LAKES NEWSLETTER

Coronavirus

Once or twice in our lifetimes, we have an ‘I’ve never been through this before’ moment, and the current coronavirus phenomenon is certainly one of these, with national borders being locked down, restrictions on gatherings and events, empty stadiums and supermarket shelves, and daily life changing rapidly.

From a Christian perspective, one of the questions is how we should respond to these events, when we experience all of the shared emotions that are common to all of us during a crisis – worries about our own health, families and concerns.

It is a time where we have, thankfully, seen the majority of our community carefully considering the way we are feeling and refocusing on doing what is best for others, as well as ourselves, embracing a degree of sacrifice for the common good, rather than selfishness, which in turn brings out the care and sacrifice in others. We are particularly thankful for the shared support, care and understanding we’ve had as a Lakes Grammar community, especially in the past week.

Whilst we do not know all of what the immediate future holds, we do know what a supportive and resilient school community we are and that we can look after each other together in these challenging times. We are also fortunate as an Anglican school to have our faith in God and His word in the Bible as a foundation for what we do and share.

The early protestant theologian Martin Luther wrote “The two chief things are faith and love.. he lives in Christ through faith, through his neighbor in love.. faith receives the good, love gives the good Faith offers us God as our own, love gives us to our neighbor as his own”.

Enrolment for Kindergarten in 2021

We have commenced our enrolment processes for Kindergarten 2021 and we want to be sure that all of our families are included. If parents who are planning to enrol a child in our Kindergarten next year could fill out an enrolment form via the school website if they have not already done so, it would be greatly appreciated. If you know of families who would like information about enrolment at Lakes Grammar, please ask them to contact Mrs Racquel Jolly at the school.

We are continuing to conduct enrolment interviews at the moment, and we anticipate that these will continue over the coming weeks, most likely via an online format such as Zoom. Mrs Jolly and I will be in touch with individual K 2021 families to make arrangements.

Cancellations

A reminder of the cancellations mentioned in Mr Hannah’s letter to the school community earlier in the week. Please be aware that we may seek to hold some of these events later in the year, depending on circumstances at the time.

• Parent-Teacher interviews – please email your child’s teachers if you would like an update on their progress
• Assemblies and Chapel services, including Term Awards Assemblies
• Grandparents’ Day and Easter Chapel services
• All excursions
• Athletics Club and Athletics Club Presentation Night
• Cross-Country Carnival
• Athletics Carnival
• PlayCrew (our playgroup that operates in the hall on Tuesday mornings)
• ANZAC Day assembly in Week 1 next term
• ANZAC Day march and service – the RSL has cancelled these
• HRIS, AICES and CIS carnivals this term have been cancelled by those organisations
• Year 7 Camp and potentially camps scheduled for next term
• School Band and Choir rehearsals and individual music tuition
• External specialists visits (e.g. OT’s and speech therapists)
• School banking
• NAPLAN 2020 - Years 3, 5, 7 and 9

Building Learning Power

We are continuing to work on our Building Learning Power program in classrooms. The diagram below shows the four areas of our ‘Building Learning Power’ program (Reach Out, Look Within, Think Clearly and Believe in Ourselves) which link in with our school motto ‘With Heart, Soul, Mind and Strength’.

A number of learning actions which are associated with each area are listed around the outside of the circle.

Lakes Grammar Habits

The Junior School utilises the learning framework of Lakes Grammar Habits to effectively integrate our Building Learning Power, Positive Behavior for Learning and Virtues programs.

• Building Learning Power develops the capacity of students for learning, their curiosity, craftsmanship, creativity and collaboration.
• The Virtues program develops children’s Christian values, moral harmony and moral integrity, including kindness, honesty, trustworthiness, service, empathy and moral courage.
• Positive Behaviour for Learning develops our student self-regulation and self-awareness to demonstrate respect, responsibility and care for themselves and others.

The Junior School collectively focuses on a Habit each week drawn from one of the three programs whilst concurrently working with students to develop a range of habits and capacities in the day to day life of the school.

Over the beginning of the term, we will be focusing on the following concepts. These are also recorded in the Student Diary for each week:

Week 9: Listen respectfully and with empathy    

Week 10: Resist distractions

Stars of the Week

Demonstrating our Lakes Grammar Habit of ‘Being and Upstander’:

Claire Freeman, Chloe Quinn, Zeah Chadha, Quinn Ridley, Amarlie Mills, Lennox Beecroft, Marcus Connor, Samantha Olivieri, Ricardo Gonzalez, Kobi Keys, Logan Hurford, Alexander Harvey, Ivy Lewis, Ethan Curry, Prahb Kaur, Jada Kemm, Laiba Malik, Isaac Raica, Willow Edwards and Max Adams.

Demonstrating our Lakes Grammar Habit of ‘Compassion’:

Kyson Solomons, Hudson Hill, Peyton Brown, Alira Waldon, Wilson Cruickshank, Summer Nicholls, Hadley Belgre, Evie Pilgrim, Eden Clarke, Maggie Yager, Hannah Ponchard, Tanner Hawkins, Elleena Richards, Keanu Lourens, Selena Sherd, Charlie Cook, Mekenzie Jones, Isabella Matri, Grace Lanzini and Tahlia Allen. 

Will Wallace

Head of Junior School