cheerfulness. It is a time in my life that I will never forget. One key and memorable moment was finding out that Lincon and I were going to be the 2022 school leaders. I really appreciated that my peers believed in me and I was super excited about becoming a Year 6 leader in 2022. Primary school will be a highlight when I look back on my childhood. I’m so upset to leave but excited to start a new chapter!
Brooke: Mrs Matthews helped me alot, she helped me with reading and maths. I remember at camp that I was grumpy with Mr Harpley for waking me up.
Sonny: When I cried in Year 2 because I wasn't in Mrs Durnan’s class. Then I was staring at the window saying to Mrs Durnan ‘please can I come back to your class?’- because she was the best teacher and she always gave me Dojo points for being best dancer and best singer.
Kai: ‘One of the things enjoyed the most at St Mary's is camp. On Year 6 camp in the hall at Berry, we had a challenge to make clothes out of newspaper. My group made a t- shirt and shorts, but Sonny's group made a bra and undies. The second part of the challenge was one person from every group had to put paper clothes on and dance. When Sonny put his on,his dance was so funny. Every boy was crying because they laughed so much.’
Ruby: On year 5 camp, I was in a cabin with Ashleigh, Charlotte and Samira. This little accident happened on night two of camp. Samira had just opened a pack of sour patch kids and put them under her pillow, but she was tired so she went to bed and us other girls kept talking. At midnight, Samira sat up and started chomping down the lollies but suddenly the door creaked open and Mrs White walked in and we all flopped into our beds ….except Samira! “Girls, stop talking, its time to sleep … Samira lay down, it's time for bed’ said Mrs White, but Samira did not because she was asleep but she was still eating. ‘Samira lay down’. This time she did but she flopped on the bed so hard that the sour patch kids went flying and as the door shut the packet hit the ground and we all laughed.
Lincon: When I was reflecting on primary years, the best was being able to be school captain. I was so excited I congratulated my fellow classmates on being house or school captain. I will miss this school and staff. I had a great time at St Mary’s.
Ava: One of my favourite primary school memories happened this year in 2022. It was when I got my haircut and donated it to the Variety Children’s Organisation. One lucky person will get my hair made into a wig just for them. I did it because of a little family friend Eli. He is only one and has been diagnosed with cancer. For him and his family, we have raised over $3,000. Thank you to everyone who donated and I am very happy with my new haircut and Eli's family are very grateful.
Zac: My highlight of primary school years would have to be my first day of school when I made great friends and met my first ever teacher Mr Ward. After Kindergarten I have had great teachers and awesome years at primary school.
Ashleigh: I felt the soft sand between my toes while listening to the little waves crawling up the seashore. This is one of my favourite primary school memories. It was the year 2020 when we decided to go stand up paddle boarding for a class excursion. When we got to the beach, I saw crystal blue water and soft rocky sand. I dipped my feet into the cold salty water and started to get on the board… then paddle. I surprisingly went well and I glided through the water. It was so much fun and I let out a lot of giggles. This is one of my favourite memories because when I am in the water, I feel calm and have so much fun.
Charlotte Ekin: Hip Hip Hooray Hip Hip Hooray!!! That was our last time ever saying that as the cast took a bow in our final performance of Peter Pan the Musical! Being Wendy in our school production is something I will remember forever. It was an incredible journey and I had so much fun, making new friends and learning various acting skills! All the hard work had paid off. The whole cast did such a great job! Thank you to everyone who was involved! What a memorable experience for the St Mary’s school community!
Heidi: 2016 my first year at primary school at St Mary’s, I can still remember all the emotions I was feeling scared, worried, excited, nervous all at the same time. I was especially nervous about not having my friends from preschool, however I stepped into the classroom, holding Mum's hand (tight) and I saw all the kids laughing and having fun and I knew that I would be just fine. Looking around I saw a girl, whose name was Taylah Cassidy and I knew that we would become lifelong friends. I am sad to leave this place and all its memories but excited to start a new chapter in my life.
Kyle: One of the funniest experiences of camp was on the first day when we had showers and Kaleb was the first one in the showers and the last one out. He had a 40 minute shower while everyone else had like a 5 minute shower. Kaleb said that’s a short shower for him.
English
At St Mary’s primary school the staff and students have been on a very positive learning journey over the past few terms, changing and adapting the way that we teach and learn within the strand of English. In Year 6 we participate in daily, Explicit Direct Instruction lessons (EDI), whereby the children are highly engaged and complete a series of scaffolded activities with a variety of focuses. Recently we had identified that the children needed some support when writing direct and indirect speech in their individual writing passages. Therefore the series of EDI lessons focused on the different ways direct speech can be written, including the correct punctuation.
Art
Year 6 have been very excited to create their own personal keepsakes of Primary School. The students have enjoyed designing and painting cushion covers, with some very creative results!
Lily and Rita: The experience of making the pillow cases was really fun, as we had to go through different stages like designing to stuffing the pillows. The pillows are a way to remember our years at primary school. We thank Mrs Wilkie for this amazing learning experience!
Year 7 Orientation Day
It was wonderful to see the excitement on the students' faces after the Year 7 Orientation Day at Carroll College on Friday 25 November. The students were mentored by the current Year 10 students who very capably led them around the school, visiting various important places like the Music and Art Rooms, Science labs and Agriculture hub. Then, students were able to take part in various taster classes - similar to those they will engage in next year. Students made a mobile phone holder out of perspex in TAS, engaged in various hands-on experiments in Science, PE sessions and cooking classes.
The best thing at the orientation day was:
Jack and Ashton: ‘Carroll College was magnificent, the whole day was full of fun filled activities! In Science we had to fill up a little jar with food colouring and try to not mix them, which was our favourite activity. We also had to look into a microscope to see what the differences were between a variety of objects like a dog tick, crystals and a plant stem.’
Archer and Kordel: ‘At our Year 7 orientation on the 25th of November we participated in a sports session with Mr Brady. We did a mini game of indoor soccer with two teams of eight versus each other for three minutes. We did the same thing with basketball and at the end we participated in a warm down session of stretches. We really enjoyed our sports sessions and look forward to PE at Carroll College next year.’
Morgan D, Chloe and Bella: ‘At our Year 7 Carroll College orientation day we had lots of fun doing all the activities. We really enjoyed making the phone holders with Mrs Mullins. We had to pick a colour of soft setting plastic, and Mrs Mullins melted it on a little machine with a hot string, then we bent it into shape. After it had set we had a phone holder! We really enjoyed the hands-on experience and we think that TAS will be our favourite subject next year!’
Ashleigh and Alec: “The food is nearly ready” the Year 10 leaders informed us as we were eagerly waiting for our pastries. It was Friday the 25th of November 2022 the day that all of the Year 6 Carroll College students went for their orientation day. We did science, sport, wood work and art but food tech was the best out of them all. When we did foodtech we had to cook a delicious puff pastry dish. It had cream cheese with a big strawberry on top. And we had to do it with partners so it made it even more fun!
Emily F and Morgan B: The thing we loved about Year 7 orientation is that we were able to try out each subject and experienced everything high school had to offer. We loved how we were able to interact with others and tried to make new friends so we felt comfortable with others if they end up being in our classes. Our favourite subjects were science, sport and art.
Scarlett, Allira and Jemma: On the Carroll College orientation day we loved how we had a chance to interact and talk to students and teachers at the COllege. We also loved the variety of activities we got to participate in during the day. Some of our favourite activities were science, cooking and art.
Geography Biomes
Year 6 have been learning about the world's Biomes in Geography this semester. Due to the musical, it has taken a little while longer but this week, we were able to share our learning with each other and grade 4. It was wonderful to see their final products. The students could choose any Biome in the world - Polar, Desert, Forest - Rainforest or Temperate, Marine/Aquatic, Wetlands, or Grasslands to research and many different learning experiences were available to choose from, including sustainability, fauna, flora and threats There were some very interesting i-Movies made and presented also. It definitely inspired the Year 4 students and they enjoyed looking through all the research and dioramas.
It has been a wonderful journey with this amazing group of students and it is hard to believe that we will be sending you off onto greater adventures. We wish the students of Year 6 all the very best as they move into high school next year. Your friends and teachers will miss you very much.
Mrs Grant & Mrs White
Year 6 Teachers