Faith Matters

Conviction

Howard Hendricks says, “A belief is something you’ll argue about. But a conviction is something you’ll die for.” Knowing what to do (knowledge), when to do it (wisdom), and how to do it (ability), is worthless without the conviction to actually do it (obedience). People without conviction follow the crowd, which is why Paul wrote, “Don’t let the world…squeeze you into its…mould”. If we don’t take a stand for something, we’ll fall for everything! Ironically, a lot of us have strong convictions about weak issues such as rugby, fashion, etc., while having weak convictions about major issues such as the world poverty problem. Conviction helps us grow spiritually, but growth requires time and effort. Without a deep conviction of our need to grow spiritually, we become discouraged and give up. Don’t give up on God … He hasn’t given up on you!

Peter Morphew – School Chaplain

Year 2 – UOI – Plants and Animals

In our current unit of inquiry, Year 2 are learning all about plants. For the first two weeks the boys were examining the structure and functions of plants where they labelled a plant and learnt about the function of each part. Then we discussed photosynthesis and the boys have come to understand how plants can produce their own food.

Last week in the library, we researched the life cycles of different animals where the boys were placed in small co-operative groups to contribute information about their chosen animal. Each small group presented back to the class through role-play, identifying and performing each part of the animal’s life cycle. 

Mrs Leonie Russell – Year 2 Teacher

Literature Festival – 2015

To write well you have to write.

To draw well you have to draw.

When you read literature you exercise your imagination.

This biennial event held across the College’s three campuses inspired, provoked, encouraged and entertained the entire community in one way or another. During the Festival, Lindfield hosted some of Australia’s most acclaimed authors and illustrators – Tristan Bancks, Sue Whiting, Lisa Shanahan, Tohby Riddle, Nick Earls, Susanne Gervay and the I am Jack production, poets Zohab Zee Kahn and Ruth of Pass the Poetry Please, and celebrated author Libby Gleeson who also addressed the wider community in an inaugural session for parents and teachers.

Our Literature Festival presenters shared their journals where ideas were recorded and stories emerged.  Our students thoroughly relished engaging with the authors and their stories– those that have been published as well as the accounts of the evolution of their books.

A part of the Festival is the Writing Competition and we extend our congratulations to Gabriel Dickinson (Year 6E) who achieved First Place in the Poetry Division for his work entitled ‘Encounter’ (below).

After almost twelve months in planning thanks must be extended to the Festival committee across the three campuses, the P & F at Lindfield for their kind donation towards the Festival, and to the staff and students for their enthusiasm throughout the Festival.

You just never know when a story might be born.

Mrs Sue Gough – Teacher Librarian

A Message from the Head of Lindfield Campus

On Tuesday, Lindfield held an open morning for prospective parents. There were over 60 parents in attendance, which was fantastic. It was  a great morning talking about Lindfield and what we strive to achieve for our boys. I would like to share some of the key points that we shared. We focused on the Newington College Vision as the point of focus.

In the 21st century, Newington College strives to provide an internationally respected education for the purpose of developing young men who will contribute positively to society.

We spent a fair proportion of our time unpacking two areas; positive contribution to society and internationally respected education.

Positive contribution to society

We are a Uniting Church school which is expressed through an ethos of faith, diversity, inclusiveness and service to others. We welcome boys of all faiths, backgrounds and cultures. We are an inclusive school that strives to represent a cross section of the community reflective of our great Australian society. Our aim is to develop boys who are active contributing members of society. The pillars that we use are character education, community engagement and service.

In character education, we develop social skills and emotional problem solving skills so that our boys are resilient in the face of adversity and able to cope with the challenges that will emerge throughout life. We want confident boys who are unafraid to discover what is possible throughout their lives. This is achieved through the teaching the PYP learner profile and Newington values.

We use the research of Carol Dweck and her work on developing a growth mindset, focusing on the boys’ thinking and ways of approaching problems. We redefine their ideas of success, focusing on effort, learning and growing. Learning is a journey that continues throughout life.

There is also a strong emphasis on service to others and the community. The reality is that many of our boys will be the leaders of tomorrow. To be a strong and effective leader, boys need to understand the importance of service, to lead is to serve and not the other way round.

Internationally Respected Education

Newington provides a rigorous and inclusive education that caters for all our boys including those who need extra help and those who are working beyond the grade level expectations. There is strong emphasis on literacy and numeracy as it is the foundation of all learning.

In terms of literacy, the boys experience focused small group instruction at their level. Each boy is assessed using benchmarked reading assessment and then books at his level are used for instruction. We are in the process of introducing a new benchmark reading assessment system (Fountas and Pinnell), which will tie in with leveled books to enhance the ability to find just right books for your son. There are many opportunities for boys to interact with texts and explicit instruction on reading strategies and writing genres are at the core of our literacy program. We are currently piloting the Seven Step Writing program to explicitly teach the writing process focusing on text genres from the Australian national curriculum.

In terms of Numeracy, there is also a rigorous program that focuses on small group instruction and a concrete hands on approach to maths. There is a strong emphasis on the basic skills in maths coupled with a problem solving approach this emphasizes maths strategies and multiple ways of thinking.

Maths teaching today is very different to the teaching we experienced as students. There is a much stronger emphasis on the different thinking processes involved in maths. There are myriad ways to solve a problem mathematically and it is these flexible problem-solving processes that are explicitly modeled and taught.

Lindfield is also a Primary Years Program school. The PYP framework is from the International Baccalaureate. The Mission of the PYP is to provide a framework for an outstanding education to develop students who are internationally minded, inquiring, knowledgeable, life long learners.

PYP takes an interdisciplinary approach to learning, teaching big ideas through concepts. If we are looking at the concept of change, we can look at change in maths through graphing and time, change in science with experiments, change through history by comparing the past with the present.

Teaching and thinking conceptually is how we as adults solve problems and make sense of the world. We use our knowledge from all areas of learning to solve problems and make connections to new learning.

In terms of technology: We spoke about our aim to transform learning through the use of technology.  Many schools are just changing the medium of instruction (I used to get a book from the library, now I read it on my kindle). We continue to develop our use of ICT to be transformative and change the way our boys learn.  An example of how we are transforming the way boys learn is shown in year six, where we are experimenting with a 3-D printer and the boys are beginning to learn about design and structures through technology in a way not previously possible.

We also showcased to prospective parents the rich and varied co-curricular, clubs and sports programs that we have in place. Newington is part of the small schools competition, we are very competitive with a focus on enjoyment, learning and playing as a team for Newington. We showcased the rich and hugely rewarding performing arts program. All these experiences are designed to help the boys discover and broaden their interests and give them opportunities to experience for themselves the myriad opportunities that Newington offers.

What will parents discover at Newington Lindfield?

Newington teachers know your boys. There are strong teacher/student relationships, which is one of the main predictors of student success. Every boy has a chance to be involved and opportunities to shine. Newington is a close community; parents are fully involved and essential part of our School. We welcome parents into the school and classrooms at anytime.

The last and most important message we shared is that we are constantly thinking about and modeling teacher and learning practices that are best for boys. We are a learning school and we are constantly evolving our practices, it is an exciting time to be an educator, there is constantly new research to help us inform our practices and we are research driven in our decision and direction making.

The recent open morning was a great opportunity to showcase the school to prospective parents. It was a pleasure to talk about all the great things that are happening at Newington with people who are not yet part of our community.

Mr Benjamin Barrington-Higgs – Head of Lindfield Campus

Debating 2015

The Debating season is well and truly underway for 2015 and our club is very strong this year with over 30 participants. This large number of budding debaters is very keen to learn new skills and challenge themselves at the same time. Mr Barrington-Higgs has joined the team this year and we welcome his experience and assistance with open arms.

Last Friday, 8 of our team members headed to Sydney Grammar School, St Ives to debate the issue “That zoos do more harm than good.” A challenging topic like that was always going to be difficult to disprove and it was the Affirmative teams from both schools that won their respective debates.

The best thing about this debate was the efforts of 3 boys who were in their very first debate. Laksh Pande from 5E, Liam Dundon and Kalen James from 6E performed admirably at their first debate and look like strong members who can now help other rookie members of the club when their time comes. Experienced members such as Luke and Gabriel Dickinson, James Francis, William Cordwell and Nilanka Abbey all made last Friday’s debate such a fascinating experience for those present.

The season ahead holds many exciting and fascinating debating topics ahead. If you do ever get a chance to come and watch and support the boys, please do so as you will see how lucky we are to have such talent here at Newington and how proud we should be of these boys.

Mr Edwards – Year 5E Teacher and Debating Co-ordinator

Nepal Earthquake Funds

Dear Parents and Students

As you know, the SRC committee have been collecting funds to help re-build the education systems in the affected areas of Nepal. Newington College Lindfield have paired up with the organisation, ‘Room to Read’.

Room to Read has aided over 95,000 students in Nepal by working with the community and helping to rebuild the Literacy and Numeracy system.

We are happy to announce that we have raised $331 dollars to support this initiative.

On behalf of the SRC we would like to thank you for supporting this cause.

Kind Regards

Adi Apana and Michael Glezos

School SRC Members- Newington College Lindfield

Parent Session on Inquiry

Inquiry learning is an active thinking and learning process. It is helping students to make cognitive connections and create sense of the world around them. Through teacher questions and also students forming their own questions. Students form their own questions, plan and implement ways of finding information and use these experiences to build answers to their own questions. Inquiry learning requires high levels of thinking because students need to form inquiry question that enable purposeful and worthwhile information gathering, make plans and decide on appropriate sources of information, evaluate the information they gather and use it to extend their prior knowledge and gain deeper understanding.

There is sometimes confusion around inquiry for parents as there are different types of inquiry. At one end of the spectrum there is free inquiry, which is a personal inquiry and quite free and open ended. In the PYP, we seldom run free inquiry, unless a student undertakes personal action at home. In the PYP students usually learn through a structured inquiry. The teacher usually determines the unit focus and/or questions but some aspects of the inquiry may be negotiated with the class. This may be in the choice of topics selected for the structured inquiry during the unit or the medium of presentation of the student’s ideas.  We are running a parent session in Week 8 on inquiry and we would really enjoy the opportunity for as many parents as possible to come along and learn about what inquiry looks like at Newington. 

Mr Benjamin Barrington-Higgs – Head of Lindfield Campus