Year 5 STEM Extension students were invited to DigiDo 2024 at Scotch College on Tuesday the 27^th of August. DigiDo is a STEM conference for students where students get the opportunity lead workshops for other students, as well as attend workshops, participate in student discussion panels, and engage with industry experts to learn about new technology and future career paths.

Our student ran three workshops on developing simple augmented reality games using software called Pictoblox. The students had a lot of fun and did an amazing job, with some students from other schools even coming back for a second try at our workshop!

Anneke and Alec spoke with great authority on stage about the topics of digital citizenship and digital footprints, and Annabel won herself a prize with her Just Dance performance in the day’s side competition.

Mitcham Primary School is holding its annual Quiz Night on Saturday, 19^th October. This year’s theme is ‘Welcome to the Jungle’. With the support of our local community, the Quiz Night is always a very successful evening and is well attended by the Mitcham Primary School community.

This year, funds raised from the Quiz Night will be added to last year’s total to provide additions to our school playground and outdoor seating areas.

We are asking our generous school community for support in the form of donations of goods and vouchers that can be used for auction items or prizes!

Last term, our classes participated in the STEM Premier’s Reading Challenge, a statewide competition where students read a STEM-themed book and complete an activity using the book as inspiration.

This year we produced 414 entries for the competition and two of our fabulous students were among the prize winners from the state. Congratulations to Aliza D from M1 and Alexander W from G1 who won runner-up prizes in their age group. Thank you to Program Coordinator, Mr Mark Williams, who came to our assembly to present them with their prize. Their work will soon be featured in a book that will be given to libraries and schools around South Australia. Well done and also a well done to all of our students who entered the challenge!

Reminder - Mitcham Primary School Open Night is on Thursday 5th September 5.30pm - 7pm.

The year 3-4 Football team had a very competitive and physical game against Black Forest rcently and we came out on top in an epic win!! Finishing off this season as undefeated! I’ve been so proud of all the boys - they have displayed maturity, good sportsmanship, grit and determination, throughout the entire season; and each week they’ve improved as individuals and as a team.

Well Done!

Travis & Claire Modra - Coaches

As part of the government’s Languages in Schools initiative, the School of Languages has expanded the across-sector R-6 Languages Alive! program. The October 2024 program will provide students with interactive language learning opportunities in a range of languages, including Auslan, Croatian, French, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish & one language to still be confirmed. Please see attached flyer. 

Please see below the upcoming important dates and school events for Term 3 and 4.

Semester 1 Reception classes celebrated 100 Days of School on the first day back this term. Many children loved dressing up as if they were 100 years old. Others dressed in brightly coloured clothes or in items representing the number 100. 

100 was the focus of our STEM Investigations with the children enjoying challenges such as building pyramids with 100 cups, constructing a vertical 100 with Lego and designing domino trails of 100 pieces.

What an exciting way to start the term with lots of fun, laughter and beautiful sunshine! 

During Term 2, Year 5 students undertook a unit of work on Abstract Art in response to two works of Art at the Art Gallery of SA. Classes first collaborated to create large scale tangled/woven art with red wool and explored pencil colouring of geometric patterns. Then, following an incursion from a local Digital Artist, David, students created their own Abstract Digital Art using block coding with an app called “Endless Art”.

The resulting art was then displayed with Artists Statements. Many classes and Year 5 family members enjoyed visiting our Year 5 Art Gallery in the Innovation Centre on Friday in Week 9, including printed, animated and projected versions of the art.

“ It was a fun way to express your feelings. It made me feel empowered that I had made a creation that was fully made by the app and me.” Maddie

“ I liked how my design never ended and it didn’t matter what option you used it was always the same. I really enjoyed experimenting with different patterns.” Logan

Anthony Bryce, Tash Lawson-Forbes & Miriam Doull

Oliphant Science Awards

We were excited to have 18 Mitcham students enter the Oliphant Science Awards competition this year, including students from Year 3 to Year 6. Entries included Board Games, Posters, Photography, Computer Programming & Robotics, and Models and Inventions.

Congratulations to all of the students who entered – it takes lots of responsibility and resilience to complete these projects! Special congratulations to Micah in Year 5, who has won an award for his entry “Periodica” in the Year 5-6 Games category. Well done Micah!

Young Environment Leadership Program (YELP) Team news

On Tuesday in Week 2, eight members of the Youth Environmental Leadership Program (YELP) Team participated in a Student Forum on the environment run by Green Adelaide and hosted by Unley Primary School. We met with eight other school groups at Unley Primary School, to engage in activities focused on the improvement of sustainability practices in our schools and understanding and caring for our natural environment. We had perfect weather and enjoyed participating in a number of sessions.

The ”Planet Protectors” from Unley Primary School took us on a tour around the school to show us the range of initiatives they have developed over the last few years, including waste and recycling processes, Terracycle writing tool recycling, Tommy’s Garden nature play space & edible food garden, wildlife boxes for birds and possums that can be observed with cameras on long poles, and indigenous plantings. It was really interesting to see the things that another school is doing to improve sustainability.     

James Smith, Zoologist from FauNature talked to us about hollows and hollow-dependent species in Adelaide including brushtail and ringtail possums, many birds and bats. James explained that the Powerful Owl is the largest species in Australia that uses hollows, and they break the backbones of their prey as they hunt so they do not struggle and for ease of carrying in flight. James also told us how he has set up a Bat Roost/Condo in his roof space!

Did you know it takes around 120-150 years for hollows to naturally form? Branches may drop after fire or heat stress and termites eat the inner core of branches and trunk to create these valuable spaces. In urban areas human-made hollows and wildlife boxes are providing important spaces for a range of fauna to safely nest, shelter and breed. That’s why it is important to retain older trees in our communities. It was very interesting!

We then welcomed Hugh, from Green Adelaide, who generously joined us while on long service leave, to share the 20 year history of the Windsor Street Linear Trail. We then went for a local walk, through the Windsor St Reserve and Oxford Tce Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD). We stopped off at Hugh’s house to see the amazing River Redgum he has planted in his garden.

The Windsor Street Linear Reserve features locally indigenous vegetation and provides a natural corridor from near Fisher Street, Fullarton at its southern end, to Henry Codd Reserve at Parkside, at its northern end. The Oxford Tce WSUD provides an example of footpath design to support sustainable water flow.

We walked a section of the trail and observed a range of landscape elements that create habitat and attract wildlife including wildlife boxes, large fallen logs with water and rock features, and we even saw a koala! Hugh emphasised the importance of schools as urban green spaces for providing habitat for wildlife and ensuring students are educated in positive actions to improve our sustainability and environmental outcomes into the future.               

The YELP Team also spent some time continuing to develop our project focussed on adding more biodiversity to spaces around our school's grounds, using native plant species. Our work continues!

Thank you to Green Adelaide and Unley Primary School for this opportunity to improve our school and experience.

Year 6 YELP Team and Mrs Doull