Year 9 Curriculum Structure

Mount St. Joseph Girls’ College offers a diverse and dynamic range of opportunities for students in Year 9. Students are encouraged to analyse and engage with the world around them, to create knowledge and acquire skills for lifelong learning. In the middle years students are educated in a supportive learning environment where they are encouraged to take risks, enjoy challenges and become responsible independent learners.

Year 9 students are in the final year of their middle schooling and on the threshold of their senior years at school. In Years 9 and 10, students are offered a range of opportunities and are expected to take more responsibility for their learning. More responsibility means that students will make considered choices about what they will study. These choices will be made after talking to your teachers and parents, people who have the experience to know you as a learner. This is also an important time to start thinking about the most appropriate pathway through the senior school years and beyond. 

It is important to think about what you like doing, what you are good at and find interesting. Do not make subject choices based on what your friends are doing: you might find yourself in a subject you do not enjoy. You are encouraged to take some risks and try new subjects; this is where the elective choices come in. You cannot change your electives during the semester; our whole school timetable is created on the basis of the choices made by students and it is very difficult to make changes after this. All possible efforts will be made to ensure that you get to do the subjects you select, but sometimes it is just not possible given the selections made. We will talk with you if this is the case.

As well as electives, you will have the opportunity to participate in a Year 9 Program. 

This Handbook is just the starting point. You are welcome to speak with your teachers and Year Level Coordinator. Be informed and make sure you are well prepared for Year 9.

YEAR 9 COURSE STRUCTURE

To ensure students receive a broad general education, the students in Year 9 undertake studies encapsulated within the Victorian Curriculum. Within these learning areas a variety of units are provided and choices increase as the students move through the College.

ELECTIVE OPTIONS

• Students are able to choose four elective options, completing two in each semester.
• Language subjects run for the entire year and count as two electives.

YEAR 9 PROGRAM

Year 9 is a challenging year for students. Students are not only moving from the junior to the middle years of their secondary schooling, but they undergo complex physical, social, emotional and intellectual developmental changes. Research has also shown that at Year 9, feelings of dissatisfaction and disengagement are at their highest and levels of resilience are at their lowest. 

The Year 9 Program consists of four threads during the year and will occur on one day a cycle.

i.  Healthy Living and Wellbeing

Is designed to complement what is currently being offered in the Year 9 Pastoral Program. Topics that will be explored include:

• Helpful thinking and self-talk 
• Emotional recognition and regulation 
• Problem-solving 
• Communication 
• Planning and time management 

ii.  Pathways and Learning to Learn

Thinking about life after secondary school can be overwhelming, so students will have the opportunity to investigate and consider future learning, paid and volunteer work. 

Students will gain further skills in:

• Planning a career pathway
• Planning and organisation
• Self management and self development
• Study skills

iii. Faith

Religious Education is of prime importance as a subject and through both it and the other opportunities provided for spiritual formation, we are able to deepen students’ understandings about the spirituality of the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart and the teachings of Jesus.

The Year 9 Program aims to give students an awareness and understanding of real life issues that are relevant to the middle years of schooling. 

iv. Making Connections – Community

Students are given the opportunity to explore an area of individual interest and passion. Through Making Connections –students are able to see and experience first-hand the practical aspects of what they are studying in class.