Making good choices can require a great deal of courage. There are times when we have to stand up for what we believe and even go against popular opinion or what is more comfortable for us to do. This is difficult, but such choices can be tremendously rewarding, and allow us to remain true to ourselves.

Helping our young people make decisions is an important life-lesson. It is vital young people understand that they are making choices all the time and it is these choices that determine their experiences. The choices they are making today will show up in their experiences in the future.

I have been reading a book called 'Finishing Strong' by Jonathan Doyle. In one chapter the author references a tree that is 84 metres tall and is nicknamed General Sherman. It’s over 2,000 years old and has a total volume of more than half an Olympic sized swimming pool. It’s fascinating to think that the seed from which it comes can fit in the palm of your hand.

All that size and power, all that beauty and magnificence was already there in the genetic code of that one single seed. The story of a young person’s potential is similar. All this incredible potential is wrapped up inside each individual. It’s all there just waiting to be used. The big difference between us and the General Sherman though, is that we can do one thing the tree can’t ... we can make choices. For students, they can choose:

• to work harder;
• to ask for help;
• to be positive in their interactions with others; and
• to embrace opportunities offered at Knox.

As students return to School, my message is simple; they all have a choice. Students can decide to make this year the best they can possibly make it. If this is their choice, the clarity that comes with this decision will have a strong, positive impact upon their daily school life.

Growing Traditional Native Bush Food - Student Volunteers Wanted
We have been allocated an area near the Borambil Gates to develop a traditional bush food garden. We will be working in conjunction with Head of Agriculture Mr Ian Fawbert and Knox parent Mr Luke Farr; who will provide support, insight and an intensive understanding of growing traditional native foods which sustained Aboriginal people in this harsh continent for 65,000 years. Mrs Clarke is calling for volunteers and we would tend the garden possibly one morning and one afternoon per week. Please ask your son to email Mrs Clarke if he is interested. The produce will also be shared with a local community elder.

The Knox Social Justice (SJ) Club meeting this Friday
We will have our first club meeting together (socially distanced) this Friday. Each week we host guest speakers, exploring justice issues, boys can volunteer to present at a meeting about a justice issue that they are passionate about. Kim Pearce from the Possibility Project will work with the boys again this week and the challenge is for the boys to apply ethical guidelines of purchases, particularly clothing, that respects human rights and does not harm the environment. 

Next Friday 5 June, we will be celebrating UN World Environment Day. The club will participate in the Possibility Project's online event that day at 1pm.

Parents for Justice
Please call Helen Clarke on 0404 839 762 or email if you would like to join this group of supporters.

Volunteering 
Volunteers are still needed to support the work of the Ku-ring-gai Neighbourhood Centre (KNC). If you can spare some time to make phone calls or deliver groceries etc, please sign up to support those who are doing it tough at the moment. Contact them by clicking on the following links: adult volunteer or student volunteer.

You will have no doubt read about and heard the news reports about amendments to NSW curriculum and reporting for schools, as a result of COVID-19. You will have also read about the expected dip in student achievement and motivation for learning. Please be assured that our curriculum offering will not be amended, and our reporting process will be as rigorous and extensive as in past years.

We made very specific and measured decisions about how we would offer online learning, with the boys and their learning at the centre of these decisions. Whilst we did make some minor amendments along the way, we did not steer from our purpose to recreate, as closely as possible, the regular school day experience for our boys. Given the success of this endeavour, our programs continued and are on track, and our teachers have strong sets of data to use for reporting purposes.

The one amendment we will make, however, is the timing of the delivery of the reports to you. Ordinarily, you would receive the Semester One Report in the last week of the term. This year, we will send the Reports at the end of the first week of the holidays. Parent Teacher Interviews will be scheduled during the early weeks of Term 3. At this stage, we are unsure as to whether these will be face-to-face or via video conferencing. We will, of course, let you know closer to the time, and bookings will be available online.

'Allow me to introduce you to my 11-month-old Labrador, Charlie. I got Charlie for company when he was a tiny puppy. I was going through a time of deep grief and I probably wasn’t thinking very straight at the time.

Anyway, we are family and I love him despite him tearing everything to bits, pulling the sheets off the line and eating his wooden kennel. Every bed he has had has been ripped to shreds and the stuffing spread around the yard. The poly irrigation system I put around the garden has all been digested.

Charlie is now about 34 kilograms of muscle. Each day we go for a walk, and Charlie walks me (or pulls me) for the first couple of kilometres before I get the chance to walk him. My dog is a complete aerobic workout and he stretches every muscle in my body. When he sees another dog, he thinks it’s playtime and nearly pulls my arm out of its socket.

Why do I put up with such a boisterous and destructive dog? The answer is simple. It’s because I love him.

I sometimes wonder why God puts up with me and how he can love me as much as he does. God loves us despite our faults and idiosyncrasies. We are truly blessed!

In these trying times, we can forget how much we are loved by God and we can fail to truly love those around us.

Let’s always remember to live in love, so God can live in us.'

Reading the storybooks aloud is an interactive part of the program that allows good reading to be modelled, vocabulary developed, and retelling the story to be practised. We focus on literal and inferential comprehension skills with many of the questions being open-ended and analytical.

The boys find the storybooks engaging as they actively listen for three highlighted vocabulary items. The chosen vocabulary are words they are not necessarily exposed to on a daily basis, such as ‘clambered’, ‘gasp’ and ‘despair’ with child-friendly definitions given. The boys’ responses to the stories are heartfelt as they make connections to their own world experiences, explore different feelings and emotions and build a rich and expressive vocabulary.

Nothing beats the experience of sharing a storybook together.

This week, Year 1 boys will complete their final task in our Global Changemakers unit, 'I Can Protect my World!' The level of skill the boys are displaying in creating their Augmented Reality environment is truly amazing. The teachers are looking forward to seeing the boys' finished environments. The boys are also very excited to share their completed tasks with their peers and parents.

This week we are also writing our final information teports on Australian animals. The boys have acquired many skills whilst learning to write informative texts. We have been very impressed with how the boys have been using technical language, adjectival phrases and writing ‘super sentences’.

The depth of knowledge students have gained regarding ecosystems and biomes around the world through their learning in this unit is incredible. Their understanding of the interconnectedness of living and non living features of these ecosystems is truly phenomenal. We are so proud of their dedication and hard work over the past eight weeks. We will begin delving into our third Knoxigations Unit next week, 'Sustainable Solutions'. Throughout this domain, students will be investigating the importance of sustainable practices for a sustainable future.

The Year 2 teachers would like to express their thanks to all parents for being incredibly flexible and adhering to the School’s pick up and drop off procedures, even when mother nature has taken it upon herself to throw a few curve balls our way!

As a grade, we will endeavour to quickly resume normal proceedings prior to the changes we all experienced as a result of the pandemic, to ensure students are as settled and focused as possible whilst at school. Whilst nothing we do as teachers will be able to come close to the daily home-cooked meals and other creature comforts readily obtained by learning from home, it has been very encouraging to see students return with a positive attitude and appreciation for the opportunities that can only be provided by learning directly from school.

This week marks the final week of the students’ Knoxigations unit, which has been centred on the big idea, ‘Purpose Influences Design’. All boys are finalising their preparations for the assessment task related to this unit, in which they have been creating or redesigning a particular product or space in order to improve its purpose and function.

Students have been given the choice of presenting their final piece of work using one of four main tools; CoSpaces, Minecraft Edu, Tinkercad or physical resources. The Year 3 teachers have been most impressed with a number of the products and spaces which the boys have been working on and we look forward to marking these creations and sharing them with parents/guardians shortly.

Dates for the diary:
• Monday 8 June - Queen’s Birthday Public Holiday
• Friday 26 June - Term 2 Concludes

If you have any queries with upcoming events, please do not hesitate to contact your son’s classroom teacher or me.

Mars Rovers at Home
Even during remote learning, our coding program has continued at home with all boys receiving a Robit (‘Mars Rover’). We know they’ve enjoyed constructing these and we hope that you have had the time to look and listen to your son sharing what he knows about coding. The boys will participate in a number of student-paced lessons to help code the robot to perform numerous tasks.

Your son’s teacher will advise him when we would like the rovers returned to school.

To complement this inquiry our novels look at the theme of identity where our students in core classes will be reading 'Wonder' written by J Palacio. 'Wonder' tells the incredibly inspiring and heart-warming story of August Pullman, a boy with facial differences who enters fifth grade, attending a mainstream school for the first time. It is a story of identity and acceptance.

The students in our da Vinci classes will be studying 'Yong' - the story of an unworthy son all written by Janeen Brian. Thirteen-year-old Yong resents leaving his home in China to travel with his father to the goldfields in Ballarat, Australia. The arduous journey is full of adventure, danger and despair.

A complete outline and overview of all subject areas including Maths topics being covered has been placed on the Knox portal under the section, 'Stories of the World and Its People'. 

Year 5 Writing Competition
The Australian Literacy Educators’ Association and the Australian Children’s Television Association have joined forces to present a 'My Place' writing competition. This competition is open to all Year 5 students to participate. Students in core classes may ‘opt in’ if they wish to participate in the writing competition. All students in 5F and 5P will be participating in the competition.

Although not all students will enter the competition, we have decided that it will be a good reflection opportunity for all Year 5 students to complete this as a writing exercise. They will be completing it in class this week. Our boys find themselves living through a historically significant time. The coronavirus has had a impact on their lives and historians will be talking about it for many years to come. We have a unique opportunity of the boys reflecting on this time in regards to what they have missed, what they have rediscovered and how they have felt during this time of change. What an amazing primary resource in history!

For those entering the competition, a variety of writing forms will be accepted – narratives, poetry, diary entries and news reports. This will allow students to be able to reflect on their own unique experiences. Students in Year 5 have up to 750 words. For more information please click here or ask your teacher for more details. Please email me if your son is in a core class and you would like his writing entry to be submitted to the competition.

This week the boys will commence their end of unit assessment task for their 'Interconnected Systems' domain. The focus of this unit has been on different systems of government around the world, both modern day and ancient. For their end of unit task, the boys will be creating a new system of government based upon the newly found country Knoxtopia. The boys will decide how to elect leaders, what system of voting they would like and how their government can pass laws. They will also be required to create a persuasive text imploring the people of their newly found country to support their new system of government. We look forward to reading some of the amazing responses the boys produce.

Our next Unit of Inquiry is 'Stories of the World and its People' as the boys delve deeply into indigenous cultures around the world, beginning with a study on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People. We also look at famous human rights activists from around the globe such as Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Junior and Malala Yousafzai. This is based around our big idea of 'past mistakes shape future perceptions'. We look forward to working with your boys on this very interesting and captivating unit.

All Instrumental lessons will still be on as normal via Zoom. Boys are to remember their instrument and lesson time and come down to the Music Office with their iPad, instrument and music a few minutes before their lesson time so that Mrs Morris can set them up in Zoom for their lesson.

Farwell and thank you to Head Coach of Orienteering, Mr Dylan Sherman, who is moving on from his role here. The School would like to acknowledge many wonderful years of building an incredible program and earning much success. Good luck with your career, Dylan, and thank you for so many wonderful memories.

Reminder - Week 6 training
Prep boys will start afternoon sport training from Week 6.

Students in the Senior School in Years 7-10 will continue their Period 7 sport and for the majority of sports, an extended session up to approxinamtely 4.45pm of an afternoon. Please check the School app for any changes. The Week 6 schedule should remain consistent for the remainder of Term 2. There should be no changes to the afternoon schedule for our Open boys with afternoon buses available to take boys home after training from Week 6.

We all remain hopeful that a winter season and competition may begin in Term 3.

If you are interested in more exciting news from the Sports Academy, please visit the Knox Remote Learning Hub here. As always, please do not hesitate to email any queries.

Have a great week - go the Black & Blue!