Middle Years
Year 7 Endeavour Way and Orientation Day
135 keen, eager and somewhat nervous Year 7 students joined us on Friday 1 February for their first official day of high school. The Orientation Day incorporated the first of several Endeavour Way Days the students will take part in this year. The day was designed to settle some nerves and start to develop a strong class and Year 7 culture.
The Endeavour Way sits at the very heart of our College culture and is by its nature a restorative approach to pastoral care. Restorative Practice includes a strategy which is referred to as ‘circle time’, when our students and their teachers sit together in circles and work through structured game-based and thinking activities.
After a day of immersion into the Endeavour Way, our newest students are well and truly part of our community. As they settle into the new routines of high school, they do so with the strength of our values supporting them: Love, Courage, Forgiveness and Hope.
Rod Dissel
Year 7 Year Level Leader
The Year 8 'Amazing Race'
On their first day of school for the year, all Year 8 students participated in ‘The Amazing Race’ throughout the school and surrounding Mawson Lakes community.
The students were placed in teams of fourteen and asked to create a uniform and a team song or cheer which they needed to sing as they completed the challenges. All team members were also required to keep their hands on a rope at all times while they solved the various clues to gain points and finish the ‘race’.
Students’ team work, mathematical and problem solving skills were put to the test with questions such as ‘determine the average price of a sushi roll at Mo-Mo Sushi’ and ‘calculate how many square holes are in the tennis net’; as well as their creative ability with tasks such as ‘draw the satellite dish on the school grounds’.
The students showed outstanding enthusiasm and energy throughout the day. Many skills and talents were on display and their determination and competitiveness meant the day was motivating and loads of fun.
I would like to thank all of the students for their approach towards the day. A special thanks to the staff who supervised the students in each group and to Marni Harding who was heavily involved in the planning and creating of the clues and challenges.
Simon Maddern
Year 8 Year Level Leader
Year 9 Voyage 'The Call' Ceremony
Anstey Hill’s beautiful Yellow-tail trail provided the backdrop for the first significant event on The Voyage calendar for the year, The Call Ceremony. It provided a chance for each student to spend the day building relationships within their Voyage class and with their Voyage teacher. The focus for the ceremony was for each student to prepare themselves for the year and the beginning of The Voyage program. The Voyage program is designed as a rite of passage from adolescence to adulthood and provides the students with a sense of challenge, initiation, adventure, direction and guidance throughout a time of their life that can be difficult to navigate. During the day we challenged each student to reflect on their hopes for 2019 in a diverse range of areas that make up their life. These included; hopes for friendships, family, school and any other aspects that may be important to them. We also challenged them to think about the core values we have as an Endeavour community and asked them to write down specific ways they were going to actively express the Endeavour Way values of Love, Courage, Forgiveness and Hope to others throughout 2019.
By the end of the three hour hike around Anstey Hill the students had begun bonding with their group, accepted and completed their first challenge of The Voyage for 2019 and a great sense of achievement could be physically felt within the group. We stood in a circle, all 120 of us and ceremonially placed our hopes and goals for 2019 into the vault, not to be reflected upon until the last week of the year. Now it is time to start The Voyage together, a beginning that will symbolically begin with all of the Year 9 families coming together at The Departure ceremony on Wednesday 13 February. Looking forward to seeing you there!
Ben Crook
Year 9 Year Level Leader