General News
30 November, 2023
Big day out for Great Western students
What do you do when half your school cohort competes in Energy Breakthrough (EB)? If you ask Great Western Primary School the solution is simple — you make it a whole school excursion. One of the smallest schools to enter EB each year, Great...
What do you do when half your school cohort competes in Energy Breakthrough (EB)? If you ask Great Western Primary School the solution is simple — you make it a whole school excursion.
One of the smallest schools to enter EB each year, Great Western began competing in 2015 and has made it one of the biggest and most memorable events on the school calendar since.
Each year, the whole school cohort makes the journey to Maryborough for EB, with the school’s current enrolment of 19 students taking part last week.
The school’s principal Kerri-Ann Harris said taking part in EB was a way to keep students engaged with their learning and involving the whole school was the obvious choice.
“I’d been involved in the event previously at another school so when I came to Great Western, I saw the opportunity was there for our students to be involved,” she said.
“We have a high population of boys at school currently, of our 19 students there are only four females, so EB was a way to get them engaged in their learning.
“We do a full unit of work around literacy, numeracy, health and physical education around the pushcart challenge.”
Usually entering around eight students from grades five and six into its pushcart team, the school this year entered one of their grade two students.
“We usually enter our grade five and six students for our team but due to the drop in numbers we’ve seen, we actually had a grade two run in the event this year,” she said.
“We managed to come second in the event one year which was great, but we’re not in it just to win.
“The kids decide they want to go each year, we never do particularly well, but it’s something the students look forward to and they go for the experience and learning that comes with it.”
The school enjoys the EB event so much that they even take it home and run their own social competition at school.
“We get parents involved in their child’s education through Energy Breakthrough, particularly dads, which we see as a very positive outcome,” Ms Harris said.
“We hold our own competition back at school after EB and our junior students actually compete against the seniors.
“We also get the students competing against their parents too which is a lot of fun, it’s really a celebration of having a good time.
“It’s something the school looks forward to each year, it’s an absolute highlight of term four for the students.”