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Newsletter - Friday 20 August 2021

Principal's Message

As the numbers of COVID cases rise everyday it is hard not to let emotions go in the opposite direction. Lockdown is hard. Our lives are different.

Teaching is different. We miss the smiles and interactions, we worry about the students and miss them. During remote learning the daily connections are not the same, but teachers are spending a lot of time behind the scenes preparing lessons and providing feedback because they care about the learning of each student.

Remote learning may feel limiting, but students are learning so much – resilience, time management and how to be responsible for their own learning. This is learning that will last a lifetime.

As we go into the weekend, take a deep breath and stay positive. Know that we are here to support the wellbeing and learning of each child and that there are so many ‘aha’ moments each day as students continue to learn, discover and create.

May I ask that you keep our Year 12 students in your thoughts and prayers as their Trial HSC exams commence on Monday. God bless each of you. Lean into Him, as God is our certainty in uncertain times.

Whole School News

A Note from our Head of Junior School - Mrs Anne-Marie Deppeler

All Things Great and Small

When my children were little, they had a thing for bugs, spiders and all things that creep and crawl. I am not a big fan of them, but my kids LOVED them. It’s almost disturbing to me when I see one of my children have seven or more worms climbing up their arms simultaneously.

Though you would never catch me covered with creepy crawlers, I would have to agree that they are fascinating. Did you know that it is only the male cricket that chirps? Consider the flea, which jumps two hundred times the length of its body. Not to be outdone by the flea is the male giant water bug. This dad carries over one hundred eggs on its back for a week until they hatch. The Bible is a strange place to find bugs, but it is teeming with them. There are the plagues of the locusts and lice, and multiple other references to beetles, moths, spiders, and yes… even worms.

Each of these amazing creatures has been made unique with a purpose. In the Bible God says that each of us is “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14). In Matthew 10:30 we are told that God knows every detail about us. He even knows the number of hairs on our head. Nothing ever catches God by surprise. He has amazing plans for each of us and created us for a purpose. What is your purpose?

A note from our Wellbeing Co-ordinator - Mr Ben Stewart

Everyone needs to feel special and loved. Take a moment to try this Reflective Activity for Parents and reconnect with special moments from your childhood. Maybe you could share some of these memories with your own kids and tell them again about why they are so special and lovely to you!

Chaplains' News

Hey WAS Family!

Week 6 has come to a close, and we are over halfway through Term 3. This is definitely not how we expected this term would pan out but despite the lockdown and restrictions we have continued to see God’s many blessings being poured out over our school.

Things look a little different at the moment, like everyone, the Chaplaincy team has had to adapt the way we do things. From online chapels to Teams bible studies, our team has loved the opportunity to connect with students and families over the last few weeks.

What can we do for you? The Chaplaincy team is here to support you and encourage you through this time, so please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Our chapel theme this term has been ‘Imagine Real Love’ and the texts that perfectly sum up what we have been talking about are 1 John 4:10 & 19 - “This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” & “We love because he first loved us.”

The very reason we know love is because of God’s love for us, and it is His love that drives us to love others.

We miss seeing all of your faces here at school, and we can’t wait to see you all again real soon!

Blessings, WAS Chaplaincy Team!

Yearbook Competition

Congratulations to the winners of the Yearbook Competition internal divider pages. These artworks have been chosen for the internal divider pages and each student has won a prize of $50 gift voucher! Your prizes will be making their way to you shortly! Thank you to all of the students who entered the competition, the artworks entered were wonderful. The winner for the cover artwork of the Yearbook will be announced soon!

To view our competition winners please click here.

Seventh-Day Adventist Schools (Greater Sydney) Scholarship Program

APPLICATIONS CLOSE 31ST AUGUST 2021

For further information and access to the Application Form please visit this link.

Calendar of Upcoming School Events

You can access the list of upcoming School events via the link below. The School Calendar is also available under the Parent Information tab on the School website.

Term Dates for 2021

Please click on the link below to view the school term dates and public holiday information for 2021.

Primary School News

Kindergarten Information Night

This week we hosted the Kindergarten Information Night. A big thank you to the staff who presented and helped out on the night to make it a success. It was wonderful to connect with the new Kindergarten families for next year. We are blessed to have technology that enables us to host events like this remotely. If you are planning to enrol a sibling into Kindergarten for 2022, please contact the office for an application form or complete the form online to ensure that you do not miss out on a place.

Olympics Themed Dress Up Day

Recently the students participated in an Olympic Themed Dress Up Day to celebrate the wonderful achievements of our Olympic Athletes in Tokyo. Students dressed up in green and gold, Olympic colours or as their favourite sport group. It was exciting to see all the effort that the students put into the day.

Kindy Class - KA...

Healthy Harold has helped us learn about ways to keep our bodies healthy and strong! We have been busy at home doing lots of schoolwork and we have made some healthy snacks for our bodies and clever brains!

"This is my snack. I'm eating it outside with my ants! And the strawberry is the hair and then the blueberries are the eyes, and the mouth is the orange! And my favourite fruit is the orange!"

By Lai.

"I like this snack because I like crunchy carrots, dried apricots and nuts"

By James.

"It has, um, toast, cheese, apple, cucumber hair, cucumber eyes and cheese!"

By Emily.

Year 2...

Mrs Beness has been holding wellbeing groups for her class. The students complete a step by step drawing together then spend some time checking in on how each other are going, its also an opportunity to get any questions answered.

Year 3...

Year 3H students have been enjoying some colour over the last couple of weeks! They dressed up in green and gold mufti for the Olympics, dressed up in something bright to start their day with a smile! and looked at the artist Ken Done, drawing an Aussie landmark using bright colours and patterns inspired by Ken Done's artwork.

Year 3K have been having fun researching in preparation for writing a report on frogs. Special mention to Jonathan D who used all of the 86 facts he researched... a few too many for the recommended A3 sheet of paper! Well done Jonathan!

Year 5...

As part of their Novel study, Wonder, 5K students decorated masks to represent that it’s what is on the inside that is important. We need to look beyond peoples appearance to get to know them for who they really are.

Secondary School News

Wahroonga Adventist Senior String Orchestra

The Wahroonga Senior Strings Orchestra was entered into the Sydney Eisteddfod. Our students under the tutelage of Mrs Jameson prepared two contrasting pieces. They were videoed at Wahroonga Adventist Church and their performance was sent through to be adjudicated. Schools from all over the state sent entries into this event. The ensemble received a highly commended within their category. We are very proud of all of the students and their dedication to the co-curricular music program at Wahroonga Adventist School. The Late Richard Gill was quoted saying “Children that are involved in music ensembles apart from making great music together learn self-confidence, improve their socio-emotional well-being, learn discipline and organisational skills and come in with a learned technique.”

Thank you and congratulations to all involved!

Mrs Kristina Vuceski (Head of Creative and Performing Arts Department)

Science Week - Food - Different by Design

August is always an exciting month in Australian schools, as an entire week is dedicated to Science! This year, the theme was Food – Different by Design. Students were provided access to a variety of online events and interactive modules, including an escape room challenge. It really warmed my heart seeing so many students really enjoying and engaging with the programs! I look forward to announcing the winners for the Garden Challenge next week.

Mrs Leisly White (Head of Science Department)

“What I liked about Science Week was the interesting and in-depth webinars that we got to choose from. They were from all different Science places like UNSW, UTS, Fizzics Education and Virtual Excursions Australia. They all stuck to the theme of this year’s Science Week, Food: Different by Design. This was a very fun, interesting, in-depth, and interactive week.”

Written by Lachlan L (Year 8)

“In this extraordinary Science Week I have enjoyed learning about native species of Australia that have been becoming extinct and all the impacts that humans have had (and are still having) on our natural environment.

I also enjoyed the Future of Food webinar, in particular the lab grown meat part, and how these scientists are trying to recreate meat without killing animals. I had some very interesting conversations in the live chat talking about if this meat would be vegan and vegetarian friendly.

But my favourite talk so far was the one from Doctor Karl and how engaging he was, putting a bit of humour into his talk and how encouraging he was toward the future about how we might be the first generation to live forever, a scary and cool thing at the same time.

This Science Week has been a great few days of information and inspiration! “

Written by Nathan R (Year 8)

Year 8 Seqta Challenge!

Each morning, Year 8W are having a Seqta Challenge! Today was ‘Have Crazy Hair or Wear a Funny Hat.’ They have also brought something to show from they were younger, shown off their pets, and tried to guess who their classmates are from their baby photos!

Year 9 Commerce Class...

Year 9 Commerce students dressed up in business clothes so they looked the part for their class! They've been investigating INVESTMENTS and are anticipating the start of the Australian Stock Exchange Schools Challenge where participants start with $50,000 and have to make as much as they can, buying and selling shares over a 10 week period. The competition is open to all secondary students in Australia and New Zealand.

Food Technology - Years 7 & 10

It’s good to know that we can still cook and have fun during lockdown! The Year 7's have been making a delicious chocolate cake while our Year 10 students have been whipping up tasty pasta dishes such as gnocchi and experimenting with skittles and M&Ms!

Year 11 Chemistry

How do you teach Chemistry online? Theory is fine to teach online but the practical component is more challenging. As experiments (Working Scientifically) are a large component of the course, students need to be able to plan, conduct, analyse and draw conclusions. So how can they do it from home?

Year 12 Chemistry Students had the opportunity to come to school for 2 hours to complete mandatory practicals to finish off the HSC Chemistry course but Year 11 students are not allowed the same luxury.

SO... On Tuesday this week we completed two experiments LIVE via teams. Currently we are studying the final Module in Year 11 Chemistry on Drivers of Reactions.

While the students watched online and recorded the results I carried out two key experiments calling out the weights, temperatures and other observations not being able to be seen on the camera.

• What type of reaction? - Endothermic or Endothermic by measuring the temperature change while the reaction was taking place.

• Calculating the energy stored in different types of alcohols by heating water ( using a spirit burner) by measuring the change in temperature of the water using a certain amount of fuel.

Sadly, it is not the same as doing it in person, but during lockdown it does give the students a visual memory of the experiment so they can recall if asked in an examination question and we had some raw data to complete the calculations in our next online lesson.

Currently I am planning the next online chemistry experiment.

Miss Debbie Wright (Stage 6 Chemistry Teacher)

Maths Challenge...

Earlier this year, several students participated in the Maths Challenge run by the Australian Maths Trust. Students worked through six challenging problems that required time and persistence. Congratulations to Justin (7A) and James (7S) who achieved Distinctions and Anthony (8W) who achieved a Credit. Certificates will be handed out when we return to school. Well done to all participants in this Challenge!

Sport - Year 9

This term, Year 9 has been examining Australia’s Sporting Culture. This unit investigates perspectives on sports in Australia and how they can impact the individual and the community. In this weeks lesson, students wore merchandise of the various teams they support. This ranged from AFL, NRL, Cricket, NBA and other sporting codes. Hopefully we can attend live games real soon, but for now, we are supporting out teams through the TV.

Strava Competition

Every week this term there have been a range of physical activity challenges sent out to our high school students. We recognise that it is important for our students to get away from the screens and spend time being physically active outdoors! One of the sport challenges each week is the "Strava Challenge", this involves students running, walking or riding their bike throughout the week and recording their activity on the Strava app. The Strava app is free, all you need to do is download the app, create an account and join the Wahroonga Adventist School group (we would also recommend that students who join set their accounts to private.)

At the conclusion of every week there is a top 10 leader board, which shows the individuals who have recorded the highest number of hours of physical activity throughout the week. Week 5 was a huge week! Caleb K took out the top spot with an enormous 16 hours and 5 minutes of activity, Alexander M came in next with 12 hours and 20 minutes of activity, and Charlie H clocked 11 hours and 42 minutes of activity for third place. These students, along with many more, are consistently getting out and moving every day.

It has been so impressive to see how active our Wahroonga group has been throughout the term so far - we have over 100 members in the group with more students joining each day. We would love to encourage everyone to join in, get active and start recording - keep up the great work!

To view the leader board please click here.

Library News

Premier’s Reading Challenge

Congratulations to Samuel B (KE), Bethan C (1K), Brody L (1K), William B (1S), Michael M (1S), Joshua F (1S), James C (4L), Reid A (5K), Elijah P (6J), Thomas C (6J) and Samantha M (7W) who have finished the Premier’s Reading Challenge. Fabulous effort!

PLEASE NOTE: The Premier’s Reading Challenge finishes on September 3, so there are only two weeks left to complete your online reading record!! If you need help entering your PRC list, please email Mrs Savage at library@wahroonga.adventist.edu.au

Book Week 2021 – ‘Old Worlds, New Worlds, Other Worlds’:

Our Book Week events for 2021 will be taking place in Week 8 (Aug 30 – Sep 3). These events include:

Virtual Dress-up Day (P-2: Aug 31, 3-6: Sep 1) – Join your Library Teams meeting dressed in a costume from the past, the present or the future. Send a picture of yourself in your costume to library@wahroonga.adventist.edu.au – if you have the book that inspired your costume with you make sure you include that in your picture. Please see below the schedule for the Library Teams sessions:

Tuesday: 1.30pm – Prep and Kindy, 2.00pm – Years 1 and 2

Wednesday: 1.30pm – Years 3 and 4, 2.00pm – Years 5 and 6

Book Week Performance (9.20am, Thurs, Sep 2) – Our Book Week performance for this year is called ‘Bigger, Better, Brighter!’ This will be livestreamed and viewed online due to our current lockdown. A link will be sent out closer to the day.

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Library WebAPP

The library WebAPP is a great place to keep track of your child/ren’s library loans, search the catalogue and read about upcoming library events. You can access it from any device at bit.ly/waslibrary. Instructions on how to log in to your child/ren’s personal details are on the home page.

World Book Online

Wahroonga Adventist School has a subscription to World Book Encyclopedia Online which gives all students and teachers online access to an amazing variety of resources which can be accessed using any device. If you would like to explore this resource, please follow the link below and use the word was for the log-in ID and password.

Canteen

The canteen is still open for students learning on campus, please see attached menu. During the lockdown food can only be purchased by online ordering, there will be no window service. Orders can be purchased through flexischools.com.au by 8am the same day. We hope all families are keeping safe and well.

Home and School

Thank you to the teachers, students and parents who attended the Urstrong Webinar / Parent Masterclass last night. Lots of tips and strategies were taught on how to manage friendships. The presentation by Dana was energetic, professional and engaging. If you missed out on the presentation or need a reminder of the friendship rules check out their website for resources - https//urstrong.com.

A huge thanks to everyone who entered the Colouring Competition! We had so many amazing entries it was very hard to choose! The Chaplains formed our judging panel - to view the list of winners please click here. Congratulations everyone!! Prizes will be arranged to be delivered or collected shortly.

Fathers Day

Fathers Day is coming! Hope you all have it in your diaries to celebrate on the 5th of September, 2021. Father’s Day is an opportunity to say thank you, to honour our father or significant fatherly figures and have a celebration. This year due to lockdown Home and School is not able to facilitate an event on the school campus, but we have organised a surprise for each student to give a gift on Father’s Day, so watch this space.

Parent Master Class - Drug and Alcohol Webinar

This Webinar would be beneficial for all parents of WAS with children of all ages - knowledge is important in the management of our children when they navigate the world of Drugs and Alcohol. Paul Dillion is a former school teacher but has become one of the leading presenters in the well being of young people, providing education around Drugs and Alcohol. Please see the attached advert and this link should you wish to access his workshop. Please note the workshop costs $25 and will be at parents own cost.

Home & School Meeting Dates for 2021

TERM 3 - Tuesday 31st August

TERM 4 - Tuesday 5th October and Tuesday 2nd November

Bits and Pieces

FREE Webinar Invitation: Helping you Survive Lockdowns and Home Schooling with Dr Michael Carr-Greg

Webinar Details: Tuesday 31st August - 3.30pm to 4.30pm (AEST)