Celebrating our Friends in East Timor
Strong relationships are something we pride ourselves on here at Christian College. The relationship we have forged with the people of East Timor, in particular those in Viqueque, is long-standing, and one we hope will continue long into the future.
Our students here at Surf Coast Campus have been gaining an understanding of this special friendship we have through devotions, teaching them about the Timorese culture, the fight for independence and Christian College’s work in Viqueque.
Surf Coast students have greatly contributed, donating generous amounts of money so we can buy “Bricks for Buikarin” a local Viqueque school supported by Christian College in East Timor.
As a small campus we raised over $1300, this will go towards purchasing nearly 450 bricks for the Buikarin Kinder in Viqueque. What an amazing community we are!
Students also participated in a ceremony, symbolising East Timor’s rise to be an independent country. Local hand-woven fabric called Tais were used in the ceremony to symbolise our continued friendship.
I would like to thank our school community for your support in giving to our friends in East Timor. Stay tuned for some updates on how much we raised as a whole College. Every cent raised will be sent to the Buikarin school to be used for the construction of the classroom.
Obrigada ( Thank you)
Claire Deretic
What’s Happening at Surf Coast
Is an up to date list of planned activities at Surf Coast Campus that you can use for planning purposes. Please be aware that these dates are set early in the term and occasionally items may need to be cancelled or dates/times altered. This itinerary is altered each week to reflect any changes – please check this list of events EVERY WEEK carefully when you read the weekly VINE newsletter.
TERM 2 2023
Week 5
Wednesday May 24 Arthur Reed School Photos – All students
Wednesday May 24 National Simultaneous Storytime – 11am in library – All Students
Thursday May 25 Pupil Free Day – No students at school
Friday May 26 Assembly – 2.45pm – 3.30pm
Friday May 26 National Sorry Day
Week 6
*National Reconciliation Week
Tuesday May 30 Geelong Excursion – Yr 2 – More information to follow
Tuesday May 30 Discovery and Learning – Prep
Thursday June 1 Discovery and Learning – Yr 1
Thursday June 1 Winter Sports – 12.30pm – 3.30pm – Yr 5
Friday June 2 BLP Clubs – 2.45pm – 3.30pm
Week 7
Tuesday June 6 Annual Surf Coast Cross Country – 12.30pm – 3.30pm
Wednesday June 7 Annual Surf Coast Cross Country – 12.30pm – 3.30pm – *BACK
UP DAY
Thursday June 8 Winter Sport – 12.30pm – 3.30pm – Yr 5
Thursday June 8 Lunchtime Concert – 1.40pm
Friday June 9 Assembly – 2.45pm – 3.30pm
Friday June 9 Project Care Food Bank Appeal – More information to come
Week 8
Monday June 12 Kings Birthday Holiday – No students at school – Campus closed
Tuesday June 13 Discovery and Learning – Yr Prep
Thursday June 15 Regional Cross Country – Selected Yr 4 and 5 students
Thursday June 15 Year 5 Winter Sport TBC – 12.30pm – 3.30pm – Yr 5
Thursday June 15 History Presentation – Yr 1
Friday June 16 BLP Clubs – 2.45pm – 3.30pm
Week 09
Monday June 19 Dress Up Day – When I grow up – Yr Prep
Tuesday June 20 Discovery and Learning – Yr 1
Wednesday June 21 Celebration of Learning Conferences Session 1 – 2.30pm – onwards – more information to come
Thursday June 22 Celebration of Learning Conferences Session 2 – 2.30pm – onwards – more information to come
Thursday June 22 Lunchtime Concert – 1.40pm
Friday June 23 Last Day of Term – 2.30pm
Marvelous Maths in Prep!
Over the past two weeks, the Surf Coast Preps have been learning about the many ways we can collect data and sort it.
We have been collecting data on what the most favoured and least favoured ice cream flavour is, what the most popular and least popular colour is, and we also used data to inform us about what we should name our class chicken.
This week was extra special, as the type of data that we used was very tasty indeed! The Preppies were given a mixed bag of jellybeans and a mixed bag of MnMs which they first had to sort into their coloured groupings. Once sorted, the students had to tally and draw their findings and calculate how many there were.
The Preppies’ next task was to use their data to create a bar graph to clearly show how many of each item there were. Each student then stood up in front of the class and presented their findings by explaining the comparisons that were in their data displays and also the differences. Much fun was had by all!
Caitlin Maher
Creation
This term, Year 1 will be focusing on different creation stories throughout our Christian Education studies. We will be exploring the Christian Creation story, the Wadawurrung Creation story and also the Greek Creation story. This week, the kids made the 7 Days of Creation using coloured circles and only representing the days with pictures. These pictures helped them explain how God created everything in 7 days. They were then able to use these pictures to tell the story of Creation and all thew wonderful work God has done. We look forward to exploring more than one Creation story in Year 1 and opening our minds to different cultures and beliefs.
Nick Hogan
Year 2s as Busy as Bees
Year 2s have been as busy as a school car park in peak hour!
We have been learning about similes and how they make our writing creative, helping readers to visualise the text. Here are some of the similes we have written:
As flat as a piece of paper
As snug as me in bed
As happy as a cat in the sunshine
As fresh as perfume
As cool as Antarctica
As snug as a hug
As cool as a pool
In Maths, we have been learning how to measure the volume of a 3-D shape. We found a classroom object and estimated how many cubes it would take to build it. We then built the object and compared the number of cubes to our estimates. Our classroom looked like Cube Land!
Sharon Sutton
Year 3 Science of Cooking!
It has been another exhilarating week in Year 3 as we have delved into the changing states of matter during our science investigations. The kids were treated to some delectable sweet/sour lemon sorbet and scrumptious pikelets as they examined the differences between chemical and physical changes.
In Mathematics, mental math and manipulatives taught students about the connection between multiplication and division. During literacy classes, we utilised computers to produce how-to tutorials on crafting the delightful treats concocted during our science experiments.
Christian Education is helping the kids to understand significant leaders in the Old Testament as they learn how the choices King Solomon made showed disobedience to God and resulted in division in the kingdom.
We are already halfway through this term but have got so much to fit in before the mid-year break so stay tuned and keep an eye on The Vine!
Leanne Crole
Adam Stewart
The Power of Words
The students of Year 4T had a lot of fun making some very special gifts for our very special mums just in time for Mothers’ Day last week. Way back in February, as part of our Integrated Studies unit on plants, the students roamed around the gardens and found beautiful leaves, grasses and flowers to press in their flower presses.
I trust that all the mothers of Year 4T were blessed and spoilt by their children.
Last week in assembly the Year 4 students spoke about the power of words and shared 14 things that we should say more often. Please ask your child about some of the things that they feel they need to say more often and share with them some of the things that you think you need to say more often.
When you talk, do not say harmful things. But say the right thing at the right time – words that will help others, not hurt them.
Ephesians 4:29-32
In our Maths lessons we are currently learning about 3 dimensional shapes. We have had a lot of fun learning about the construction of shapes and learning how many faces, vertices and edges each of the shapes have.
In our English lessons over the coming weeks, we are learning all about the power of persuasion. We are so surrounded by persuasive text forms in our everyday lives and affected by them in various ways. The students have been voicing their opinions and learning to develop their reasons with rhetorical questions, strong evidence, and the concept of cause and effect.
Geoff Trevaskis
Japanese
The end of April and start of May is an exciting time in Japan, when there is a series of public holidays known as ‘Golden Week’. The last holiday of ‘Golden Week,’ on the fifth day of the fifth month, is ‘Kodomo no Hi,’ or Children’s Day. Earlier this term, our Prep, 1 and 2 classes looked closely at Childrens Day and how it is a time where we celebrate children and hope for their continued happiness and health. In our classes, we celebrated Children’s Day by listening to the ‘koinobori’ (carp streamer) song and created our own ‘koinobori’.
At the end of Term 1, it was with heavy hearts that we said ‘sayonara’ to Valent Sensei as she travelled back to Japan. She sends her love from Japan to the Surf Coast Campus. With her departure, we have welcomed a new Japanese teacher for our Year 3 and 4 classes for the remainder of 2023. Our wonderful new sensei is Tomimi Suzuzki. I would like to extend a warm ‘youkoso’ (welcome) to Suzuki Sensei. Please say a big ‘hajimemashite’ (nice to meet you) should you see her when she is at school on a Friday!
Katherine Moore
Camp Australia
ChatGPT, Generative AI and Young People
Information and guidance for parents
Parents may be aware of the news and hype around recent developments in generative AI (artificial intelligence), especially the digital tool ChatGPT that launched in November last year. ChatGPT reached a million users in five days, and by January of this year had 13 million daily users.
By typing in a specific prompt, a person can ask ChatGPT to produce a written response and it will create it in seconds. It can produce emails, poems, song lyrics, speeches, reviews, recipes, stories, social media posts, working program code, and academic essays and reports. It can analyse text and code, and offer advice on improvements, corrections, and alternative approaches for just about any written text.
ChatGPT facilitates a chat-based conversation between the person and the AI chatbot that produces the output, allowing for questions, refinements, and iterations on the original output until the resultant text suits the intentions of the user.
Since ChatGPT’s launch late last year, there has been an explosion in the proliferation and availability of similar digital tools to the average person – including our young people. Google and Microsoft are racing to build AI tools into their browsers, office suites and search engines, and you may have heard of Microsoft’s new Bing Chat or Google’s BardAI.
Popular social media platforms are including AI features with the same capabilities as ChatGPT into their features, such as SnapChat’s ‘MyAI’ feature and Discord’s ‘Clyde’ AI chatbot. Other AI tools available online allow the creation of images, artwork, and music from a straightforward text prompt.
ChatGPT and similar AI tools have their limitations, including the potential to produce inaccurate information or to return text that has inherent biases. Depending on the AI tool used, it can also be difficult to cite sources or track back and identify where the information originally came from. The free version of ChatGPT is not a real-time search engine and only has access to information up to 2021, so the text output it produces may be outdated.
Generative AI and Education
The proliferation and accessibility of these digital tools for our young people presents both opportunities and challenges for education. It prompts questions for teachers and schools such as:
- What does this mean for contemporary learning?
- How does this influence our approach and thinking around assessment?
- What are the issues of safe and ethical use?
At Christian College, we have begun to grapple with these questions and are taking a careful and measured approach towards the development of guidelines and policy around the use of AI tools in the context of learning.
On Wednesday, May 3, teaching staff from across all campuses were well-represented at an in-house professional learning event introducing ChatGPT, generative AI and education where the limitations, opportunities, and challenges of these tools in the education context were explored. There is potential for these tools to provide many benefits to teachers and students in the classroom setting in future, if used within an appropriate framework that promotes age-appropriateness, privacy and safety, ethical use, and an understanding of these tools’ limitations.
Interim guidelines for staff were released while we work towards developing more formal and robust policy. These interim guidelines acknowledge that most AI tools require a personal account for use and come with Terms of Use that require users to be 18+ or else 13+ with parental consent. As with any online technology-based tool, student safety and privacy are an important consideration.
Currently, student access to ChatGPT and AI tools is filtered, to the degree possible, on their school device during school hours. This is a short-term approach as we continue to review and develop more formalised policy and explore implications for teaching and learning, including assessment.
We’ll continue to consider what this means for our College and community going forward in the context of our philosophical statement, which acknowledges that we live in a “progressively technological age” and identifies a commitment to adopting the best educational technology practices to support student learning. Our response to the increasing availability of AI tools must ensure we enable students to be their best and to thrive and positively influence their world – now and into the future.
Guidance and Support for Parents
I encourage parents to engage with their young people at home, especially teenagers and those using social media, about experiences they may have had with AI tools such as ChatGPT and to experiment and explore together.
For parents new to this technology, you may find value in viewing the video below at home – together with your young person – and considering possibilities and questions that it prompts. This twelve-minute video ‘Why OpenAI’s ChatGPT is Such a Big Deal’, though produced by American news channel CNBC, provides an engaging and accessible overview of ChatGPT, generative AI, its limitations and possible future impacts.
- View the video: Why OpenAI’s ChatGPT is Such a Big Deal (CNBC, February 2023)
I also highly recommend the two parent support articles below. While they both focus primarily on ChatGPT, the guidance and parent advice can be equally applied to any generative AI tool.
- Guide to ChatGPT for Parents and Caregivers (Common Sense Media)
- ChatGPT and its Role in Education (parent advice on our CCG Online Safety Hub)
Parents and young people should be aware that:
- ChatGPT and AI tools like it can get things wrong, and their information shouldn’t be trusted.
- Confidential or personally identifiable information (such as names) should not be entered into AI tools as part of a prompt due to risks to privacy.
- These tools have clear Terms of Use, requiring that users are over 18, or at least 13 if they have parental consent to use them.
- AI-generated content should not be used in the context of school without discussion and explicit approval by their teacher, and only in specific cases. Parental consent will be sought for such activities.
- It is important to be mindful of privacy when using AI tools, and personal information shouldn’t be included in data provided to them (for example, as part of a prompt).
It is important for parents to know that the use of AI tools will not be introduced by teachers in the context of learning activities and assessments for now, and this will only occur in future with careful planning, communication, and explicit consent from relevant parents.
Brendan Vanderkley, Director of Digital Learning
Uniform Shop Clearance Sale!
A MYTERN Thought for This Week
When you are on a rough road, people often tell you to get a grip and drive on.
Try not to judge yourself harshly if that feels too hard.
Sometimes it's not as simple as just shaking it off and moving on.
Slow down, take a deep breath and know that no road lasts forever 🙏❤️
Discover more about MYTERN here
