From the deepest part of my heart, I hear

The voice that must be heard,

The mighty-sounding Word:

"Let light within you, bright and clear,

In thoughts and actions, shine.

Then will you truly be a child of mine."

Dear GHSS Families,

Thanks and Appreciations How blessed were we with glorious weather on Friday?!  Perfect for the merry band of helpers that assisted with moving, sorting, cleaning, and photographing the donated items from Anton and MaryAnn, of little IGA, ready to post them online for selling.  Many thanks to Heath Gillett, Bill Hollingworth, Kirsten Lebbing, Miranda Miller, Jane Taylor and Lesley Wybenga.  Thanks also to Melanie Trenow, who tackled the storage shed with me, and to Ashley Schipp and Bill for lending their trailers and doing the Tip Shop runs for us.

There are some treasures to be had - a brand new Drip Filter Coffee Machine, near new kettle and toaster, old dining table, booth seats, an amazing Kitchen Dresser.  All items are being listed for sale online but if you have spied something you are interested in, pop in to the front office with your offer and it could be yours!

Festival of Voice Whilst we are on to thank yous, I am sure many of you enjoyed the offerings of the Festival of Voice over the weekend.  Many thanks to parents for ferrying your children to the various performances of which they were a part.  What a fabulous experience it proved to be for them all.  Many thanks also to the staff who worked with the children to prepare them for the events - Bruce Anthony, Robyn Miller, Ashley Schipp and Ellen Somas.

The children looked a treat in their coloured shirts, performing at the Youth Concert at the Civic Centre on Friday afternoon.  The opening ceremony was a moving experience for everyone involved and it was delightful to see our youngest students singing their Bush School songs on the lawn outside the Mustard Seed on Saturday.

Further highlights were the perfomances involving a number of our talented staff - Bruce as one half of Mixed Mob, Ashley of Lava Boys fame, Mel in the Ukeladians and Renee with moving renditions of her poetry. 

The standout for me was enjoying the performance of The Unusual Suspects.  This trio of talented young musicians were my "Festival Discovery" with two of them graduates of GHSS during my time here.  Well done Maya, Reef and Riley!  Stars of the future - remember you read it here first folks!  Could not be more proud.

High School 2022 Kath Ward, Principal of Denmark SHS will be visiting our school on Friday June 25th, the last day of Term 2.  She will be at assembly and then will meet with Class 6 students and their parents after assembly to talk about what DSHS has to offer for children who wish to transition there for Year 7 in 2022.  Any parents with Class 5 children who are of the age to transfer to Year 7 in 2022 and are thinking of doing so, are also invited to attend with their child.  Kath will also be bringing 2020 GHSS graduates with her to talk about their experience transitioning to high school. 

On Thursday July 29th, (Week 2 of Term 3), Kevin Mazzer of Perth Waldorf School (PWS) will be joining me to deliver a talk on the Steiner Curriculum for Class 7.  Kevin has been a part of PWS for a number of years and taught the Class 7 curriculum several times.  He will assist me in answering queries or concerns you may have in relation to the Steiner Curriculum and being part of a developing a High School.  We are also looking to secure a past GHSS graduate who went on to complete a Steiner High School education, graduating from Perth Waldorf School, to also join us.  Save the date!  We will be looking to hold the talk in the evening.  Kevin will then spend Friday working with staff in relation to the Class 7 curriculum. 

Whilst we are on track, we are not yet through the full approval process for offering Class 7 in 2022, so I do encourage Class 6 families to take part in both discussions so you are able to be fully informed of what is on offer and are able to ask questions regarding any concerns you may have in relation to either school.

Makuru - Winter Festival Our Early Childhood Makuru Winter Festival is set for the evening of Thursday, June 17th and the Class 1-6 Makuru Winter Festival for Friday, June 18th.

Our Early Childhhod Festival is a space held for our younger children and our Playgroup families to attend.  A calm, reverent and magical space is what we are aiming for and so we ask that older siblings do not attend as they have their turn the following evening.  This makes the evening a special event for younger siblings to have and an experience all of their own.

Once again, we have made some alterations to the run of the Class 1-6 Festival in an effort to create the right mood and reverence.  More information is provided further in the newsletter and all Class Carers will email out the program and notes in relation to this years event by the end of this week.

Donations As it comes up to the end of the financial year it may be an opportune time (tax wise) for those who wish to, to make a tax deductible donation to our building fund.  We are working towards the building of our Kitchen Garden classroom.  Please contact Oona if you would like to make a donation and she can provide you with the correct bank details for the Building Fund - bursar@goldenhill.wa.edu.au.

Warm regards,

Jacqui Hollingworth

Principal

Class 1 – 6 Makuru Winter Festival In order for our festival to be a success we require the assistance of all classes.  Class carers will be calling for assistance in the following areas before the end of this week so please assist by volunteering where you can.  Many thanks.

All Families – Please provide greenery, flowers and fruit for decorating our spiral.  Staff will create the spiral on Thursday afternoon after work so please deliver greenery from Wednesday, up until 3pm on Thursday.  This year our spiral will be on the grassed area between all the classes.  Please deliver your greenery to this central area, on the grass in front of and between class 4/5 & 6 and Class 1 & 2.

Bring you own cup/bowl/spoon for soup.

Class 6 Parents – lay out the lanterns, with candles in them,  from the hall to the spiral, in the spiral and on the lantern walk and fairy houses.

Class 4/5 Parents – light the lanterns for the walk and spiral at the end of soup in the classrooms.

Class 1 Parents – lighting the lanterns of the children as they emerge from the hall, before setting off on the spiral & lantern walk.  Each class will have a table holding their lanterns.  The school will provide firelighters for parents to use.

Class 2 & 3 Parents – Ensure all the lanterns are out at the end of the festival.  Clean away the spiral greenery and pack up the lanterns, storing them away for next year.  (Much of this can be done on the Saturday, in daylight.)

Each class – allocate volunteers to do soup/bread/butter through Class Carers.

Makuru Winter Festival Program

5.30pm  Soup in classrooms.

6.00pm   Story in the Hall followed by whole school song - High and Blue the Sky.

6.20pm  Classes file out, class by class, all singing Fairies of the Candle Flame, while they have their lantern candles lit.  Class 6 to lead the way to the spiral.

6.30pm  Head to the Spiral Walk.  As classes move from the carpark to the oval and into the school grounds we ask that all talking stops.  Staff will be positioned around the spiral, singing Deep and Dark.  The spiral and lantern walk is a time of inner reflection so we ask that there be no talking at this time.  During the walking of the spiral, focus on the singing that you hear and as you walk the lantern walk to admire the fairy houses, remember to maintain the quiet, reverent and reflective mood so as not to frighten the fairy folk.  As you emerge from the forest and the lantern walk, join around the spiral again singing Deep and Dark until everyone has finished the lantern walk.

7.00pm  Move to the bonfire for Class 6 to light it.

As the bonfire is lit - 

Whole school sings   Rise Up O Flame!

Senior choir sings     Dark of the Moon

Whole school sings   Banksia Bright

                                       Campfire Song

                                       Ah Poor Bird

                                       Midwinter Song

                                       Sacred Fire

Staff choir sings        Blackbird

Whole school sings   Universal Love

7.30pm  Families depart for the weekend.

The school gardens and orchard have gratefully received these early season rains.  With most of the falls being over the weekends, there has been little disruption to outdoor gardening activities.

Class One are continuing to tend and harvest a fantastic carrot crop.  They have shown great patience in waiting 100 days for the carrots to be ready!  They have also been learning about how to differentiate between a tap-root and a fibrous root plant by looking at the leaf veins.

Class Two have been busy establishing their winter vegetable crops, with broccoli, pac choy and broad beans soon to be on the menu.  We have been exploring the world of leaf shapes and patterns.

Class Three have continued to work hard in the field, in this their biodynamic farming year.  Having made a big compost pile inoculated with biodynamic preparations, they have planted and mounded a large potato crop and a garlic crop too.  The compost will be applied later in the winter to keep these plants happy and healthy.

Class Four and Five have begun botany lessons, with fungi being the first topic.  Although Robyn will run the main lesson botany later in the year, the class will be able to expand their learning in the field with me each week.  And with all this rain, the fungi are popping up everywhere.  It’s exciting to see the children grasp the idea of an underground network that helps plants and trees to communicate (mycelium).

Class Six have been working on their herb bed, and experimenting with herbal teas.  The class has been encouraged to find a seasonal recipe that involves at least one vegetable or fruit from the school gardens.  Some of the results have been amazing!

In their final year at Golden Hill, the Class Six children take on the role of “custodianship” of the school gardens.  This means gardening work in different parts of the school grounds and grounding through physical labour.

Happy Gardening!

Neal

Class 1 have finished their second Maths main lesson focus for this term, exploring counting, patterns and grouping.  During this time, we've followed the adventures of the Number Gnomes in the forest of Number Land, helping them to solve problems such as counting pairs of socks in twos, as well as counting in groups of threes and fours.  We've worked out different ways of grouping numbers by adding together and taking away and we've continued to practice numeral recognition as well as learn about odd and even numbers.  We will continue to practice and build on these numeracy skills with games and morning circle activities.

The week of swimming lessons was very exciting and tiring for the Class 1 children.  I think the bus journey there and back was almost as exciting as the swimming itself!  It was great to see their swimming skills improve so much over the course of the week.

I'm excited to be moving onto our next main lesson that integrates science, geography and English by exploring our local surrounds through stories of the Dreaming.  This main lesson will allow us to delve deeper into seasonal observations, supported with songs and stories - perfect for building up to our mid-winter Makuru celebration.  The children will be further developing their writing and English skills during this unit, by writing sentences related to the stories we tell.  Dreaming stories draw on Indigenous knowledge of flora, fauna, landscape and people.  The tales also possess a creation story element that evokes a spirit of wonder in the natural world.  I've been working on some felted animals to use in our stories for this main lesson.

Class 1 children have still been enjoying having pets visits from home - we've had quite a menagerie!

In Class 2 we have been immersed in the story of King Counting and the gnomes of Numberland for our Place Value Maths Main Lesson.  Counting magic beans in the kingdom’s storehouse involves numbers going up into the thousands.  When Class 2 were faced with thousands of beans to count it took creative thinking, problem solving and trial and error to find a way to co-ordinate 19 ‘workers’ and 2652 beans!  (Thanks for lending us so many lovely colouful beans from the garden Neal!)

In the end we found a way to get organized by counting the beans in groups of 10.  Colour coding has also helped us when we need to read and write large numbers.

The Kingdom of Numberland is full of surprises with Bertie Bean, Gemma Gem and Woodsy the firewood gnome keeping us busy with numbers.

In morning circle we have been testing our memory with rhymes and verses.  Here is one of our favourite verses –

This is the Key of the Kingdom

This is the key of the kingdom.  In that kingdom there is a city.

In that city there is a town.  In that town there is a street.

In that street there is a lane.  In that lane there is a yard.

In that yard there is a house.  In that house there is a room.

In that room there is a bed.  On that bed there is a basket.

In that basket there are some flowers.

Flowers in a basket, basket on the bed, bed in the room.

Room in the house, house in the yard, yard in the lane.

Lane in the street, street in the town, town in the city,

City in the kingdom.  Of that kingdom is the key.

Improving our memory helps us when it comes to memorizing the times tables.  We are now getting confident at singing in 3x, 4x, 6x as well as revising our 2x, 5x and 10x.  We use rhymes and beanbag exercises as we recite the number patterns.

And now after a busy week of swimming lessons we are ready for a new Main Lesson – Stories of the Saints.  We will hear magical stories of dragons and all kinds of beasts as men and women from different lands make choices to help others, not just themselves.

We will also be busy with colour and pattern as we make our lanterns for the Makaru Mid-Winter Festival coming soon!

So much has been happening in Class 3!  In May we took a trip out to the Goodies’ farm in Kendenup where we got to learn about organic farming and the process of milling, as well as see a giant worm farm, an enormous wedge tail’s nest and most importantly, have a ride in the tractor!

In class we have been working on our social skills with a specific focus on respect and individual accountability.  We have been growing seeds and learning about Neolithic culture, as well as drawing our plans to build our very own model of Skara Brae on the Orkney Islands.

We would like to thank Jack (Eden’s Dad) who recently came into Class Three to share about his knowledge of farming through his work at the Agriculture College, as well as Bill for driving the bus to Kendenup and back, and last but certainly not least, thanks to the Goodwin family for sharing their very special home at the foot of the range with us.

Renee and Ashley

Class 6 have been very busy in and out of the class as the end of term quickly approaches.  After an exhausting week of swimming lessons, the class were still able to sing beautifully at the Festival Voice and did a wonderful job of representing our school at the opening ceremony.  It really was such a special occasion for everyone involved.

Amongst all this, fairy and gnome homes have begun to appear in the forest, the fire pit has undergone a transformation and fire sticks are being made in woodwork for the highly anticipated lighting of the bonfire for the winter festival.

We have also just finished up our Ancient Rome main lesson where the children formed a senate and established a set of class laws.  We looked at different roman inventions and technologies which we still use today.  The children wrote a report along with a picture and a clay model.  No Ancient Civilizations main lesson is complete without a feast so next Wednesday we will be cooking and feasting like emperors.

Our final main lesson for this term is Geology and Mineralogy.  The children will learn all about the structure of the earth, how volcanos and mountains are formed, different types of rocks and minerals including crystals, and how ancient stories that have been passed down for thousands of years help to inform geologists of significant events in history.

Please know that as a school we are always open to feedback should you wish to provide it.  We are constantly striving to refine our processes and make improvements where necessary.

Feel free to contact us via phone (9848 1811), email - office@goldenhill.wa.edu.au or principal@goldenhill.wa.edu.au) or come in and make an appointment to speak with someone.

Positive feedback especially welcome!