We love it when students are able to share their learning experiences with adults.  At Woodend we are trying to involve  our students  in  more offportunties to do this at staff meetings, at leaders’ and teachers’ conferences and also at Governing Council meetings.

IMG_6934At our Governing Council meeting earlier this month, we were very lucky to have more  students come along to present to us!

Brothers Nathan & Braiden came along with their parents  to show us the Edison robots that they have been practising with at home. It was amazing to see these young students easily programming these robots to perform a variety of tasks. We look forward to being able to add more devices such as these to the Woodend studio space, thanks to our successful code-a-thon.
IMG_6940Taylor, a year 3 student, came along with her teacher Mr Brown to present to us some of the work their class has been doing in math, along with partner class Mrs Sheppard’s year 4s. Some of the things Taylor and Mr. Brown shared with us include: efforts to build up confidence in math; slowing down your thinking – which helps with persistence working through problems, remembering previous learning and knowledge, and checking reasonableness of answer; getting out of the learning pit – to be courageous enough to jump in and explore, and then climb out and share your answer; use of google classroom to share ideas with the class; the importance of gathering lots of different “right” answers, because “a good mathematician is always willing to change their answer”; and the fun of bringing math games home to play with your family. It was truly wonderful to see taylor’s confidence in presenting her learning to governing council and I highly encourage you to ask your children if they have been exploring some of these same concepts in their classrooms!
Our Governing Council agenda this month included discussion of traffic, parking, and safety around the school; an upcoming focus on STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths)  here at Woodend; as well as reports from each of our school committees. As always, our school is a busy place! Be sure to keep checking our news blog for information from our various committees and initiatives.

woodend cafeThis term, on Friday 2 September and Friday 30 September, I will be hosting the Woodend Café in the school kitchen from 9am. Pop in for a coffee, tea, or hot chocolate – it’s a very casual gathering – a great time to invite a friend along for a visit, meet other school parents, or simply pop in for a hot drink and a chat.

See you there!

Karen Gunton

Governing Council Chairperson