Congratulations to Year 6 students Sarah Mah and Alexandra Pringle, who have made it through to the National Finals of the Prime Minister’s Spelling Bee. The girls placed in the top three top-ranked spellers from their reading level in South Australia and will compete in the National Final on Thursday 27 May. We congratulate Sarah and Alex on this outstanding achievement and wish them both the very best in the final stage of the competition.

NAPLAN

Our Year 3 and Year 5 girls have participated in NAPLAN this week, beginning Tuesday with a Writing assessment and followed by further assessments in Language Conventions, Reading and Numeracy. Our teachers in these year levels have maintained a strong focus on building the girls’ capacity and experiences to enable them to enter each assessment with confidence, not just in the types of questions they may be asked but also in the skills required to show evidence of their learning under test conditions. We see it as one small but important step in ensuring the learning entitlements of each of our girls are met in preparing them to step out into the world equipped to meet the challenges that come their way. We use the data we receive from the NAPLAN assessment to interrogate and inform our teaching and learning programs and, while it is indeed a snapshot of each girl and cohort on one day, we find value in being able to track the development and application of the conceptual understandings and skills of our girls over time.

The NAPLAN marking process usually takes some months, we therefore expect the results to be released sometime in July or August.

IPSHA Year 6 Debating

The IPSHA Year 6 Debating Competition began this week after a COVID related hiatus in 2020. The first round was hosted at Wilderness School, with students, coaches and families visiting from St Peters College, Walford Anglican School for Girls, Scotch College and Blackfriars Priory School. The topic for this debate was ‘Schools should abolish tests’. Wilderness entered four teams this round, with three of our teams competing against St Peters College and the third missing out on their debate due to the opposing team forfeiting. Ably assisted by their Year 6 Debating coaches and supervising teacher, Mr Matt Webster, it was wonderful to see the girls put into practice the skills and strategies they had been practicing, speaking with such eloquence and making excellent attempts at rebuttal. I am immensely proud to share that all three teams won their debates in this first round, a very positive sign of things to come for debating at Wilderness.

Mother’s Day/Special Adult Breakfast

On Tuesday 4 May, our Reception and Year 1 girls were incredibly excited to surprise their mums/special adults with gifts and cards they had made for them in class ahead of Mother’s Day. A light breakfast then followed this lovely surprise shared together in our outdoor spaces met with pleasant weather. Special moments of joy, gratitude and love could be seen reflected in the eyes of our mothers/adults and daughters as the gifts and breakfasts were shared.

Thank you very much to those of you who attended our breakfast, and a very special thank you to the staff team who worked incredibly hard to prepare for this event.

Oliphant Science Awards 2021

We are delighted to inform you that our students in Years 2-6 will have the opportunity to participate in the Oliphant Science Awards competition conducted by the South Australian Science Teachers Association (SASTA).

If your daughter wishes to participate in the competition this year, you will need to complete and return both the consent form and registration form by Monday 24 May.

Junior School students can enter the following categories (they are able to enter multiple categories):

• Crystal Investigation
• Science Writing (individual only)
• Models & Inventions
• Multimedia
• Computer Programming, Apps & Robotics
• Photography
• Posters (individual only)
• Games (electronic or board game)

Entry Fees
Individual Entries: $16.00 per entry
Group Entries: $24.00 per entry (split between the 2 or 3 group members)

Please indicate on the consent form which category you consent to your daughter participating in. The entry fees will be charged to your School account.

We will meet with all girls wishing to participate after the due date to provide more information regarding the process of completing and submitting entries.

For more information please visit the Oliphant Science Awards website. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact Nathan Rice via email.

Class Catch Ups

Following the success of the Year 4 Mum’s Dinner held last month, Year 4 Dad’s are invited to attend ‘Dad Drinks’ on Friday 18 June from 6.00pm at 23rd on Melbourne (129 Melbourne Street, North Adelaide). Please contact McClean Whittaker (Angie’s Dad) on 0419 867 709 or Matt Newman (Hazel’s Dad) on 0422 512 410 to RSVP or ask any questions.

Reception Dad’s have also been invited to attend a similar event on Friday 4 June from 6.00pm at 23rd on Melbourne (129 Melbourne Street, North Adelaide). Please RSVP by Monday 24 May to Alice Nassery (Lara's Mum) on 0402 843 880.  

Invitations to both events have been sent via the class lists on the Parent Portal, if you didn’t receive an invitation and would like to be added to the list, please email April Ridgway, Director of Communications and Marketing.

Nationally Consistent Collection of Data

Every year, all schools in Australia participate in the Nationally Consistent Collection of Data (NCCD) on school students with disabilities. The NCCD process requires schools to identify information already available in the school about support provided to students with disabilities. To learn more about how Wilderness School will be complying with the NCCD please click here.