Applied Learning News

Community Action - SCOPE’s Southern Balloon Football League is underway!

Last Thursday, Year 11 and 12 VCAL Students began their roles as Team Managers, Scorers, Line Umpires and Goal Umpires for SCOPE’s Southern Balloon Football League. Eight teams have registered, with the Eagles’ team members novices in this great competition. Our group created combinations of students who would support each team. As a visual reminder to players, their support workers and family members, students are now easily recognisable, wearing team guernseys in their team colours. This initiative will assist with the organisation of competition days and will allow for the formation of friendly partnerships between players and students, as they get to know each other quicker. This first round of competition saw the reigning Premiers the Bulldogs beat the Saints, last year’s Runners Up by a 20 point margin! The Northern Chelsea Sharks won their match against the Eagles. The Bombers defeated the straight shooting Tigers, 24 to 18. Our BFL W Women’s Team, the Demons had a comprehensive win over the Blues, girl power on display! In fact, their impressive win 32 to 8 has pushed the Demons to the top of the Season Ladder!

Structured Work Placements Required - Can you provide a student an opportunity to experience the real world of work?

As a key learning experience in VCAL, students are timetabled in a manner which allows them to study their chosen VET TAFE Course AND undertake a day of work a week in this industry area. It is no easy task to acquire an employer willing to commit to supporting VCAL structured workplace learning. We currently have students studying Hospitality, Patisserie, Screen & Media, I.T., Beauty, Photography, Design, Electrical, and Building & Construction.

If you could possibly host a student either once a week or for a one or two week block placement, please email mackc@nazareth.vic.edu.au  or pop in to the Joseph Centre and speak to Caitlin or Elena.

Ms Caitlin Mackay

VCAL Co-ordinator

Commemorating ANZAC Day

To commemorate ANZAC Day, Year 11 VCAL students produced ANZAC biscuits, which were donated to local nursing homes and RSLs for the residents and members to enjoy. 

The students were given a recipe and had to calculate how much of each ingredient was needed to produce 1000 biscuits. This involved converting amounts that were included in the recipe, such as cups of flour or tablespoons of golden syrup in the recipe, into kilos of flour and pots of golden syrup on a shopping list.  

Once the calculations were complete, and the shopping ingredients arrived, the students started on the baking. All VCAL students contributed to this activity.  Each ingredient was measured carefully to make sure that each batch was just the right consistency – not too dry, or the biscuits would be too hard, and not too wet or the biscuits would be ‘floppy’. 

The students did well – each and every biscuit was 35 grams in weight and of perfect crunch! (as taste tested by Ms Mackay!!)

Now began the packaging and design of the ANZAC biscuits. Year 12 students helped with this task. Each student was provided a plan with dimensions, a Stanley knife, a ruler, a square and a blank piece of white cardboard. They rose to the challenge, proving they could follow visual instructions to create exact replicas of the prototype. The boxes were top quality and sturdy, after all, their purpose was to hold 1.5 kilograms of biscuits. Each box eas adorned by a label, which reflected students’ individual messages. 

A delivery route of supply was designed, the speeches were written and rehearsed with Ms Formanek role-playing as the RSL President or Nursing Home Manager!  Supplies were carefully packed in the bus and the biscuits were on their way to their recipients. 

It brought a lot of pleasure to the students to hand over the biscuits to the elderly in the community, where these teens could send a clear message of respect to them.. The smiles on the recipients’ faces indicated that they were pleased too, so much so that they quickly sent thank you emails to Nazareth and made requests to display the photographs of our VCAL students presenting these thoughtful gifts. 

This VCAL Project has again been well received by all and will remain a part of our curriculum for the years to come.

Mrs Barbara Murphy

VCAL Teacher