The time of year has come when we are planning and preparing for the next one. Part of this involves the timetabling of classes, and of course the recruitment of new staff to teach them! You may have noticed a few of our teacher vacancies being advertised out and about. GHSS is fortunate to have wonderful staff retention rates, so no, teachers are not leaving! The school is growing quickly, and as a result, so is our staff body. While our Woodwork teacher, Gill Irvine is retiring from teaching as of the end of this year, all our other advertised vacancies are new positions.

On the topic of staffing, I am incredibly excited to announce the appointment of our 2026 Class 1 teacher, Lauren Fenwick. Lauren is a parent of two GHSS students, and has been a regular fixture around the school as of late, helping out with lots of relief teaching work. Lauren is feeling enthusiastic about beginning her Steiner teaching journey and comes very highly recommended. We are very fortunate to welcome her to our dedicated team of teachers! Other teaching appointments and finalised class configurations for 2026 will be announced in the next issue of the Golden Quill.

Next year will of course also be our first year of running a Class 10. Lots has been happening in the high school space, and acknowledgement must be given to Sam Vinton-Boot, for establishing and running many of our wonderful new elective activities this year. Community Sport has been a hit of late, with students out and about playing golf and tennis, and subjects such as surfing and outdoor education were well received last semester.

This week marks our inaugural high school assembly, which will be a more ‘grown-up’ version of the traditional GHSS assemblies, to be held twice a term. Students will be given reminders and information, as well as enjoy a photo slideshow of high school happenings over the past few weeks.

The Steiner curriculum is very much based on an in depth understanding of child development, and the idea that our ways of learning change as we mature. For example, the young child learns predominantly through play, whereas during the high school years, students develop the ability to think critically and independently. The curriculum becomes more academically rigorous, with a strong emphasis on analytical thinking, problem-solving, and self-reflection.

With this in mind, we believe that our high school students are ready to take on more personal responsibility and decision-making. This means that occasionally, rules differ between primary and high school students. A couple of examples include the choice for high schoolers to wear their hair down, or to go barefoot during recess/ lunch. However, our school dress code still stands. Clothing should be modest, appropriate and comfortable. Any pictures, commercial logos, or slogans must be smaller than a fist, and clothing needs to cover the midriff area. This still leaves a plethora of clothing choices and outfit combinations whereby students can express their individuality.   

Wishing everyone a wonderful, warm Djilba / Kambarang holiday!

Warm regards,

Eliza Allan

• finance@goldenhill.wa.edu.au – to contact Oona Mansour in her role as Business Manager

Please take a moment to have a look at our updated fee schedule for next year.

The children have missed Kristi this term as she takes some much needed time to rest and recuperate. We are all looking forward to seeing her back in Term 4 and I know that she is looking forward to being back in the Earth Station.

We are very grateful to Lyra’s mum Linda who stepped in for the last two weeks to lead us all in weaving! With bundles of Asparagus Fern and Wonga Wonga, she got us all started on creating beautiful baskets. It was hard work but the children persevered and many of us took home beautiful baskets that we will cherish...and feel confident to try again when we see the right creepers invading our gardens!

If a parent has a particular skill that they would like to share in the Bush School context, please get in touch with us. The children are so proud to show off their parents’ special talents! We’re also very happy to accept donations of materials that we can use to build or create so if you have a surplus of any material and you feel that we could use it, please call in or email and I’m sure we could put it to good use! I’m always on the hunt for wool and thread for the many craft and weaving projects.

We have loved these fresh Djilba mornings and have a few surprises in store for the last two Bush Schools of this term! Stay tuned!

Valda

Term 3 in Bush School is always both a challenging and a wonderful time of the year. We begin the term at the end of the season of Makuru, and throughout we celebrate the beautiful season of Djilba, culminating in our joyful Djilba Festival on the last day of term. It is also the season of peak illness amongst staff and students, as well as unpredictable changes in the weather, requiring of us a great deal of flexibility in our plans as we adapt week by week to changing circumstances.

Yet out of this unpredictability arise unforeseen opportunities. A great example of this is a last minute suggestion several weeks ago that children wearing gumboots might make a bridge across our giant puddle for others to cross. This turned into two weeks of several children working with great focus, collecting wood, sawing, designing and cementing. They created a great bridge and a very good mud patch.

We are blessed in our Bush School setting to witness firsthand the behaviour of the koolbardis (magpies) as they go through the nesting process. Each year we look out for signs of which local tree a pair of koolbardis will choose to build their nest in. The children get to witness nest-building, egg-sitting and chick-rearing behaviour in a totally natural setting. And we have the added bonus that our koolbardi friends are used to having the children around, leaving them be when we come in close to observe. The children have sung songs about koolbardis, listened to the ongoing trials and tribulations of Mr and Mrs Koolbardi during story time, written and drawn about koolbardis in their journals, and, with Sylvia’s assistance, even built a giant nest of their own.

We have been fortunate in the last couple of weeks to have Lyra and Ari’s mum Linda join us at the Earth Station to share her skills in weaving with bush materials. Those children that have managed to persevere have produced some beautiful little bush baskets to bring home.

Story Map project

Another ongoing project is the creation of a place-based Story Map of the creek, our campsite and the surrounding forest. This was inspired by Uncle Eugene’s suggestion, when we first built the Healing Hut, that we create a songline for our bush setting. He didn’t give any indication of how we should go about it, so the idea has been gestating for a while. Over the years of Bush School a body of stories, songs and knowledge relating to the seasonal changes in the bush have taken shape. Then last term we walked the contours of the creek, drew its shape in the earth, and added details of our special storied sites into our bush journals. The project has unfolded slowly as we have yarned about it, tried different materials, waited for suitable weather, and felt our way into the right approach. We now have a beautiful piece of milled sheoak that is gradually being transformed into a lasting map to hold our stories of the creek and the forest. The end product is still a bit of a mystery, but the children have enjoyed sanding and drawing onto this beautiful piece of wood. We are considering how they may incorporate the use of balga resin and wood burning as part of the creative process. The long-term intention is to explore ways of using the map as a mnemonic device to help the children remember stories, songs, Noongar language and detailed ecological information about the bush setting. Thank you Eugene for this intriguing suggestion, hopefully the path we are pursuing will be a fruitful one in the creation of a contemporary songline for our school setting.

Bruce

What a rich and busy term it has been for Class One! We have journeyed together through numbers, stories, song, and performance, and I am so proud of how each child has stepped into the work with joy, courage, and imagination.

We began our term exploring Number Processes. Rather than learning numbers as something fixed on a page, the children met the four processes: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, through gesture, story, and imagination. Addition became the generous gathering together, subtraction the giving away, multiplication the magical growing many times over, and division the thoughtful sharing among friends. These pictures gave the children a way to feel and live into the processes before approaching them as written number sentences. Through movement, verse, storytelling, and drawing, the children deepened their sense of number relationships and grew in confidence. It has been wonderful to see their eyes light up as they discovered that numbers carry not only logic but also warmth, character, and meaning.

A true highlight of the term was our class play Little Witch Hazel. What a joy it was to watch the children bring the story to life with such sincerity and delight! Each child had their moment—whether speaking lines, singing, or moving together as part of the whole, and the courage they showed in stepping onto the stage was truly inspiring.

The weeks of rehearsal gave us so much more than a performance. The children practiced listening, memory, rhythm, and cooperation. They learnt how to support one another and how to find their voice within the safety of the group. The final performance was a beautiful celebration of all their efforts, and I know many of you felt the pride and joy that filled the class that day.

I want to take a moment to thank you, dear parents and carers, for all the ways you have supported our class this term—from helping with costumes and props for the play, to encouraging your child’s learning at home, and being there to celebrate their efforts. It is through this partnership of home and school that the children truly thrive. I feel so grateful to be walking this journey with you and your wonderful children.

We have now entered a new main lesson, Stories from the Dreaming. These ancient stories, shared by the First Peoples of this land, are treasures filled with wisdom, beauty, and deep connection to Country. We listen to them with reverence and gratitude, receiving them as gifts that carry meaning far beyond the classroom. From these stories, we draw our sentences for reading and writing. Each sentence becomes a stepping stone into literacy, helping the children with sight words, sentence structure, and reading fluency, while still keeping the work alive with imagination and movement. Through choral speaking, drawing, and retelling, the children embody the language before it finds its way onto the page.

In Class 7 we are almost finished with fractions. It’s been a tough road with many finding fractions quite difficult as I think most did at school. With help from Eliza and Cate I feel we have it pretty much covered now and will move onto new things.

Students have enjoyed digital technologies where they have learned how to make a simple calculator from basic logic gates. This illustrates how computers are very simple machines that build complexity by layering and repeating circuits. Last week I introduced how the internet packet switching network works, which caused a flurry of questions and couriosity which was great to see. We played a modified and chaotic UNO game that illustrates how messages cross a network with fault tolerance so that our data arrives without errors.

John

Class 8/9 have completed a Probability and Possibility maths main lesson where we investigated the quirks of factorials, permutations, combinations, and distinguishable arrangements. It was quite a brain bender to learn that in their class there are 51,090,942,172,000,000,000 possible seating plans. Making sure that students are sat in productive combinations is something that keeps Jiffy and myself awake at night. They also learnt how Pascals triangle was instrumental in the development of probability theory, and it’s importance in making informed decisions.

We then moved onto another Physics main lesson, investigating internal combustion engines (ICE) and their history. These machines are marvels of mechanical engineering and use several phenomena that we’ve previously looked at, such as the venturi effect. We also delved into the history and massive impact of these engines on society.

On September the 2^nd we had an excursion to the Machinery Restoration Group. The members were excited to have the students visit and prepared a great number of demonstrations. The students diligently took notes and showed great maturity, listening and asking questions. We all really enjoyed our morning there. The following day students wrote up a short piece on one of the engines that interested them, from a physics and historical perspective.

In class we continue to look at various engine types and cycles and hopefully next week we will have the opportunity to dismantle some lawnmowers and whipper snippers. If time permits this term, we will start looking into the electrical transformation of automobiles. I’m excited to be teaching this topic as it was an important part of my previous engineering career.

Overall, students have been working well with a few lumps and bumps, much like my burgeoning teaching career. It’s a pleasure to be able to see these young people grow into themselves, finding direction and ever more independence and self-reliance.

John

It’s around this time of the year that we often hear the expression “good weather….. for ducks !” and so it is in the school gardens. After losing successive crops of brassicas (cauliflower, broccoli, boc choy etc), Class 5 and 6 were scratching their heads as to who the culprit could be. We put on our gardening detective hats and discovered duck scats through the garden beds. We now have 2 resident wild ducks enjoying a constant supply of biodynamic vegetable seedlings! Class 6 have erected tall bamboo poles with string lines in between in an effort to deter these feathered rascals. Ah, the joys of gardening!

Class 4 and 5 dug a deep trench (now a moat) at the bottom of the garden to drain some of the water away.

Meanwhile, the change in season is evident in the orchard with buds bursting left, right and centre. The promise of much delicious summer fruit lies ahead. The fruit trees have obviously been enjoying the chooks doing their business beneath the branches. Even the apricot tree, which has not produced a single fruit for 16 years is in full blossom.

Next term, Class 6 will resume their vegetable seedling stall, so look out for early summer crops along with the ever faithful “all year rounders”.

Happy Gardening!

Neal

Shire of Denmark Term 3 2025 School Holiday Program is up and running for you to enrol your children in activities:

https://www.denmark.wa.gov.au/news/school-holiday-program-find-a-local-activity-for-your-kids/31490

Beginning September 26 there will be a regular Friday morning creative writing class called The Writer's Passage (at Denmark Arts Artshouse 9 am to 12 noon), led by Horst and Jennifer Kornberger.

The Writer's Passage is based on Rudolph Steiner's concept of evolution of consciousness. In this course, all the major stages of world development, the myths of each cultural epoch, are engaged with in a living way. 

Great for any parents and interested community to engage with the philosophies of Rudolph Steiner in a creative way!