Last Wednesday, the Student Voice ran the fourth annual Night of Talent, and it was a spectacular evening with talented student performers entertaining about 200 guests.
Dance and song featured strongly but we also enjoyed some instrumentals, comedy and a poem. Judges Jenny Broderick, Sonya Kadel and Renat Yusupov had a difficult job deciding the winners and runners up but here they are below:
Prep – Year 3 category:
Winner: Bella Campbell (singing ‘Girl on Fire’)
Runner-up: Micah Matthews Frederick (reciting a poem)
Year 4 – 5 category:
Winner: Jazmine Hazelden (song and dance to ‘Frozen’)
Runner-up: Charlotte Albrand, Breeanna Aldridge, Rachel Curtis, Olivia McMaster (dance routine)
Year 6 – 12 category:
Winner: Madeleine Bell (dance routine)
Runner-up: Lila Demerutis (musical theatre routine to ‘Mother Knows Best’)
Those following the live event on Facebook would have noted that many of the items were partially muted by Facebook due to copyright. We have the right to stream the event live as long as we delete it afterwards but Facebook can’t differentiate between our right to do this and someone breaking copyright law so they muted many of the performances. This is another reason we can’t show the videos on our Facebook page. However, copyright will allow us to showcase student performances on a site where you need to login with a password. For this reason we have set up a Vimeo account and put all of our performances on that site. It is free for our parents to access and the password for every video will simply be: gcc.
Here is the link to all the photos and videos from the night: Night of Talent.
Remember the password is just gcc
Book Week – why books matter
Did you know that Book Week is the longest-running national literacy event in the world? It was created in 1916 by Franklin K. Matthiews, the librarian of Boy Scouts of America. Mr Matthiews believed that books are life-changing.
More than 100 years later and the vital importance of books is one of the few things that have not changed in the world. Reading is much more than about literacy; it actually changes the way our brains work, improves our communication with others and enhances how we understand the world. Here are just seven ways reading books helps our children:
- Reading improves parent-child relationships. Reading to and with children, from the time they are babies, builds strong bonds. Before babies even understand words, they are benefiting from hearing your voice and enjoying the relaxed closeness reading brings. Reading together from infancy easily transitions to an enjoyable and rewarding ritual throughout each stage of a child’s life into adulthood.
- Reading improves concentration. A good book with interesting pictures is the perfect way to focus the attention of an over-energised toddler. They learn to sit still for short stories and this small act of discipline increases with their abilities and the growing complexity of the books chosen.
- Reading builds neural pathways in the brain. The actual act of reading is exercise for your child’s brain – it changes the brain’s structure. New imaging technology like SMRI scanning shows a living brain at work and how reading activates the whole neural network. Reading builds new connections and helps us understand other people’s worlds. A good book literally has the power to change us.
- Reading can make your child smarter. Not only does your child learn more about vocabulary, structure, spelling and word definitions, interactive reading can boost your child’s IQ by up to six points. Interactive reading is when you ask open-ended questions and engage your child in the story.
- Reading can make your child wiser. Reading with your child interactively provides perfect opportunities for them to ask you questions about what they are reading and learning. They may understand the words but there are a lot of big concepts in books and reading together is the perfect time to explore how what they are reading relates to their understanding of life.
- Reading can make your child more empathetic. Navigating social relationships is almost impossible unless children can understand people’s emotions and reactions. A good book is all about producing an emotional response from the reader. This exposes our children to relationships and a depth of emotion they may not have the opportunity to witness yet in their young lives.
- Reading reduces stress and helps sleep. Research shows that reading is more relaxing than listening to music or going for a walk. Allowing the mind to escape into a literary world eases tension and a recent study showed it only takes six minutes of reading to slow your heart rate! This shows a whole new benefit to reading your children a bedtime story.
Finally, in the words of some great readers:
“The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries.” ~ René Descartes
“The more you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” ~ Dr. Seuss
Mike Curtis, Principal