Posts By Kerrie Cogger
Saving St Emilie’s Bushland
Our school bushland is enjoyed by our students and of great aesthetic value to our school environment. Mrs Cogger enjoys taking the students to the ‘bush classroom’ each term for various activities.
Unfortunately many years ago we found out that the trees had ‘dieback disease’. Since then we have embarked on an injection program every few years. In 2013 the Dieback Working Group came to the school and supervised the students with the injection program and provided all the materials and phosphate. Here is a photo of Alyssa and Bayley from Year 6 2013.
The next time the the trees were due to be treated was in 2016 and we had the help of Conservation Volunteers WA. Here is a photo of the team.
The trees in our bushland are due to be treated again. This is high priority if we have any chance of saving the most vulnerable species like the Banksias. As well as other species like Sheoak, Macrozamia, grass trees etc. Our bushland is also home to a family of Southern Boobook Owls, a Southern Brown Bandicoot, a Bobtail Goanna and other native species.
We have a BUSY BEE planned for Saturday 4th May commencing at 8am. Mrs Cogger would like to invite you to help ‘save our bushland’ by assisting with the injection program on Saturday morning. Chris (father of Kadyn Year 6 and Kiara Year 3) has kindly offered to hire the gear from Murdoch University and instruct us on how to inject the trees with phosphate. All we need now is a team of committed parents to assist us on the day. BYO drill, rubber gloves and goggles if you have any.
If you have would like to volunteer your time please register via this link
Link to Busy Bee registrations
If yo ave any questions about the dieback injector program please contact Mrs Cogger or Mr Munro.
Once our trees have been treated we will be able to commence our replanting program with the grant funds recently received from Woolworths Junior Landcare.
In anticipation of a productive BUSY BEE…
Synergy Schools Solar Car Challenge
Our reported Ava Thorpe shares her experience of the day.
Hello staff, parents and students. St Emilie’s have been to the grand final of the Synergy Schools Solar Car Challenge at Optus stadium on the 9th of April 2019. We went in a maxi taxi at 9:00am. We were all feeling very excited and nervous about the day ahead.
We arrived there at 9:30am and after we got signed in, we found our table and had a look at our equipment. At this point we were quite excited but nervous. We hoped our car would be good on the day.
We went through our box to make sure we had everything. At 9:45am we got prepared for the building process. We went outside and had a look at the track to see what it was like.
By 10:17am and we were ready to start the building process scheduled for 10:30am and at this stage we were so super nervous about today’s challenge. We started off well and first we took out our supplies. First Sophia E and Jacob put the guide pins in. Sophia C, Sophia E and Jacob put the axel and the wheels into the chassis.
Jack attached the wires to the motor and switch. Jack also attached the alligator clips to the wires so it could connect. Everyone helped to put the gears into the wheels. We placed the spacers into the axels to make the wheels run more smoothly. Then we attached the cable ties to the switch to hold the switch in place. We exchanged the small wheels for all big wheels.
We kept the solar panel in the shade. We decided to elevate the solar panel a little bit so we could get more sun. Attaching the solar panel was a bit harder than it looked. Jack and Jacob also attached the battery pack in case it was too cloudy for the solar panel. It was a hot day but thankfully was also a sunny day. Placing the wires on the alligator clips was very hard to do.
Once completed we went outside to test drive it. Our car wasn’t going fast enough. Our average time for 20 metres was 8 seconds. We were confused with what was going on with our car. We spent the time trying to figure out what was wrong with our car by giving it a few more test drives. We got the time down to 7 seconds. Our car improved.
7 news were there recording our challenge. We thought we could work out what was wrong with our car. We placed the solar panel in the exact same spot as before and put the small wheels back on. We put double sided tape on the wheels to make it sort of stick. It did the trick last time, so we have high hopes for this time.
By 11:16am we were happy with our car and have we have come up with a name for our car. We named it ‘Weapon’. We polished up our car to make it the best we could. We did one more try for good measure. Our car was really slow. There were only 19 minutes left until the races start. There was so much going on!
At 11:30am we went to get some morning tea and we had a chocolate muffin. There are 5 minutes left of the building process. At 11:40am we went outside to start racing and we were really excited. We were in round 3 and we were versing Huntingdale PS and Amaroo PS. On both races we came second and on the third race we came third. Thankfully we were into the next round. We fixed our car and it was performing better.
On the next round we were versing Amaroo and Bunbury. On the first race it was a false start on the second race we came third. On the third race we had another false start. We did not go on to the next challenge. The best place we could achieve was either fifth or sixth. We did one more race and we came 6th place.
After the award ceremony a drone flew over us and took photos and videos. The school that won was Amaroo PS but overall we had an amazing time and everyone who participated should be very proud. Even though we didn’t win, we were the first year sixes to get in the grand final from St Emilie’s CPS. Thank you for reading and thank you Optus stadium, Synergy and STAWA for having us. We really appreciated it. Also thank you Mrs Andrews and Mrs Cogger for coming on this amazing journey with us. Thank you parents and everyone who came to support us.
Goodbye and thank you so much for having a chance to read this amazing journey and opportunity for us.
Thank you and have a great day!
By Ava Thorpe
Here is a video recorded and put together by Jayden Victor.
Gannon Day
On Friday 16th March we celebrated Gannon Day. During the week the students practised their Gannon chant. Mrs Harvey is the mastermind behind this, carefully deconstructing the Greater Western Sydney club song to meet our Gannon needs.
We presented a liturgy and shared the Gannon message of ‘Serving with Humility’.
At lunch time we met on the junior oval to eat our lunch together.
Then it was time to meet together in the Learning Hub to put together our ‘Care Packs’ for Coolabaroo Childcare centre in Thornlie. Coolabaroo is part of the Moorditch Gurlongga Association that encourages education in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture, history, language and community.
On Friday afternoon Mrs Cogger loaded the care packs into her car with the help of Xavier and Hudson. She then made a delivery to Coolabaroo. They were thrilled to see us again this year and so grateful to the students and the work we are doing at St Emilie’s
Success at Synergy Solar Car Challenge
Our reporters Jayden and Ava T from Year 6 have this to share about their Synergy Solar Car Challenge experience.
On the 2nd of April 2019 St Emilie’s went the Synergy Solar Car Challenge at Mazenod College. The children who represented us were Sophia C, Sophia E, Ava T, Jayden, Jacob and Jack T. Mrs Ryan attended the event with us, so thank you so much for coming, we really appreciate it.
We started to build our car at 9:30 am. The first thing Sophia C and Sophia E placed was the axel in the wheel while Jack worked on the putting the gear into the other wheel and axel. Next Jack placed the wheels and the gears into the chassis. Next Sophia C worked on putting the wires into the solar panel. Jacob put the guide pins on the chassis.
We measured it with a piece of paper before we started the building process. We measured the track to see where to put the guide pins. We snipped the wires with the pliers to make the wire even. Jacob added the switch and the 2 wires. We had a small battery case and batteries in case it was too cloudy, but it was a beautiful sunny day!
Jack and Sophia E worked on placing the motor on the chassis. We used the alligator clips to attach the wires. Sophia C placed the alligator clips onto the motor. We had some difficulty with the cable ties. In our kit we didn’t get a cable tie. We attached the solar panel to the chassis. We propped up the solar panel with some small foam blocks. So far it was looking good. Jack put the battery pack on the chassis. Then we balanced it.
We went outside at 10am to go to test drive it to see if it worked. Then we could fix anything that didn’t work. We placed the car on the track, and it moved nice and smooth. It is a very fast car. There was just one problem. It was not revving hard enough. We were feeling so confident about the race. But we were trying our best to make it work. Sophia E and Jack were trying to fix the car up to make our car the best.
We were starting to become more confident about our car. It was now even faster than before. But it was still not going as quick as it should. We were very stressed by now. We raced for a third time for good measure. We did a quick change of gear. We raced it for one more time. We all thought it was really good. We stood a chance of winning. We went back inside at 10:20 and at 10:30 we were going to start to race our cars.
We went outside to race. Our number was number 6 and were in round 4. On the first race we came 1st even when we started the races and our car didn’t start up straight away. All the other cars were ahead of ours at that time, but our car started up and we overtook all the cars. On the second race we came 1st again but our car didn’t stop at the beginning that time. We had major good luck, but we still had 2 more rounds to go.
Round 2 our car came 2nd. On our second race our car came 1st. On our third and final race our car came 2nd. On round 3 our car came 1st. On our second race our car came 1st again. Overall, we won the Synergy Solar Car Challenge and we came 1st place for Year Six 2019! We will be attending the grand final on the 9th of April at Optus Stadium. Keep an eye out for your local newspaper, as all of our team will be in a photo about our victory win! Thank you so much for reading. I really appreciate it.
Here are some movies of our experience.
Seek a Leak Week
As a Waterwise School, we encourage all our families to participate in Seek a Leak Week. This activity can be done at home.
As part of our Seek a Leak Week Waterwise schools are encouraged to take the time to spot a leak with some activity plans.
Leaks can be extremely wasteful and costly. Did you know that a leaking toilet can result in nearly 3 buckets of wasted water a day!
Here is a link to the Waterwise website with details on how to run your own Seek a Leak at home.
Woolworths Junior Landcare Grant
Congratulations to St Emilie’s for being recipients of a Woolworths Junior Landcare grant this year. The grant will be used to sustain the various environmental projects that we offer our students.
Our project is planting and managing our vegetable garden. We will be planting in six garden beds and the produce will be harvested and used; students will create and develop their own recipes using produce from the garden. Students will use natural resources to construct an outdoor bush ‘classroom’. The students will monitor the activity of the bandicoot and ensure which flora species is needed to provide enough food for the bandicoot. The students will also monitor and manage invasive weeds in the bushland.
Gosnells District cricket Club – Junior Trials for Season 2019/2020
Gosnells Cricket Club will be holding trials for the Premier District U13s, U14s, U15s and U17’s squads for the coming 2019/2020 season. Trials will be held at Sutherlands Park, Gay St, Huntingdale. If you are looking to take the next step in your cricketing pathway then register your interest.
Trials will be held on
U13s and U14s – Monday 11th, 18th and 25th March. Register at 4:30pm for a 5pm start.
U15s and U17s – Wednesday 13th and 20th March. Register at 4:30pm for a 5pm start.
Focus points are all as important as each other. Coaches will be looking at
batting
bowling
fielding
keeping
fitness.
As well as your performance and attitude.
Age based criteria for the applicable junior competition are as follows
Under 17 – must be less than 17 years on June 30.
Under 15 – must be less than 15 years on June 30
Under 14 – must be less than 14 years on June 30
Under 13 – must be less than 13 years on June 30
You will be require your community club training uniform and full cricket kit. Trials will last for approximately 1.5 hours depending on numbers. All players who wish to join the 2019/2020 district squads must attend these trials.
Please register your interest below
email – fizzkickcreations@gmail.com by Friday 8th March.
Include the following in your registration
Player name, parents name, player date of birth, current community club, contact email and mobile number.
Gosnells Zone Cricket Carnival
Gosnells District Cricket Club is holding a
Zone Carnival
on Monday 4th March 7am for a 7:30am start
at Sutherlands Park, Gay St , Huntingdale
Cost – $15 per player to be collected on the day
Player eligibility – U11’s, U12’s and U13’s playing this season and NOT currently playing in district cricket.
The Zone Carnival is for developing players (girls and boys) who are interested in playing at a WACA Premier Cricket Club. The Zone Carnival will be played on ‘turf wickets’ at Gosnells Cricket Club.
Important registration information
Online registration by Friday 22 February via this link
https://form.jotform.co/80150768743864
or email cricketburah@gmail.com. Include in the subject line ‘Zone Carnival’
or phone Dinesh on 0416644717
Include your
full name, date of birth, playing age group, community club/school name, contact mobile and contact email.
Gosnells Cricket Club talent scouts will be out and about looking for potential new players to the club.
Owls
Mrs Cogger managed to get some photos of the owls just before school closed in December. They had vacated the hollow. On the odd occasion over December and January Mr Cogger found the owls in the trees in the bushland.
Here are a few photos of the three babies owls.
