I celebrate the fact that our School is an inclusive school that welcomes and responds to the variety of needs of all young people and their families. A significant amount of time is spent on cultivating an environment and culture that supports the growth and wellbeing of each student, as well as the broader school community. Focusing on building such a culture also builds a sense of connectedness for students, an important protective factor that promotes both individual resilience and healthy communities.

Attending Knox, a School that celebrates individual differences and building positive communities, allows students to establish and maintain positive social connections that can protect and aid in times of need.

Our commitment is to remain focussed on ensuring students feel respected, included, and supported…in other words, each individual enjoys a strong sense of belonging to their school. By doing so, we are safeguarding our students as connectedness has proven to be an established protective factor for health, education and social well‐being.

This is a purpose that is worth investing in!

Has your son outgrown his Football or Rugby boots?
We are supporting a community in the outback who have no access to any sporting equipment. They are particularly keen to receive Football or Rugby boots as most cannot play as they have no boots.

Donations may be dropped to the SAOs or to Mrs Clarke’s Office (Room 15). Any clean Football socks would also be appreciated.

Seeking food hampers or gift cards for groceries
We have three families in the broader Ku-ring-gai community who need our support. Goods which would be helpful to donate include: longlife milk, cereals, coffee/tea, pancake mixes, dried or tinned fruit, tinned meat, spreads, laundry detergent, cordial toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap, shampoo, Vegemite. No nut items please. Donations may be left with the SAOs or Mrs Clarke.

The Knox Social Justice Club
The Club meets each Friday at lunchtime in the WSA Auditorium. Updates are available in the e-Club platform. Please email Mrs Clarke for more information on how to join or volunteer.

We collect a gold coin donation at each meeting to support projects for Youth of the Streets.

I met with an enthusiastic group of young and enthusiastic Prep eco-entrepreneurs this week. It seems I was their final pit-stop before launching their adventure into a garden start-up as part of their work in the Sustainability Portfolio. Their ideas were outstanding, their business case was sound, and their plans are well developed. They have raised the startup capital by recycling bottles through the Return and Earn system, and have used these funds to buy their initial supplies to get started. For those of you thinking about planting some spring vegetables, hold off for a couple of weeks and stay tuned to the Knox Prep eNews, as the boys launch their sustainable business.

There has been much talk about TikTok over the past couple of days, and rightly so. Whilst I will never be so bold as to tell you how to parent your sons, my message to parents who reach out to discuss social media with us is unwavering. That is, there is a reason why the suggested age for all social media platforms exceeds the age of primary school students. We have young boys with incredibly powerful devices in their hands on their way to and from school each day. Please, I would ask that you consistently monitor your son’s phone usage – the sites he is spending his time on. If you need any assistance in terms of understanding how to monitor this usage; understanding the safety of sites he is visiting; or any other issues regarding your son’s use of technology, please do not hesitate to contact us and we will do all we can to help you. We have also decided to schedule an evening parent information session over Zoom before the end of term. We will send details of the date and time, as well as registration details, before the end of this week. As always, we are very keen to work in partnership with you. 

The next big adventure and learning experience for our Kindy boys will be swimming lessons. As staff, we have experience in moving excited boys to the senior school to participate in small group lessons – As a parent, your biggest job is to teach them the independence of dressing themselves. Let them share their experiences without prompting. They will be so proud of themselves and their individual achievements.

As part of our explorations we are using the CoSpaces app. In CoSpaces, the Kindergarten boys have been building virtual interactive worlds. The boys have created different environments where they simulate real-world activities to demonstrate how forces work. They can’t wait to show you CoSpaces and share their learning with you over the coming weeks.

We have also been busy making our Grassy Heads. We are growing grass and chives. The boys are responsible for watering and moving their Grassy Heads each day to help them grow. We are monitoring their growth each day and can’t wait until we see some grass hair!



We are looking forward to our swimming lessons again in Week 10. Due to COVID restrictions we ask that you purchase the school poncho from the Knox Uniform Shop for your boys to wear. This will enable each boy to dry himself and change with privacy. We also ask that over the next couple of weeks the boys practise getting dressed and changing by themselves. This includes putting shoes and socks on and tying shoelaces.

Year 2 have also begun coding sessions with ScopeIT technicians to develop their growing coding knowledge and skills. Boys are learning to pair and identify the parts of a Micro:Bit and are working towards obtaining a ‘Coding Licence’ by completing exciting tasks and assignments using the computational thinking applications, Grok Learning and Turing Tumble. These programs help to build skills that all levels of learners need, including confidence and persistence when working with difficult problems, the ability to deal with open-ended tasks, resilience when faced with puzzles of an unfamiliar nature and the ability to communicate and work with others to achieve a common goal. We look forward to seeing their coding confidence and skills develop throughout the remainder of this Knoxigations Unit. 

On another note, ‘Brightpath’, an online assessment tool for writing, is being utilised by the boys and staff to complete specific writing assessments in Year 3. This platform is based on over a decade of research conducted by the University of Western Australia.

The Brightpath software records and tracks assessment results over time, whilst also providing a range of formative and summative information to teachers. Students are given clear feedback on areas of achievement and appropriate ‘next steps’ for learning are highlighted. In addition, staff are provided with teaching next steps in order to cater for our students’ individual learning needs. As a Year 3 teaching team, we look forward to sharing more examples of your son’s current level of skill in writing and what he can do to further improve this year.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank each of the Year 3 classes and parents for their continued support in providing meals this term for our community service initiative, ‘The Dish’. As I am sure you can appreciate, these have been very warmly received by those members of our community who are in considerable need.

Dates for the diary:
• Thursday 24 September – House Cross Country Carnival
• Friday 25 September – Term 3 concludes

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

“Could you imagine a world where everyone is mean? Kindness involves acts that help people, for example, helping someone up when they fall down, helping your brother with homework or just saying ‘please’ or ‘thank you’. Kindness must be a main priority for all schools because kind people are mentally happier, kind people make others happy and kindness can build better relationships.”

Darrell Sun, 4H

“...Furthermore, renewable energy is cheaper to run and if it replaced non-renewable energy, more people in the world would have access. This will make people’s lives a lot easier. Also, if a lot more people have energy, they are more likely to have a job and be in the middle class and that’s important because it will boost the economy. To conclude, renewable energy is very important to boost the economy and improve everyone’s standard of living.”

Leo Carlisle, 4R 

“Have you ever thought of living in a world where there are no trees, shrubs or just anything that involves soil? It’s absolutely vital that we stop deforestation since you can’t just let them grow for 70 million years and then cut them all down in one century. This must stop because most oxygen is made by trees, rainforests provide most materials for cancer treatment and a large percentage of animals and plant species live there.”

Luyi He, 4M 

"The most important reason why lunch time should be extended is so kids can eat for a longer amount of time. First of all, no one wants to work on an empty stomach. Research proves that when children have empty stomachs they don’t work as well. This means that children will not do their best work. It’s clear that we must extend eating time at lunch.”

James Atkins, 4B

In conjunction with our current unit of inquiry, the boys will be participating in an online webinar next week run by the staff from the Sydney Jewish Museum. This webinar includes videos from Holocaust survivors and invites students to consider the way memories inform our understanding of the past.

Although this can be an emotionally difficult experience for the boys, we have found this a helpful activity for the boys to understand the values of hope and resilience amidst adversity in life. It will be interesting to see whether the ‘zoom’ experience is equivalent to visiting the museum.

As we continue to progress throughout the year we are reminding the boys to ensure that they live up to the lofty standards they set for themselves. The boys have done a wonderful job being leaders of the school and we want to ensure that this continues as we begin to progress to the end of the year. With this in mind, we have a real focus on the behaviour of the boys as well as uniform expectations. Please ensure that your son is wearing the correct uniform to school each day, including their blazer and their boater. We appreciate your assistance with this.

Choir Update

Come sign with us..... 

The COVID school regulations have meant the end of the choir for the moment. So in the interim, we are looking to creating a signing ensemble. Using Auslan (Australian sign language) we will be signing 'Look at the world'. This is a whole school project, and hopefully, we will put together a recording for the end of the term.

All boys in 3-6 choirs are invited, but there is strictly no singing. Rehearsals will be from 7.30am to 8.15am on Thursdays in the Auditorium. If this is something that your son would be interested in trying, we would love him to come along.

Individual Instrumental Lessons
All private instrumental lessons will continue as per normal with social distancing and strict hygiene measures in place to ensure the safety of our boys and the tutors.

If you have any questions in regards to our Ensembles or instrumental lessons, please do not hesitate to email Mrs Morris any time.

Term 4
• Cricket - All games will follow Cricket NSW COVID-19 recommendations and play one day Cricket fixtures only.
• All Summer sports may only play against fellow CAS schools in our own CAS ‘bubble’ including the trial/pre-season period.
• Due to number of teams Knox enters into the CAS Competition - we may play the same school/team more than once in Term 4. We may also have occasions where Knox teams are playing against other Knox teams. Our priority is to give our boys a fun, safe, enjoyable experience.
• COVID-19 safety plans for each sport will be circulated with protocols regarding water bottles, no sharing of gear.
• Joint competitions with GPS schools such as Waterpolo and Volleyball will now only play in CAS competition throughout Term 4. We will reconsider guidelines and NSW Health advice at the end of Term 4.
• Unfortunately no spectators will be allowed entry at any games - home or away, indoor or outdoor.

Knox and the CAS will continue to monitor the situation. The boys’ health and wellbeing is our absolute priority.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.