On the 22nd of January, after some successful House activities in Semester one, we held our first House assembly of the Year. After partnering up as buddies, our four Houses gathered in areas of the school to complete a number of activities designed to help students unpack and understand the Learner Profile traits. This assembly was focused on the traits of Communicator and Reflective.

The first activity was a building challenge; a model had been constructed by the House Captains, and hidden away from the eyes of the rest of the House. Students were in groups of 10 and had the task of accurately reconstructing the model, but only 2 students could view the model. They then had to use their communication skills to direct the rest of their group to build the model correctly. Students learned a lot about the importance of clear communication, and that communication doesn’t just involve speaking but also listening.

The next activity was called alien whispers. Students formed a long line and the first student in line was given a message that they had to quietly communicate to the next person along. The message was whispered down the line until the last person was asked to write the message they heard on a slip of paper. Everyone had a lot of laughs as the message that started became warped into some very strange sentences by the end. This taught us again the importance of being very clear and very patient when communicating – hopefully we see a lot more communicating going on around campus from now on!

We finished the activity with a reflection on communication. Cross-aged groups of students engaged in a reflective conversation about what challenges they face and strategies they can use to overcome them as communicators at our school.

A big thanks to the House Captains and House leaders for leading the assemblies and we look forward to our next House assembly next month.