It has been an interesting 2 weeks being back covering Ted Cousens who has had to be away on personal business.

I have enjoyed seeing the student's and the country again, seeing the staff and meeting new teachers and families.

On Wednesday 11^th, the school travelled to the Murchison Shire as part of a reward activity for good behaviour and attendance.

We left just about 9.30 and got to the shire in time for morning tea. We ate in the shady playground and then the kids burnt off some energy playing on the play equipment.

We then started the business of the day, first meeting the Shire staff,  who were very welcoming, and then spending some time in the shire library. The shire has a large collection of photo albums, which record the pictorial history of the region and the people. We all loved looking through the albums, particularly finding familiar people or places. There are also lots of other books that we all enjoyed spending time reading.

Thankyou to the Shire staff, particularly Tatyana for helping with the organisation, who were very welcoming and interested in our students, and made themselves and their facilities available.

After the library, the museum!

What a fascinating and eclectic collection! There were lots of exciting items for the student’s to discover, and they spent quite some time exploring all the rooms and the bits and pieces. There were dead animals, insects, skins and other biological specimens which first caught the student’s attention. But as they further explored, they became swept up in examining relics from days past such as the old phones, sewing machine, tools, machinery and numerous other items.

Thank you to Stan and Meg who gave their time to show us around.

We wandered from the museum, past the CEO’s house and pool that the student’s thought would be nice to swim in, to the tunnel garden where we met Paul. There is a wonderful variety of vegetables and plants growing in the garden and Paul was very knowledgeable and enthusiastic in his explanations of their names and uses. Paul and the student’s pulled a couple of buckets of weeds, and we all walked down to feed the chickens, horses and sheep.

On the way back to lunch in the park, everyone picked a lemon to take and eat at home.

Lunch was a delicious feed of sandwiches, biscuits, cakes and juice boxes. As a special treat we had some chips from the roadhouse for all to share. After a rest we loaded the bus and the car and came home to Pia.

It was an enjoyable day, with mostly well behaved students. Thank you to the staff who came on the day, Sean Firth and Ashleigh Burns, and thank you very much to Melissa Firth for making and organising the very tasty and filling food.

Regards

Kevin McKenna

Some afternoons Mr Sean allows the students to play minecraft which they find very enjoyable.

Staff from GRAMS travelled to Pia to do an annual Trachoma check with the students as well as delivering a lesson on how to look after your eyes to avoid getting Trachoma. Staff and students very much appreciated and enjoyed a BBQ that was shared.

Students enjoyed making a 'Magic Reading Chair' where they can sit to read quietly.