Avondale Primary School promotes active student participation as a means to improve student outcomes and engagement. Student participation ranges from students sharing their opinions of problems and potential solutions through Student Representative Councils, to students providing feedback associated with school strategic planning. It also includes our students sharing their ‘voice’ in class by collaborating with teachers to improve educational outcomes.
Students are encouraged to share their voice through:
Congratulations to the following students who will represent their peers on our Student Representative Council for 2022. The SRC will meet weekly with Mrs Benham and Mrs Carroll. During our first meeting this term, students were introduced to Parking Lot and given their first question to gain feedback on from their classes ‘What Lunchtime Clubs would you like to run this term?’. We look forward to sharing more from our SRC in future newsletters.
Class
Student Name
Foundation A
Erin
Louie
Foundation B
Atilla
Ava
Foundation C
Ada
Luke
1A
Samuel
Paris
1B
Dilara
Lachlan
1C
Zachary
Savannah
2A
Elke
Hayden
2B
Chloe
Arthur
2C
Kaydence
Jaya
3A
Emily
George
3B
Jasmine
Mia
3C
Elena
Josiah
4A
Libona
Luca
4B
Hayley
Santiago
4C
Aleyna
Darien
5/6A
Tessa
Isabel
5/6B
Vy
Walied
5/6C
5/6D
Affan
Lucas
5/6E
Community Circles
Grade 6 Student leadership teamThe student leadership team model leadership and positive behaviour to others, contribute to the school coordination and participate actively in the school community and its activities.
Students are selected to leadership positions following a selection process which includes:
1. Presentations to their peers
2. Short listing following an election process with their peers
3. Short listed students are interviewed and School and House Captains are selected
4. The student leadership team is then mentored through the yearClick here to view a copy of our Student positions of responsibility information flyer
Click here to view Dreams and Success. This is the latest edition of our student voice magazine.
Saving (Y)our World Instalment 15: Looking to the future 1: Solar Windows
by: Morrigan R
Now, I’ve talked to you a lot about what is wrong with our current practices and I’ve identified things we need to change, however for this term I will ask the question: what are the newest technologies available now or that we are working toward that could create a greener future? Perhaps you already know about these things and even use them, but then again perhaps you don’t. However, whether you know about them or not, in this term’s Saving (Y)our World you will learn what they are, what benefits they do or could bring, and how they will better us in the future!
Now, I wonder if you’ve ever heard of a solar window, which is just what it sounds like: a window that absorbs solar energy!?! Solar windows are see-through solar panels that you can put in a window frame, and then…ta-da, your window starts producing energy! This incredible technological breakthrough will help to reduce pollution from coal energy production and lead to a more sustainable future.
If you had solar windows in your house, you wouldn’t necessarily need traditional rooftop solar panels, freeing up your roof for other things, such as roof gardens. But we’ll get to those next week 😉. Solar windows are great because they save space and you can use them even if you live in an apartment, making solar energy available to everyone. If you have a window frame, you can have solar windows and if there are solar windows, that’s one less house powered by fossil fuels.
One day, in our sustainable future, solar windows will entirely replace regular windows! Imagine that world: fossil fuel emissions will be dramatically reduced and communities will generate their own energy that they can even share with their neighbours. If one day someone didn’t make enough solar energy themselves to get through the day, another house could donate their excess energy, helping to both improve the environment and create community. Solar windows are definitely in our future!
So, you have come to the end of my first looking to the future instalment. Join me next time for Looking to the future 2: Green roofs. Have a good day!
“If such energy is coming from the sun, why are we digging the earth?” - Anonymous
Saving (Y)our World Instalment 14: Sickening Seafood
You probably like seafood. When you read the heading to this instalment, you probably thought gee, what could possibly be wrong with seafood? Surely there is nothing wrong with it? However, despite what you thought you knew, there is something fishy about the seafood industry. So, what is wrong with seafood? Let’s find out!
The first thing we need to look at is those big commercial fishing companies. They have giant nets that catch everything … including helpless creatures like turtles, dolphins and sharks. This is known as Bycatch. It is a serious problem for some species and is a problem for commercially caught species such as wild caught prawn (where a lot of the catch is bycatch!). The creatures caught as bycatch suffocate just like the fishes that the net was supposed to catch and then die for absolutely no reason at all. Even worse, those giant fishing nets sometimes catch fish faster than they can breed and come back! Imagine an ocean without fish. That is what we are heading towards! Whenever you eat a can of tuna, even dolphin-free tuna, it is like taking the life of a dolphin as well.
The second problem: shark finning. Have you ever had shark fin soup? Well, I bet you didn’t know how the sharks were caught. What happens is the sharks are captured, their fins are cut off and then they are dumped back into the water alive. The sharks are unable to swim, and they die of starvation. What a cruel thing to do! And just for one bowl of soup? What is more, shark fins don’t
even add any flavour to the soup. They only add texture! I am sure that a vegetable with the same texture could be easily added to the soup instead.
The next problem: Illegal whaling. Every year, thousands of whales, dolphins and porpoises are hunted for their meat. This is sometimes served to unsuspecting tourists as a ‘traditional dish’. It is illegal in most countries, but a few, including Japan, still do it. In Taiji, Japan, they drive the creatures onto the beach before horrendously and cruelly killing them. So horrible are these activities that curtains are hung across the beaches so that tourists don’t know what is going on. People also use materials from the whales and dolphins in ‘local medicine’, however, just like the belief of rhino horns in medicine, the beliefs of medical properties are false.
If commercial fishing is bad, why don’t we all just go fishing ourselves? Well, recreational fishing, as it is called, comes with its own set of problems as well! When fishing lines are cut they contribute to plastic pollution and it can even cause your local food web to collapse! So, what can you do to improve your recreational fishing practices to better the environment? Always work to free your snags, make wise choices about your bait and be careful about where (and what) you fish. That is if you decide that you want to fish yourself!
Morrigan R. signing out. I hope you join me next term for another instalment of saving (Y)our world.
“The ocean is like a checking account where everybody withdraws but nobody makes a deposit” - Enric Sala
Students Leadership Meetings
The grade 5/6 student leaders are meeting regularly to share their voice about what they like to see happen at Avondale Primary. During this time, the group of students also create and publish a monthly student voice magazine to communicate to all members of the Avondale Primary community what has been happening around our school.
GRIP Student leadership conference: Moonee Valley Racecourse'The conference was funny when we played Loud Noises and did silly games. It was also inspiring when we learnt core character traits and heard the opinions of others. The day was also very social because we got to talk to students from other schools and ask the panel questions at the end.'By Imogen Mina and Kevin PhoSchool Captains laying a wreath at the Australian War memorial, Canberra.Grade 6 student leaders attending opening of Avondale Heights Library courtyard and African drumming workshop.