This week I had the pleasure of attending the Independent Primary Schools Association 2025 Performing Arts Festival at Town Hall. Our students participated with distinction, both in the John Colet School choir and orchestra performances, and as part of the combined schools ensembles.
While every school presented impressive work, the richness of the repertoire, together with the composure, focus, and artistry of our students, was truly outstanding.
Congratulations to all our performers, and sincere thanks to Mr Miller for his dedication and leadership.
Julian Wilcock
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Fascinating tessellations
In Maths this week Fourth Class have begun a review of 2D shapes focusing on how shapes can be joined to create new shapes, reflecting, rotating and translating shapes, and identifying which shapes will tessellate. The children really enjoyed using software to manipulate shapes, use shapes to make different 2D shapes, and create tessellating patterns:
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On Wednesday, 3 September, 16 of our students from 3rd and 4th Class participated in the Todd Woodbridge Cup at Evolve Tennis, Collaroy. They played doubles and mixed doubles matches against teams from Pittwater House and St Kevin’s Dee Why.
We entered two teams in the competition, both of which competed brilliantly throughout the day. Team 1 emerged as the winners, while Team 2 secured an impressive third place.
This is a fantastic achievement and a true testament to our students’ effort, teamwork, and sportsmanship throughout the competition.
A big thank you to Yanlong Z for her support throughout the day.
Anika Davey
Physical Education Teacher
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On the vegetarian lunch menu for Week 8
Monday Cheese and tomato pizza topped with basil and mozzarella
Tuesday Salad rolls, lettuce, tomato, carrot, iceberg and cheese served in a lunch roll
Wednesday Vegetable puff pastry rolls served with a tomato chutney
Thursday Cauliflower and sweet potato paneer curry served with rice pilaf
Friday Penne Boscaiola topped with fresh herbs and parmesan
(Chefs’ selection of fruits and vegetables provided daily)
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Deputy Head of School’s Comment
During my absence recently, both 3rd and 4th class and 5th and 6th class went on their respective school camps. It was wonderful to hear on my return that on both camps, the camp instructors and other people who managed activities all made a point of commenting to our teachers about the behaviour of the children. In each case, the children were commended for their manners, for their interest and thoughtful questions and for the way they conducted themselves in general. They were also commended for the way they left their rooms at the end of the camp. This is a true measure of the School Values in action. It goes without saying that we are very proud of the way that the children conducted themselves and represented John Colet.
Di Renshaw
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Head of School’s Comment
We were delighted by the unexpectedly large turnout for our biennial Grandparents Day this week. Please pass on our sincere thanks to all who attended for their patience with the parking limitations and the tea and coffee service. Despite the logistical challenges, the event was a remarkable success and a wonderful celebration of our community.
Looking ahead to Monday, we will be welcoming Trevor and Jerry Daniels from 2nd Class, as our Acting Headmasters for the day — a prize they won at our Gala Ball earlier this year. They will be kept very busy with a full schedule of activities, including plenty of handshakes and meetings, though fortunately for them, no emails!
Julian Wilcock
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The week in 3rd Class
In English we practised reading fluency, focusing on using the tone of our voice to reflect characters’ emotions in dialogue. We also practised strategies to read long and unfamiliar words, including breaking them into syllables, applying our knowledge of affixes (prefixes and suffixes), letters, and sounds. We completed sentences and a quiz using vocabulary words. We started looking at short biographical texts to discover what type of information is included. Next week we will explore the structure of these texts in detail and discuss what information is relevant to include when writing biographies.
In Maths we used multiplication and division fact families to generate number sentences. We used terms such as ‘product’ and ‘factors’ to explain the relationships between the fact family numbers. We practised problem solving using our multiplication and division skills, and we also did speed tests with the x 2, x 4, x 5 and x 10 tables.
IPSHA Athletics Carnival 2025
On Wednesday, 27 August, 16 students from 3rd and 4th Class proudly represented our school at the IPSHA Athletics Carnival, held at the Sydney Olympic Park Athletics Centre. After weeks of rain, we were blessed with some sunshine, which made the day even more special for our young athletes. It was a wonderful day of competition, friendship, and personal bests.
Our students joined 1,730 athletes from 56 Independent schools across NSW, with a staggering 2,927 event entries throughout the carnival. Against such a strong field, our children gave their very best, displaying courage, determination, and excellent sportsmanship. Highlights of the day included the sprint events, where the cheering was electric, and the middle-distance races, which showcased resilience and endurance. Every competitor brought enthusiasm and heart to the track, making us proud with their efforts and positive spirit.
We are especially delighted by the way our students encouraged one another and celebrated each
The 2025 Primary Shakespeare Festival playbill
Wednesday 29th October-
Class 3H perform – A Midsummer Night’s Dream
4S – Hamlet
5B – Twelfth Night
Thursday 30th October-
3N – Henry V
4C – Much Ado about Nothing
5M – Troilus and Cressida
Friday 31st October-
6H – Richard III
6BE – The Merchant of Venice
Tickets go on sale from 10am Monday 6th October, from Glen Street Theatre. Performances start at 6pm.
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The week in Second Class
What have we learnt this week?
English- We have learning about Persuasive Writing. In pairs and groups students discuss a topic given to them and come up with whether they agree or disagree with the statement
and come up with reasons for both. They then complete a persuasive writing piece. They also completed explicit spelling lessons learning about homophones, revised some
irregular words, tenses – past, present and future. We explored the ‘ch’ sound using the phoneme /k/ in the beginning, middle and the end of words. The children also completed
comprehension, grammar and handwriting lessons. We are so impressed by the speeches so far and look forward to more next week.
Mathematics – This week the children focused on Subtraction. We looked at a variety of strategies such as counting on the find the difference, counting back, jump strategy and
compensation. The children finished off the week with multi-step problem-solving questions and multiplication fluency practice