English NL 1 2012_BK_LM - Deutsche Schule Melbourne

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Newsletter
Number 1, 2012
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Plenty of Preps !
Fourteen shiny-eyed preps have joined
the school this year, making up a new Yellow
Dragon class. For the first time in the short
history of the school, the majority of the
children were monolingual in English before
starting school, although they are very rapidly picking up words, short phrases and
songs. At DSM, the first day of school for
Preps is a very short one. They are treated
to a concert put on by the older children and
then there is just one short class before it's
all over! Time for photos and a peek at the
contents of their colourful ‘Schultüten’.
Some reflections by Yellow Dragons and
their parents on the first days of school:
“What a huge day it was! Sun and
smiles, a little overwhelming for Lucas and
us as well, but exciting as we met new
friends and were welcomed into the Deutsche Schule.”
Sophie says "Es war sehr schön, dass
die anderen Kinder eine Show gemacht haben!"
“I found it very welcoming and festive.
Sophie's proud beaming smile when she
walked out of the classroom at the end of
the day said it all!”
“Matilda was at the school day one in
2008 to see Noah start, and seeing her walk
into the building as a prep, not only reiterated our family's confidence in the school,
but filled me with joy in anticipation of all
that she will be part of as an active member
of the DSM community (I still cried though)!”
“One of his first comments was expressing relief that his friends could speak
English to him at playtime. Now after 19
days he enjoys teaching his family the correct pronunciation of the alphabet words,
singing "Eine kleine Maus" and the "Goodbye song". Other family members who take
him to school have commented that it is
interesting to watch him carefully listening
to German explanations of how to solve his
morning problem on the board and then
carrying it out perfectly.”
“My first and strongest impression of
being at DSM is that it is a very welcoming
community and that people are very
friendly. Coming from a monolingual school,
it is also a relief to feel normal, whether we
are speaking English or German. Sophie and
Nico seem to feel the same way. On the
other hand we don't have a secret playground language anymore!”
Open Days 2012
“He seems to enjoy school very much
and is constantly singing snippets of new
songs. He thought the ‘Schultüte’ and the
‘Karneval’ party were the best things. The
morning circle he finds a bit daunting but he
enjoys the brain gym: he is checking several
time a week whether we can tie & twist up
our arms like he does.”
“I'm very impressed by the friendliness
of the school community and we feel very
welcomed as a family. It's a really nice way
to start our time in Australia.”
Contents
Carnival
Welcome Lena
Library
Fundraising
Art Prize
Science equipment
2
2
2
3
4
4
Saturday
19th May
10am - 12pm
Saturday
11th August
10am - 12pm
Wednesday 19th September 10am - 12pm
“Helau“ and “Alaaf“: DSM celebrates carnival
What do like kids most? Exactly. They love dressing up. This year at DSM the annual Welcome to new families was combined with a Carnival celebration. Thanks to the Event Committee for this inspired decision. Held on February 17th, it was an excellent opportunity to get the
prettiest or craziest costume out of the cupboard or perhaps to create something entirely new. Not just the children but the parents also
seemed to enjoy being in disguise. On this beautiful balmy evening, the school was full of aliens and supermen, Indians and cowboys, vampires
and princesses, wizards and fairies, hippies and elegant ladies, and even Harry Potter came along. Everyone was following the motto: creativity
without limits. No matter if homemade or purchased, many of the costumes attracted lots of attention and laughter throughout the evening.
Hot music made the atmosphere even hotter! There was such dancing that everyone was drenched in sweat, with the Polonaise Blankenese
and the chicken dance especially lifting the party mood. If all the dancing was too much, there was a fabulous buffet for kids and parents to
enjoy, organized by the DSM parents.
Crazy costumes, funky music and yummy food – what else do you need for a perfect carnival celebration? Exactly. Nothing!
Welcome Lena McCowan!
DSM is delighted to welcome Lena
McCowan who has joined the teaching staff
in 2012 to teach Art.
Lena tells us a bit about herself.
language assistant at two primary schools
and one secondary school in the eastern
suburbs of Melbourne, I finished the second
part of my teaching degree, known as the
Referendariat, in Hamelin, the city of the
famous Pied Piper. Just a few weeks later, I
flew back to Melbourne where I have been
living since 2009, together with my Aussie
husband Matthew and my little son Henri.
During the last two years, I taught German
(LOTE) at a large primary school in Blackburn North. Now I am excited to teach Art
because I love being creative. My main areas
of interest in art are drawing and digital
design. Other things I enjoy are swimming,
reading and travelling. I have seen quite a
bit of Australia but I like the fact that there
are always new places and things to discover.
Our school library has grown in the last
years thanks to the enthusiastic engagement
of parents and generous donations from
parents, members and external donors. To
expand and extend the range of books and
media currently on offer, we need your help!
You can support the library by assisting the
librarian to prepare new materials for library
use, make suggestions for the next order, or
simply by making a donation to the library
fund. The school library is an invaluable
resource for the school.
Thank you for supporting our work!
We are looking for
volunteers to work on the
revision of our curriculum.
A growing library
I have been teaching at DSM on
Wednesdays since the start of the school
year and I am very excited to already have
met so many lovely students, teachers and
parents. My home town is Osnabrück in
Lower Saxony where I studied English, German and Art for Primary and Lower Secondary Schools. After one year as a German
The children at Deutsche Schule
Melbourne have the opportunity to visit the
school library once a week and independently choose books and CD’s of their liking.
The library offers a range of material comprised of 75% media of German and 25% of
English media. All of the material has been
carefully selected to offer students a
comprehensive selection of authentic media
including picture books, early readers, fiction books and nonfiction books, reference
books and audio books. The school also
wishes to include German DVD’s for the
selection in 2012.
This will involve
translation from German to
English and proofreading of
the translations.
If you are interested to help
out please contact Sandra
Battistoni at the school or
via email
sandra.battistoni@dsm.org.au
The Importance of Being Fundraisers!
Sponsors Needed
A major priority of the school
is to renew the large sports
field on the Holden Street
side of the school grounds.
For this to become more
than just a dream the school
is actively looking for
sponsors that may help raise
a further $20,000. Bunnings Sausage Sizzle
Sportsground
This year's fundraising effort began on
February 18th with a lovely sunny day at
Bunnings Preston, sizzling sausages for the
hungry DIY crowd. A total of $1744 was
raised. I would like to thank members of the
event committee for their organisation and
to all the parents that were involved in making the day a huge success. A special thank
you goes to our current DSM interns, Caroline, Tobias and Jana who also volunteered a
few hours of their time to help out and learn
about Aussie school fundraising. It was a
wonderful way to promote the school in the
local community and also to get to know
some of the new parents at the same time. The board and the entire school
community are working hard towards
making the dream of a dedicated sports
ground for the children of DSM a reality. The board is negotiating changes to the
current lease with the landlord whilst
Barbara Walsh has applied for a government grant for the sports ground. If the
school is successful with the grant application, it will be required to contribute a significant amount of money as a co-contribution. To assist the school with funding this
co-contribution, the event committee has
set a target of achieving $30,000 in fundraising in 2012. Encouragingly, we are already half way there. Over $13,000 was
raised in 2011 and $3191 with just three
events so far this year. With more events to
come including the DSM Australia-Germany
soccer match on the 9th of June, the
Oktoberfete on the 15th of September and
other events throughout the year, it’s hoped
we will achieve this target. In the past the event committee has
been able to raise funds to purchase the
rustic red gum bench seat at the front of the
school, which holds a plaque with embossed
signatures on it from the first students at
DSM, in the school’s inaugural year. In subsequent years money raised has purchased
English teaching material for the children and a large selection of science equipment.
(See following article)
It has been an incredible effort for such
a small school and confirms what a remarkable school community we really have.
Caroline Turewicz
Kindermarkt
Saturday 17th March was also a busy
one for the very energetic fundraising team.
This time it was a Kindermarkt at the Trinity
Church in East Melbourne. Thanks to all the
DSM families which provided the wonderful
array of cakes and goodies to sell with coffee. A special thank you to Cath McKinney
and her team of egg decorators who produced divine hand made Easter eggs. These
sold, well, like hot cakes…except they were
eggs. In all $549 was made.
Car Boot Sale
After such a successful day last year,
another Car Boot Sale was held on March
24th. Many families and friends brought
along bits and pieces of second-hand wares
to sell. All quality items! Sausages and cake
were also on sale. $898 was raised.
Anyone who is interested in
being a sponsor, or knows of
someone that may like to
contribute to this worthy cause,
please contact Lucie Maucher
or Barbara Walsh
lucie.maucher@dsm.org.au
barbara.walsh@dsm.org.au
Lucy Ross wins
Science in School is cool
In the winter of 2011 Melbourne enjoyed the National Gallery of Victoria's exhibition, Vienna: Art and Design. The children
of the DSM were able to visit on an excursion. Afterwards in art classes, the children
did some work influenced by what they had
seen. The best of this work was then chosen
to enter a Klimt Competition for school children, run by the NGV. Children submitted a
painting with an Elfchen - a little poem of
eleven words.
Many months later, the school was
thrilled to learn that Red Dragon Lucy Ross
had won a prize, coming third in the Prep to
Year 2 section. Well done Lucy!
Funds raised at the 2011 Oktoberfete
amounted to $7000. The fundraising committee agreed to invest the money in materials for use in Integrated studies/
Sachunterricht. After a good deal of planning lots of science materials, books, and
maps were bought. Thanks to some clever
shopping by Uli, we also managed to
squeeze 2 data projectors and laptops for
day-to-day use in the classrooms.
The
school now has a comprehensive set of science resources and we are looking forward
to using them for more experiments during
the Scientists in Schools Program for 2012.
The equipment has already proved
invaluable, having been used for a variety of
learning projects in 2011. Models of the
chicken life cycle laid the foundation (pun
unintended) for a very successful schoolwide study of all things 'chicken'. Similarly,
last year's Dinosaur Day was a great opportunity to use the measuring wheels as we
calculated the length of a dinosaur stride,
and drew a life-sized Drachosaurus in the
school yard.
In 2012, the solar system model will be
a focus for the Green Dragons as they look
to the stars in Sachunterricht, culminating in
a visit to the Planetarium. Meanwhile, the
anatomy models will be helping the Red
Dragons to see what is under the skin, and
the stethoscopes will be out at training for
the Jump Rope for Heart day later in the
year. Last year the year 4 and 5 students
studied electricity. They made switches and
even tried their hand at Morse code. This
year they will also be able to investigate how
electricity is made using solar panels. We are
looking forward to the weights and volumes
sets to study Archimedes principle next term
as well. With autumn upon us, perhaps the
students can use the weather station to
predict the weather for another great year
at DSM.
Kunterbunt
Ein Baum
Ein farbiger Baum
Viele große Äste sind
Bunt
Upcoming Events
Mother’s Day
Afternoon Tea
Friday, May 11th
2.30pm
At the school
Working Bee No 2
Saturday, May 12th
from 9am
All welcome!
Lantern Walk
Saturday, June 2nd
Trinity Church
East Melbourne
Australia v Germany
Soccer Match
Saturday, June 9th
Mid-Year Celebration
Friday, June 15th
6pm
Details of the lantern walk and
soccer match will be available
from the school soon
School Board
Newsletter Editors: Claire Phillips, Anett Babel (editor@dsm.org.au)
Florian Dehne (Chair)
Volker Ankenbrand
Peter Wabenhorst
Caroline Turewicz
Evelyn Douglas
Collin Hamilton
Bernd Kalinna
Martina Korff
Photographs: Eva Rugel (editor@dsm.org.au)
Translation: Lucie Maucher
Support the school!
DSM is a not for profit association based on a strong
membership. Members support the school by electing or
being elected to the school
board and participating in various school working groups.
Members can also use the
Germa n/English library of
DSM and are invited to our
academic and cultural events.
Children of DSM members are
considered with priority for
enrolment.
Annual membership fees are
$27.50 for one person or
$55 for the whole family.
Sponsorship
Organisations can support the
school directly by entering a
sponsorship agreement.
Please contact our business
manager Barbara Walsh for
further details.
Donations
Deutsche Schule Melbourne
operates the following gift
funds that can accept your
kind donations:
96 Barkly Street
North Fitzroy VIC 3068
Australia
Ph. +61 3 9489 9364
Fax: +61 3 9481 8284
www.dsm.org.au
info@dsm.org.au
DSM Scholarship Fund
DSM Library Fund
DSM Building Fund
You can find donations forms
on our website.
All donations over $2 are taxdeductible.
Secretariat:
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Deutsche Schule Melbourne
96 Barkly Street
North Fitzroy VIC 3068
info@dsm.org.au
Application for Membership
Tax Invoice ABN: 52 936 931 854
Surname:
Given names:
Email:
Postal address:
Telephone:
Individual membership ($27.50)
❏
Family membership ($55.00)
❏
Signature:
I enclose a cheque for A$
debit my (tick one)
Visa
❏
Bankcard
❏
payable to the “Deutsche Schule Melbourne.” OR Please
MasterCard
❏
Card number:
________ ________ ________ ________
Expiry date:
__/__
Cardholder name:
EFT can also be made to:
Deutsche Schule Melbourne
Bendigo Bank
BSB 633 000
Account number 129719340
Applications for membership are considered by a Committee of DSM. Successful applicants will
receive a receipt and a copy of the Constitution from the Secretariat. Unsuccessful applicants
will be advised and their subscription fee refunded.