Colleen Elkins – Gifted and Talented Co-Ordinator K-6

Statistics poster competition

In Week 2, we were treated to a visit from a member of the NSW Ministry of Health, a Biostatistician, to launch our Year 3 and 4 students into the National Schools Statistics Poster Competition.

Kevin Wang advising students on their statistics projects

Kevin Wang is acting as a mentor to the students throughout the process. He described some of the many ways statistics are used to help make better decisions in many areas of life and talked the students through the process of thinking of a question, hypothesising, collecting data and recording data, writing an observation and recording limitations.

The students were inspired to find out things like: which gym equipment burns the most calories, do schools from the private and public sector show a pattern in their NAPLAN results and how many people are gluten free by choice or as a necessity.

Kevin assisted the students in fine tuning their questions and helped them consider issues like sample size and consistency. Students will now proceed in their investigation which will culminate in a poster entered into this competition.

It was a delight to have such an enthusiastic expert to present to the students and he stated that he was impressed with the level of questioning and logical reasoning they showed.

Year 5 mentors working with our selected team

News from Jessica Smith and Tali Same (Year 5)

This year we entered the da Vinci Decathlon competition and saw how important it is to train all year round. So, we decided to start the da Vinci Squad, opening it to Years 3 and 4. The response to this was so great that we decided to enter a group of selected Years 3 and 4 students into a Gateways competition (a competition very similar to da Vinci); preparing our lessons on Mondays and ensuring we had worksheets for Tuesday. Now we are training the students for the competition on 14 November 2019 and wish them all the best!

G&T parent workshop

Dr Minh Nyguen-Hoan

Thank you so much to Dr Minh Nyguen-Hoan who addressed our parent body on ‘Emotional intensities and sensitivities: Impact on learning, behaviour, and socialisation” in relation to gifted children. Our gratitude also to those parents who attended and contributed to the rich discussions that arose, making it a rich learning experience and community building exercise for all.