Around the Grounds: And Far Away Places

To RSVP: Father’s Day and Family Breakfasts, campus to campus, calling all dads, grandads and special friends.
To Read: Do you remember being four? As of next year, Penbank will run a four-day program for our four-year-olds. Share Four for Four with friends with little ones.
To Watch: More Than Your Score posters are now around Melbourne. Watch the video so you know what you're looking out for. 
Say What? Send us your questions or ideas for anything you want to know more (or less) about in Around the Grounds. 

Activities Week

What’s the difference between the Activities Program and Activities Week at Woodleigh? They work a little like a Venn Diagram: with some crossover and some difference. To begin with, the Activities Program runs throughout the year, a couple of sessions per week in six-week(ish) blocks- something new, something different and it runs throughout the school year. Activities Week is a concentrated five days (sometimes more if you’re skiing), all day every day, full immersion with time and opportunity to pursue a project and new skills.

Both are balloted; many get their first choice, plenty get their second, or third and so on - and no one gets their first choice every time, but everyone has a good time, every time. Both are made up of cross-age groups, new faces and shared interests, memories and an early Friday night.

And for Activities Week this year, Years 7 - 11 balloted for Sculpture and Ceramics, E-sports, Surfing, Aviation, Golf, Horse Riding, Theatre Sports, Drawing and Painting, Energise and Revive in Castlemaine, Environmental service work in Tiverton, Jewellery Making, Fishing, City Adventures, Cooking, Rock Climbing, Skiing and Sustainable Fashion and sewing...

To RSVP: Father’s Day Breakfasts

Off the Cuff and Outta This World

For the kids in the Senior Campus production, Activities Week was perfectly timed as the final run to the finish line. The finish line was last night, and it was outstanding. 

Nine cast members, a three-student tech team, three judges, one host and a band. Despite the small number involved, the performance couldn’t have felt more alive. It’s nerve-wracking, even as an audience member, to know that cast of fresh-faced teens is about to step onto stage, with no plan, just the bravery to pull something out of nowhere, in the moment, and then do it again. Over and over for the entirety of the performance. 

There were so many stand-out moments; the audience was completely engaged, participating, laughing uproariously, cheering the cast and booing the judges.

The tech team’s job was equally spontaneous; they had to be responsive to the action, the movement, the tone, the genre; the entire show lived in the moment. It was one night only, and what a treat. 

Congratulations to everyone – and particularly, Cathy and Brenna, for pulling off a mammoth task. 

To Read: Four For Four

Do you remember being four? Do you remember how slowly time moved in those days. A year felt like a lifetime, because everything was new and big and exciting. It’s a pretty special little window of time: not yet at school, still very much in the fold of home, and coming to ECC to have the time of their lives playing, with no care for the incredible cognitive work unfolding in the background. 

Penbank's four-year-olds will be here four days a week next year, more time in the week to do...

Rufus, Joe, Sam and Connor won!

What is this and how did they win? The Model United Nations Assembly (MUNA) is an inter-school debating event. There were 14 schools involved, each team represents an assigned country and takes on specific positions on set topics. 

In the final stretch, 'they argued that the resolution did not protect underdeveloped and poorer countries and that it was only beneficial for richer countries. The resolution passed, so Woodleigh did not win that argument, but they still won the competition because of how they performed here.' said Marney Pope, their very proud and hardworking public speaking coordinator. 

Sally Rippin and Aki Fukuoka

Consider this your reminder to get Book Week costumes underway before-the-night-before.

Sally Rippin and Aki Fukuoka have a new graphic novel book series featuring the same beloved Billie B characters. The two visited Penbank, and the Year 3s and 4s from Minimbah came across too, to draw and bring ideas from the imaginary to words and paper so they could be shared with each other.

Sally’s stories have been on all of our bookshelves at some stage, so for the kids to see the creators themselves bring characters to life in real time, that’s as good as magic for our junior kids. 

Say What? We’re Listening

Are there things you would like to know more about, less about, tell us about, remind us of or reminisce about? 
You can tell us here, and we'll have a talk about. 

Until we go Around the Grounds again next time...