Prep School

Our value of the week is excellence. Excellence is doing your best and giving careful attention to every task and every relationship. Excellence is an effort guided by a noble purpose. It is a desire for perfection. The perfection of a seed comes in the fruit. When you practice excellence, you bring your gifts to fruition. Excellence is the key to success.

This can be such a loaded concept with unreasonable expectations placed on our young boys. The pressure to do well at school that is placed upon themselves, by parents, their teachers and the School can have detrimental effects on their learning and sense of well-being. Excellence for our Prep boys means working towards and aspiring to achieve high standards of academic and personal performance.

For our Prep boys, excellence can be demonstrated in a variety of ways.

Academic achievement: this involves boys achieving their personal best in a variety of subject areas.
Creative thinking: excellence can be demonstrated by creativity, problem-solving skills and innovative thinking.
Positive attitude: boys who exhibit a positive attitude towards learning take responsibility for their own learning and are motivated to learn. They are considered to have excellent personal performance.
Social and emotional development: boys who demonstrate social and emotional development show strong interpersonal skills, empathy and self-awareness.
Active participants: boys who are actively engaged in cocurricular activities such as sport and music demonstrate a high level of commitment and dedication—traits that are considered to be excellent.

Excellence in our Churchie Prep community encourages boys to be curious about the world around them, gives them the tools they need to explore and discover the things they are curious about, promotes their agency to affect change, builds their sense of self-worth and inspires their personal purpose and place within our learning community that is Churchie. Ultimately, excellence for our Prep boys is about striving to be the best version of themselves. This is a noble pursuit and something to which we are dedicated to supporting our Prep boys in their journeys at Churchie.

Attribute of the week: inquirers

Inquirers have a natural curiosity and learn to acquire the skills necessary to conduct inquiry and research and show independence in learning. You actively enjoy learning, and this love of learning will be sustained throughout your life.

Music Immersion Evening

Our Prep musicians have such wonderful musical opportunities offered to them at Churchie. Learning through playing music in a band or string ensemble develops a range of important learning tools or skills. Some of these tools for learning include developing social skills as they cooperate and work with others, thinking skills as they learn how to play a new instrument, comprehension and analysis skills as they improve literacy by reading musical notation, improved memory and executive functioning (including self-regulation) and self-management skills as they develop fine motor skills and organise their practice, and communication skills through learning about gesture and non-verbal communication, as well as reading and, of course, listening! The benefits of learning music are endless.

Our music tutors at Churchie are incredibly skilled and knowledgeable, and they inspire in our boys a lifelong love for music. Many of the Years 4 and 5 parents experienced this at the Music Immersion Information Evening, having a blast trying their son’s woodwind, brass, string and percussion instruments. Our music tutors facilitated parent groups as the parents and carers explored what it looks and feels like to be a starter or beginner musician. This included just setting up the instrument and the first steps of learning music, including the first few notes.

It was wonderful to see parents enjoying this opportunity, demonstrating their risk-taking by having a go at something new. Some of the groups even advanced to playing a few songs! As well as developing appreciation and empathy for their boys learning a new instrument, our parents and carers learnt how to encourage and support the boys at home.

Learning an instrument is not only about self-expression and artistic freedom but developing self-discipline and focus. The role of the parent is ‘instrumental’ in this learning journey, and we encourage you to listen to the boys as much as possible on their instruments. In the early stages, short, frequent intervals are best. Consider setting up a music space at home with a music stand, perhaps offering nightly five-minute practice sessions or concerts. When you show interest in their instrument, their motivation is enhanced! Keep it fun, aiming for enthusiasm and praise for your son’s efforts. This develops a growth mindset as it will not always be easy. Practice doesn’t make perfect, but it does make it better!

Thank you to Ben Hooper who coordinated the event. The information slides will be available on the Years 4 and 5 parent information page. The slides also include the contact details for each of the music tutors (VPATs), should you have any questions regarding immersion lessons. You can also directly contact Head of Strings Ben Hooper, Head of Bands Jeremy Williamson or myself, Head of Preparatory School Music Melissa Black.

Ben Hooper played an excellent video from Dr Anita Collins, an award-winning educator, researcher and writer in the field of brain development and music learning, also a huge advocate for understanding how playing an instrument benefits child development. The video summarises how neuro-scientists study the impact that music exposure has in opening up neural pathways in the brain, and how music learning further develops neural connections all over the brain.

We look forward to performing for our school community later in the year and thank you for your ongoing support for our youngest musicians.

Melissa Black
Head of Preparatory School Music

All reading is good reading: The literary merit of graphic novels

We have noticed that many of our best readers and most frequent borrowers are huge fans of our graphic novel collection. Graphic novels are so much more than the comic books we grew up with in past decades. Increasingly, they are being recognised for their literary merit, with complex themes and stimulation of critical thinking, far beyond the Archie comics of the past.

If you would like to read more about why we should not discourage our kids from reading graphic novels, please read some of these links to research about this growing movement:

Library news

Year 5 boys thoroughly enjoyed Mark Greenwood’s writing workshops on Friday, which focused on narrative and persuasive writing to support NAPLAN preparation, while also linking beautifully with Year 5’s current ‘Where we are in place and time’ unit of inquiry. Any boys who wish to purchase signed copies of Mark’s books need to return forms (after making an online payment) by Thursday 14 March.

Belinda Booth
Teacher Librarian

Nocturnes

In recent years a special part of the Lenten journey has been Nocturnes at St John’s. For five Friday nights (23 February to 22 March at 9 pm, the building will calmly resound with the sound of thirty minutes of reflective seasonal choral music. This is followed by the intimate liturgy of Compline, where music and words gently bring the day to a close. On Friday 22 March, Churchie’s St John’s Cathedral Choristers will inspire us during Nocturnes, and all are warmly invited to attend.

Stephanie Cotroneo
Lay Minister

Easter service

The Prep School’s Easter Service at St John’s Cathedral will be on Monday 25 March from 6 to 7 pm. The service is compulsory for all Years 4 to 6 boys. A roll will be taken in the evening. The formal uniform of a white shirt and tie is to be worn by all students attending. Boys with special tasks at this service will travel to the cathedral during the day of the service to rehearse. All families are welcome to attend.

Parents on campus

A reminder that all visitors to campus (including parents) during the school day must sign in upon arrival.

If you are attending the campus for an appointment with a staff member, the sign-in process generates a notification to let our staff member know that you have arrived. It will also print a name tag for you to wear whilst on campus.

Sign-in kiosks are available at the Prep School Office. Parents who are volunteering at the tuckshop can sign in at the tuckshop. Your cooperation with this process is appreciated.

Traffic and parking

The safety and wellbeing of our boys are paramount. Please ensure when accessing the drop off and pick up zones around the school, you observe the local road rules and conditions. We are happy to provide staff in these areas in order to facilitate an efficient, orderly and safe environment for our boys.

Mark Wyer
Head of Preparatory School