Drawn out into the sheen, the shine, the glisten and the gleam,

It would be easy to be lost into a dream.

So I must rouse myself and start

To conjure forces of the heart,

Which live within me truly and will bring

The strength and majesty that make me like a king!

Amidst the glory of the sense-world, everywhere displayed,

In sunlit grove and glen and leafy glade,

It is the human heart that rules and reigns supreme!

Dear GHSS Families,

Spring Fair This weekend will see our school abuzz with the excitement of the Spring Fair and Open Day  - an opportunity to show our beautiful school off to family, friends and the broader community!  If you are yet to commit to a job on or for the day, I know there are still spaces on a couple of rosters such as the Bow and Arrow activity and the Handcraft stall.  Or perhaps you can help out with set up or pack down?  If you are keen to assist but don't know where to start call the school or contact Chief Organiser, Laura Egan at Laura Egan lauramargaret.egan@gmail.com.  We will find you the perfect job!  Can't wait to see you all there on the day!

No Assembly With everyone committed to jobs and class performances for the Spring Fair and Open Day, there will be no assembly this Friday as we are saving up to wow you all on the Saturday!  However, if you do some time Friday, the Fair Committee will be ever so appreciative of those who are able to lend a hand Friday or early Saturday morning to get things set up, ready and everything ship-shape for the big event!

Swimming Lessons Next week is Swimming Week!  Children will need to attend school dressed in their bathers with their school clothes over the top.  Don't forget to send dry underwear for afterwards!  The bus will depart first thing in the morning to arrive in Albany in time for a 10.05am start.  Students will have a double lesson of 80 minutes and will eat lunch before boarding the bus for the return trip home. 

Jacqui Hollingworth

Principal

Each newsletter we will be sharing a virtue that will be the focus in our school over the following three weeks.  

What is Excellence? Excellence is doing your best.  It is giving your very best to any task you do or any relationship you have.  Excellence is effort guided by a noble purpose.  It is a desire for perfection.  The perfection of a seed comes in the fruit.  When you practice excellence, you bring your gifts to fruition.

Why Practice it? Excellence is the key to success.  People who don't practice excellence just do things half way.  Usually they don't have very exciting or fruitful lives.  Doing your best helps you find out what talents you have.  You may discover something no one has ever thought of before.  When you practice excellence, you can make a difference in this world.

How do you practice it? When you practice excellence, you are not content to give less than your best - to big things and little things.  You give careful attention to every job, and to the people you care for.  You learn from your mistakes, so you can do better next time.  Day by day, you strive to improve.  We can't excel at everything.  Discover your own talents and give them your best.

Signs of Success Congratulations!  You are practicing Excellence when you...

• Give your best to whatever you do.
• Give your best to relationships.
• Set noble and realistic goals.
• Remember to plan and practice.
• Don't try to do everything.
• Develop your special gifts.

"Attention to little things is a great thing."  St. John Chrysostom

"When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece."  John Ruskin

ONLY A COUPLE OF PLACES REMAINING

Interviews are being organised for Kindergarten in 2023.

If you would like your child to attend Karri Kindergarten please see Jody in the office to get an Enrolment Pack or email enrolments@goldenhill.wa.edu.au.

Mother Earth, mother earth, take our seed and give it birth

Father sun, gleam and glow, til the roots begin to grow

Sister rain, sister rain, shed thy tears to swell the grain

Brother wind, breath and blow, then the blade all green will grow

Earth and sun, wind and rain, turn to gold the living grain

Just like the growth we see all around us at this time of the year, our K6 children are “ripening” in readiness for the next phase of their school life.  The fruits of their time at Kindergarten are apparent as they work on their hand-stitched craft bags in which they will store their Class One handwork projects.  This year they have been stitched completely by the children, including the casings for the drawstrings, from two pieces of felt.  A “lucet” or knitting fork as used by the Vikings to make rope is our method for creating the drawstrings.

“What does it mean when we say the child shows the first signs of first grade readiness, or as the Germans so wisely say, that the child is schulreif (ripe for school)?  There are many changes in the child’s physical, emotional, social and mental life that one looks for, which can be listed and observed in a fairly objective manner.  But there is also a qualitative difference that is more difficult to describe, yet very important to sense.  The good gardener knows from one day to the next when a piece of fruit is ripe for picking, and when this process is translated into childhood, it relates to Rudolf Steiner’s statement that a whole new aspect of the individuality is born around the age of six or seven.  This new birth is not as physical and clear-cut as the physical birth of the child, but it is an important time in the growth of the child.  It is the underlying reality for the many changes that are visible around ages six to seven." - from “First Grade Readiness” by Joan Almon.

The etheric birth, sometimes know as the change of teeth, is a transformative time when the child’s many unfolding capabilities mean he/she is ready to learn and absorb knowledge in a different way than before.  The six year olds often become less harmonious in the dreamy atmosphere of the kindergarten… they are outgrowing the play-based imitative stage and moving towards looking to an authority… the class teacher, who will guide them in the primary years.

In the last weeks of the year, the K6 children will have lunch and play in the school playground on several ocassions, as they prepare to leave the sanctuary of Kindergarten.  The last day of Kindergarten is marked with a special ceremony, “Stepping Stones”, which signifies the end of the kindergarten years, and meeting with the class teacher, Sarah.

With warmest wishes,

Denise

Class 1 has been experiencing and exploring rhythm and its connection with Mathematics.  First, by listening to the sound of our feet against the floor, the sound of our heels and that of our toes.  A heavy or light rhythm and gradually moving as one to the same beat – experiencing the joy of counting and counting and counting.  Each rhythm has its own quality and through this “music” we have developed a feeling for and understanding for what the tables are all about.

With a lump of clay, we have each divided it equally and divided again and again to create a world full of mathematical possibilities.

Clothing our primary colours with their harmonious colours for the first time

From a straight line to a curved movement – returning to our building blocks

This week we have continued to look at our local surrounds through the adventures of Norman, who watches the landscape unfold from above, comfortably seated in the beak of Pelican: befriending spiders, fishing off the boat and being saved by dolphins after being swept out to sea.  Through this our kid writing or “talking on paper” efforts deserve to be heartily admired.

Class 2 performed our version of an ancient legend - Georgia and the Dragon last week.  We wanted to have a female knight to reinforce the message that bravery, strength and courage are not gender specific.  Being a small class of twelve, many children had several roles and lots of lines to learn for the chorus.  The children all had to draw on their courage and bravery for their performance and did so well.  Well done Class 2 children.

Jewels was very impressed last week to arrive to handcraft and find everyone sitting and started on their knitting.  The children are working extra hard to be able to finish their gnomes this term and enjoying listening to Little House in the Big Woods as their hands are busy knitting.

In form drawing we've been exploring mirror and ribbon forms.  Our ribbon forms are becoming more complicated and supporting the children in beginning to learn cursive writing.  In mirror forms we've been mirroring across the vertical mid-line, which has been a fun challenge.  The children have enjoyed creating their own mirror forms.

Following our play we began our final maths main lesson; Place Value.  The children are playing lots of trading games and learning vertical addition and subtraction.  One of the children's favourite trading games has been one that I came across in our Steiner Schools Day in Perth last term.  In Incan Gold we are intrepid explorers, delving deeper into a long-forgotten temple to discover treasures - but watch out for falling rocks and venomous snakes!  It's a push-your-luck game that involves a lot of maths - including division with remainder and trading for 10s.  It's been so engaging for the children that they forget we're doing maths!

Kambarang is a colourful time in the bush and school grounds. 

The colours are also blooming in Class 3 with more of our crochet cushions popping up each week.

Treasure jars and hand felted necklaces for the craft stall are gathering on the shelves in anticipation of the upcoming Spring Fair, along with dreams of maypole ribbons.

We used Noongar symbols to record stories and observations of the season of Kambarang using beeswax crayons and watercolour paints.  All year we have been experimenting and building bush shelters.  Now we have made small models of some of the structures we found worked well with modelling beeswax and bush materials.

With the wildflowers and birds to observe in our bush afternoon space, and the longer days changing rhythm,  we have written free verse poems about what the season means to us.  We have included a few of our poems in the photos.  We also enjoy reciting our class verse all together.

Kambarang, Kambarang, the days are growing

Wildflowers, wildflowers, dancing everywhere

Careful, careful!  There may be snakes on the track

Listen, listen! Baby birds are calling from their nests

Watch out, watch out! Magpie's swoop and clack

Splish and splash, it might be time to go in for a dip.

Our Grammar main lesson is full of colourful characters and their mixed up antics.

King Noun names all things, while Queen Adjectiva describes their qualities.  General Verb likes action and keeps note of what everything is doing.  The Princess of Articles - Princess Anthea, has a special affinity with the words 'an', 'the', and 'a'.  While Little Adverb, who is General Verb’s son, likes to extend his fathers observations of what things are doing by describing the way they are doing it. 

There has been the Mystery of the Scrolls in Punctuation Place and many a mixed up conversation put right as part of our saga: Adventures on Grammar Island.  But the most fun is role playing the characters as they name and describe the things going on around them, putting all the parts of speech in the right places. 

I am King Noun, I name all things, like plants and animals and birds with wings,

Anything that has a name is named by me in the naming game.

I’m Queen Adjectiva, I say how things are - a powerful ocean, a golden star,

Colours bright or a scratchy feel, I let you know how things are - for real.

I am General Verb, I like to act, to walk, to run, to dance, it’s a fact,

To plow, to work, to build, to strive, I like to feel that I’m alive.

Dryandra Camp

There was much excitement in the air as Class 4 boarded the bus for our very first camp away from school!  We were off on an adventure to the Dryandra eucalypt woodland near Narrogin to deepen our understanding of native flora and fauna, Noongar culture and our own place in the wider world.  Pencils and clip boards were out to note down the names of the towns we passed through, so that we could accurately map the extent of our travels upon return.

After a rainy recess in Kojonup and lunch stop in Narrogin we finally began to see the rolling farmland give way to the remnant forest of the largest remaining eucalypt woodland in the wheat belt.  We were amazed to think that this was what this land used to look like.  It was like a precious time capsule!

After our arrival at the Lion’s Village and settling into our Nissan hut dorms, we set off on a 5km bush walk through the wandoo and powder bark trees.  The aptly named ‘Ochre Trail’ led us through a stunningly beautiful landscape that culminated in an ochre mine used by Noongar people.  There was lots of interpretive signage along the way that gave a rich indigenous perspective to what we were experiencing.  We took care to tread lightly and be as quiet as 16 children and 4 adults can be, and were rewarded with sightings of a native marsupial mouse, a wallaby and a Rufus treecreeper!

After a delicious dinner prepared by our intrepid caterers Haikam and Steve, Class 4 had a fairly good night’s rest that night (possum parties aside).  The next day after a hearty breakfast and an early morning exploration around the camp, we once again placed ourselves in the reliable hands of our bus driver and navigator Hendy.  He led us on a pilgrimage to the Noongar sacred site of Boyagin Rock.  It is hard to put the sheer presence of this extraordinary place into words.  We had read the stories and heard the tales of the local Elders, but being there and walking on that boodja was a profound experience.  We were so impressed and proud of the reverence that the children held for the whole time we were there.

After a big day we had an even bigger night with the final highlight of our trip.  A nocturnal tour of the ‘Barna Mia’ wildlife sanctuary.  After a quick introductory talk we ventured out into one of the two huge wildlife enclosures, hoping to be lucky enough to see something special if we kept our eyes peeled.  As it turned out, we were immediately surrounded by woylies, malas, possums and a quenda!  What a show they put on!  Hearts were won and an appreciation for the importance of conservation was gently gifted to the children.  The guides were impressed with Class 4’s knowledge of native fauna and we received a lovely compliment from the other tour group that was there that night about our behaviour and engagement with the topic.

Needless to say, we slept well* that night.  The next morning it was time to pack up and say goodbye to the family of tawny frog-mouths in the tree and the partying possums in the roof.  As a reward for their fabulous behaviour we had lunch at the giant, all ages playground in Katanning.  No children broke any bones but breakthroughs in courage most certainly were made.  No adults actually had a real heart attack either, it just felt like it when we saw the height of the slides!

Finally, we all arrived back safe and sound, from what was an incredible journey.  We can’t thank our parent helpers enough for going above and beyond in their efforts to make this a special experience for our children.  Kimberly for her calm and loving presence, keeping us all sane.  Hendy for his excellent driving and navigation, keeping us all safe.  Haikam and Steve for putting on the best camp food ever!

Well done Class 4!  Where to next?

Renee and Ashley

Class Five were blessed with a very special visit, from Obi's grandmother Diane Harwood.  Diane has been working in bush regeneration for many years and came to share her knowledge of native plants with the students, as a follow-up to their Botany main lesson.  Next month the students will enjoy more expert insights on this topic, in particular that of pollination, when they visit the head beekeeper at the Honey Meadery.

We have been continuing with our Geometry main lesson.  We are learning about the properties of various types of triangles and quadrangles.  We have also been practicing creating geodesic forms with accuracy, using protractors and compasses.  The colours and shapes that emerge are beautiful.  We have enjoyed an early introduction to Pythagoras' Theorem.  This presented a wonderful opportunity to return to Ancient Greece to discover some of the great thinkers, inventors, and philosophers of that golden era.   

In literacy, Obi has been making great progress with his reading program, while the girls have been enjoying reading and analysing the classic coming of age story, from Louisa May Alcott, Little Women.

Class 6 have had a busy three weeks with their Business Maths main lesson which has included running our lunch bar/café.  It has been a rather huge undertaking but gosh how they love counting and tallying their profits.  It has been a journey of mathematic calculations and lots of planning and preparation to produce mass amounts of food to order, and our lemonade has always been popular.  The children have worked well collaboratively and have thoroughly enjoyed the experience.  A final tally has been reached as we ponder ideas of how we can give back to our school as this years graduating class.  Many thanks to all who supported our venture.

In our practice sessions we have focused on the skill of persuasive writing.  We first began by learning how to debate and had lots of fun bringing our skills to fruition.  We then focused on the use of persuasive language in advertising using specific techniques and created our own advertisement.  This led us into our own pervasive written piece on a topic of choice.  Some wonderful writing is certainly emerging as we complete the Class 6 curriculum.

As a class, we have also began to prepare for the upcoming Spring Fair.  A rustle through our craft cupboard and my need to keep everything for a rainy day has paid off.  Collectively, jars were washed and the children have prepared beautiful treasure jars, bookmarks and brooches ready to sell for the craft stall from our left over craft projects.

So we’re all waiting for Spring to arrive on the south coast.  With all the winter crops now finished and the garlic going strong, we prepare yet again for summer plantings of corn, pumpkins, melons, tomatoes and more.

The school orchard is looking as abundant as ever, with heavy fruit loading on most trees.

Class 4 have been busy learning the parts of the plant, and have grown a beautiful crop of kale.  We made kale chips and a noodle stir-fry (which was thoroughly enjoyed by most of the children).  The class have enjoyed working on their own small patches surrounding the circular vegetable garden.  Come this summer, we should see sunflowers and dahlias waving their colourful heads in the warm breeze.

Class 5 and 6 have delved into understanding PH and its effect on growing plants.  They tested many substances (like sea water, bicarb, orange juice, eggs and bananas) and then ordered them on a scale of acid to alkaline.  Both classes have been working hard in the orchard and larger vegetable patch trying to keep the kike at bay!  With both areas now fully reticulated, we look forward to continuing the crops that will be sown over the summer holidays.

Having done Botany as a main lesson in class, Class 5 have extended their knowledge of flowering plants in the field, doing botanical drawings and eating flowering plants!

Class 6 have also studied pollination, one of the most magical aspects of plant life.

The Healing Hut has been edging closer to completion over the last few weeks.

Our skeleton crew has been dwindling week by week as end-of-year commitments start to encroach on our hardy band of volunteers.  The flat roof section is now complete, and we have been slowly working our way through the ten sloped roof sections.  We have completed four, and hope to have the fifth panel woven into place before the Open Day this weekend.

Thanks to Uncle Eugene for your guidance, and a special acknowledgement to Sam and Ashley from the teaching staff, and Bugs, Via and Ros (and her son Lachlan) from the parents, for your ongoing contributions.  Thank you to all other parents and staff who have also contributed your time and energy to the project over the past few weeks.

If you would like to help see the completion of the Hut edge over the line before the end of the year, please speak to either myself (Bruce) or Via (Class 3) to see what we can manage amidst the very full calendar of the remaining weeks of term.

Bruce

2023 School Fees Information

Golden Hill Steiner School has partnered with Edstart to improve school fee payment options for our families and operations processes for our staff.

Edstart is a financial services company that provides flexible payment plans for the education sector.

Commencing January 2023, our families will have 2 options for fee payment:

1. Pay annual fees in full by Tuesday 31^st January 2023 and receive a discount of 10% on tuition;
2. Pay fees by instalment by setting up an account with Edstart

This arrangement is underpinned by a commitment to improve the affordability and accessibility of a Golden Hill education for all families in our community.

Please send any questions through to Oona bursar@goldenhill.wa.edu.au

Or feel free to contact Edstart directly on 1300139 445 or email contact@edstart.com.au

Kind regards,

Oona Mansour

Bursar

With spring in the air we would love to share with you a recipe from the book - The Waldorf School Book of Soups.

Egg and Lemon Chicken Soup

8 cups chicken stock

approx 150g boneless, skinless chicken breasts

1 carrot, peeled and cut into chunks

1 medium stalk celery, sliced

1 bay leaf

1 cup long grain white rice

2 eggs

1 Tbsp cold water

juice of 2 small lemons

salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Place the stock, chicken breasts, carrot, celery, bay leaf and rice in a large pot.  Cover and bring to the boil over high heat.  Reduce the heat to low; keep covered.  Stir occasionally and simmer for 30 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender and the rice is cooked al dente.

Remove the chicken breasts from the soup and slice into strips.  Return strips to the broth.  In a bowl, beat the eggs and water until the eggs are frothy.  Spoon out the hot chicken broth and carefully add it to the egg mixture a few spoonfuls at a time, while continuously beating.  When all the broth is incorporated, add the lemon juice and beat to blend.  Pour the egg-lemon mixture back into the chicken soup pot, season with salt and pepper, and stir to blend well throughout.  Remove the bay leaf and serve hot.

Serves 4

In relation to the report and photos posted in our last newsletter on our annual Nowanup Family Camp, I would like to acknowledge the financial support provided to Nowanup by Lotterywest.  In their own words, 'Lotterywest is helping to build a better WA together', and I cannot think of a better expression of that than their support of the ongoing work of Uncle Eugene and and his regenerative vision for Nowanup. 

Our school has been deeply enriched by our ongoing relationship with the Elders of the Eades family, and I think it is fair to say that we have all experienced the positive benefits in our own, and in our families lives, of our time spent on healing Boodja at Nowanup.

Three cheers for Lotterywest!

Bruce

Nowanup is supported by Lotterywest which is helping to build a better WA together.

“Yallingup Steiner School Spring Fair 2022 are open to any GHSS stall holders wishing to hold a stall at our Yallingup Fair on Sunday 27^th November from 10am-2pm. Please email Alice on alice@bloomingbeautiful.net.au if you are interested or have any questions.”

The Museum of the Great Southern is excited to announce the upcoming Dinosaur Explore: Lost Creatures of the Cretaceous exhibition.

Opening 12 November 2022 until 5 February 2023

Please email greatsouthern@museum.wa.gov.au or phone 08 9841 4844 for booking information.

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!