MESSAGE FROM THE PRINCIPAL

I began this week by sending flowers and a card offering our sympathies to the Principal of MacKillop College, Michael Lee. It was with sadness that we heard of the death of one of his students during the Queen’s Birthday Weekend. The tragic accident reminds us all about the importance of following safety rules when travelling in automobiles.

Year 9 Are Animals Drama Production

I would like to congratulate the members of the Creative Arts Faculty, and particularly, drama teacher, Sophie Bennasi, for the excellent performances of our Year 9 and 10 students last week. The students provided us with enthusiastic and realistic portrayals. Not only were we treated to the play performance, but those of us who attended were treated to an exhibition of artworks and textiles works by the students of Years 9 and 10. It was terrific to see the work that our students are producing.

School Fête

Preparations for the CGGS School Fête are well underway and our P&F Association Committee is looking for parents who can help with the running of stalls. The P&F would like to have volunteer parents who are willing to coordinate the Food Stalls and the Silent Auction.

The School Fête is the most significant fund raising event on the P&F calendar and the School is very grateful for the resources which we have been able to purchase thanks to the P&F funding. The Fête is an important activity for our School community and it is well known within the Canberra community. I would like to encourage all parents to participate in the Fête and to offer any assistance that you can.

Brain Research and Effective Teaching

I would like to share with you a summary written by David Reunzel about a presentation by educational consultant, Ron Brandt.

Brandt believes that the field of neuroscience is beginning to provide educators with a sense of general teaching practices and principles that mesh with the workings of the biological brain.

What is effective teaching?

Brandt spoke at some length about the research done on effective teaching at the McCrowell Regional Laboratory in Colarado, where an intensive meta-analysis of teaching strategies has concluded that the single most effective strategy is to have students compare, contrast, classify and make analogies and metaphors. This was followed by eight other effective teaching strategies, including having students summarise and take notes on what they are learning, reinforcing effort and giving appropriate praise, assigning homework that encourages practice, and having students use non-linguistic representations, such as, using a symbol or diagram to represent something they are learning.

The strategies constituting this list, Brandt suggests, are important in that they require, as far as the brain is concerned, ‘active engagement rather than passive stimulation’.

Memory and the Modular Brain

Brandt also discussed the ‘modular brain’ which means, at the simplest level, that different parts of the brain do different things. However, on a deeper level, it means that ‘collections of brain cells communicate with other cells and no one area holds sway over the others…there is no supervisory centre, no one in charge up there.’

What this modularity of the brain suggests in terms of memory processes, Brandt says, is that ‘we have the illusion that a memory comes to us in a single anatomical theatre when it really does not…the brain is a constellation of functions networked together and there is no particular place in the brain that coordinates the rest.’ Brandt borrowed an analogy for how the brain works that was developed by neuroscientists: ‘It is likely that knowledge and memory within the brain is stored not as a unit, like a tiger, but according to separate components or modules…the sight of the tiger, its roar, its smells etc’.

Brandt says that understanding the modular nature of the brain is critically important because it demonstrates that memory is not ‘stored away intact, as in a storage compartment.’ The job of the teacher is to foster this reconstruction, not simply pass out parcels of knowledge.

The memory enables an individual to record not only what is being said, but what he or she thinks about it. When the memory of a particular episode is invoked, subsets of neurons that were active together during the episode are reactivated, thereby recreating a representation of the event.

Learning and the Firing of Neurons

Brandt emphasises that the reconstruction of memory is caused by the firing of neurons. If a person is at rest, not thinking about anything much, a particular neuron will fire once every hundred milliseconds which is not very often. But if the neuron is really ‘interested’ in something it will fire many times within one hundred milliseconds. He gives an example of how rapidly firing neurons make connections: ‘If the neurons that look for ‘blue’ are firing quite a bit, and the neurons that look for ‘square’ are also firing quite a bit, you are seeing a blue square.’

The important point, as far as Brandt is concerned, is that neurons repeatedly firing together at given moments in time are likely to continue to do so in the future. ‘In other words, there is an association there. The more frequently you fire a bunch of neurons, the more frequently that they are going to fire again. That, in a nutshell, is memory.’

Brandt brought the discussion together by suggesting that effective teachers work by ‘increasing the strength of the connections between the neurons that participate in an encoding experience.’ This is undoubtedly what effective teachers do when they use the list of teaching strategies.

Brandt believes that ‘experiences that are targets of elaborate encoding processes have a high likelihood of being remembered subsequently.’

Susan Just
Principal

FROM THE HEAD OF SENIOR SCHOOL

Choices

It seems that students are often faced with having to make difficult choices throughout their life at school. Some of these are directly related to school and include the subjects they want to study or the co-curricular activities they want to be involved in. Unfortunately, there are other choices that have to be made where peer pressure will play an extremely important part in the decision making process. As the end of semester fast approaches, a number of students are making poor choices. Whenever I speak to these students they are always aware that they have made a bad choice but often it has been was the pressure of their peers that clouded their judgement. This is something that everyone faces throughout their life but we are working hard to assist the students to develop strategies that will help them to overcome this pressure and make the right choices. An important aspect of developing through the teenage years is the fact that students learn from making mistakes through bad choices but it is always my hope that these mistakes are only small. I have seen too many times over my teaching career where the mistake has had a major impact on the lives of many people through a critical or fatal injury.

Testing Week

Testing week has almost finished and the Year 11 and Year 12 students certainly felt the pressure of sitting for assessments in their subjects over the week. Overall, the week went well and staff are now frantically marking and writing reports.

Drama Production

I had a great time at the Year 9/10 drama production of Year 9 are Animals. I always enjoy watching the students perform and I like to come away with the knowledge that the students have enjoyed performing to an audience. I think this production was even more enjoyable for some of the students as they were able to act out being naughty Year 9 students, doing things that they know they would not get away with at school. Congratulations to all the staff and students who were involved in the production as I know how much time and energy it takes to put on a successful production.

Holidays and Co-Curricular Activities

A reminder to all families who are involved in co-curricular activities, especially sport, that many competitions will still have games on the first weekend of the holidays. The expectation is that students will be available for the weekend games as it is not fair to the rest of the team if they have to play short due to other students being on holiday.

Swim-a-thon

The Swim-a-thon preparation continues with wrist bands also available for $3. Swimming Captains, Charlotte and Sarah, have been surprised by the positive response they are receiving from all sections of the community and they are looking forward to their radio interview after 4pm on ABC local radio 666 on Monday 16 June. If you would like to make a donation to this most valuable cause the details are:

Account Name: National Breast Cancer Foundation
BSB Number: 032 034
ACC Number: 120 680
Reference number: 002791
Bank: Westpac

Year 9 Social

The Year 9 social was held on Friday 6 June and it was a most successful evening. The girls far outnumbered the boys but this did not seem to make any difference to the enjoyment of the girls. Thanks to the senior students from CGGS and CGS who organised the evening and the staff who gave up their time to help supervise.

Congratulations to Qian-Ao Chen (8W) on achieving first place for Piano Grade 7 and Grade 8 at the Music Teachers’ Association Awards on 1 June 2008.

Congratulations to Karuna Henderson (7R), who placed fifth in the the Primary Ladies Division at the National Hollins Trophy Figure Skating Competition held in Sydney over the June long weekend.

Bruce Handley
Head of Senior School

FROM THE HEAD OF JUNIOR SCHOOL

As we are approaching the end of the second week of the Minister’s Physical Challenge for primary school students, it is pleasing to see how many of our student achieved Gold or Silver status for Week 1. This was particularly easy for our Year 5 students who were at their annual camp last week and the minutes tallied up very quickly with the many activities outdoors. A large number of students have participated in the daily sports activities on the oval with Prep teacher, Adam Hall, supplementing their regular sporting commitments. The challenge for everyone will be to maintain a high level of activity or to increase over the 10 weeks.

On Thursday we welcomed the ACT Minister for Education and Training and Minister for Sport and Recreation, Mr Andrew Barr to the Junior School. On his arrival, he was greeted by our Sports Captain, Georgie Koundouris and Deputy Head Girl, Eden Milne, along with Principal, Susan Just and, from the Association of Independent Schools of the ACT, Executive Director, Jeremy Irvine.

To his credit, Minister Barr was attired in ‘sports uniform’ ready to participate with the students. He was not disappointed and enjoyed touch football skills after warm up ‘Tag’ with Year 4 before Gymnastics with Preps in the Gymnasium. It was shoes off for balancing on the balance beam, star jumps from the mini trampette, high ropes and various tasks with his Prep ‘mentors’. Minister Barr proved very agile, skilled and co-operative. He deserves an ‘A’ for effort!

We are very grateful to Minister Barr for showing such interest in how we are approaching the challenge. The well- balanced life we promote at CGGS means that we are all aware that a healthy and active body, as well as a healthy diet is vital. The Minister’s Challenge provides a focus for us in this area and all students are being encouraged to think about their commitment to physical well being and to increase their activity if necessary.

International Tournament of Wizard Brains

In a fitting culmination to the Year 6 unit of inquiry, the Parliament of Wizards, the International Tournament of Wizard Brains was held on Wednesday evening this week. Students in Year 6 have been fully engrossed in this unit which has focused on Government and Democracy. The trivia style evening for the Honourable Pooh Bah Wizards (students) and the Wumble Sponsors (parents) was lots of fun for all and it was a privilege to be part of it. Special thanks to Year 6 teachers, Robyn Hetherington, Jillian Shaw and Kerry Hardge, who planned such an engaging program and guided the students through a rich journey of learning (more information available in the Year 6 News article).

Year 5 Camp