Year 9 CLC Program Chronicles

Sixty of our Year 9s kicked off week one of the much-loved CLC program with a bang on Wednesday, the 13th of July.

Getting To Know Each-Other activities were the first order of the day, and it was Xavier Hogarth who was the last man standing in the Paper Scissors Rock Battle Royale, defeating Lilian Oats-Mason in the final. It was some sight as half the room (Xavier’s team) erupted in cheers, celebrating and embracing as though they had just won the lottery.

Local nurse and former Wang High mum Robyn Marklew visited as guest speaker, and gave a rousing presentation about her experiences trekking the Kokoda Trail in Papua New Guinea, becoming a tour guide there, and eventually starting the No Roads organisation, providing student packs to kids and educating local health workers to help lift health outcomes in PNG. Her talk touched on many key CLC concepts such as empathy, kindness, philanthropy, resilience and gratitude, as well as delving into World War II history including her own grandfather’s story. You could have heard a pin drop for the 50 minutes she spoke, which is testament to herself and our students who were commended on their sustained display of respect.

Long-time CLC fulcrum Mrs Wilson took the kids through an Introduction To CLC presentation in the middle session, highlighting our focus of giving back to the community, and gave teasers of some of the exciting opportunities ahead, including excursions to Lake William Hovell, Albury Indoor Climbing, Bounce Trampolining, and Ten Pin Bowling, designed to build the skills required to venture out into the community in Term 4. They were also shown examples of previous CLC projects including some of their peers from Semester 1, planting the seeds for what community group this cohort may choose to volunteer with in Term 4.

A “CLC Family Lunch” was provided as usual, with Toasties and Milo on the menu, prepared by Mrs Lane & Kenny in CLC ‘s own Kitchen facility. The kids sat together on long tables in a dining table context to promote face to face socialisation. Building connections and a sense of belonging via eating together is an integral component of CLC, and one of the many lasting legacies of the recently retired CLC legend Andy McLean.

Concepts from The Resilience Project, which those lucky enough to have attended Wang West Primary or the King Valley Cluster know well, dominated the afternoon session. CLC links strongly with this program’s emphasis on Gratitude, Empathy & Mindfulness, which with mental health & wellbeing statistics in Australian youth worsening due to lockdowns and face masking etc, is more important than ever.

Focusing on the power that music, laughter and exercise can have on lifting mood, a team music trivia challenge was the centrepiece. To encourage the stepping out of one’s comfort zone, we pulled out a microphone and invited kids to sing in front of the crowd for extra points. Whereas usually we run this later in the term and might have one or a few hands go up, here we instantly had a quarter of the room volunteer, and in the first few hours of the program. 

Erin Hepburn courageously got the ball rolling, singing “Begging” in front of the room of 60. Lilian Oats-Hamblin followed on with the next chorus of “Begging”, and Amelia Roberts stunned the room silent with a pitch perfect solo of “Numb Little Bug.” Ryley Downing drove his team in a rendition of “The Wheels On The Bus” complete with actions, snaking around the room through the audience, with each of the 10 team members involved earning a point. Suddenly half the room wanted to perform, and CLC staff looked at each other knowing they’d struck some Gold Dust.

Tahlia Gregory’s girl group sang and danced complete with choreography to “Baby Shark”, Tremayne Roberts led his table on “Fruit Salad”, and when Josh Robertson belted out the Backstreet Boys classic “I Want It That Way” backed by up by his whole table and Boyband Steps not seen since the early 2000s, staff had officially seen nothing like it before.

Jackson Tilly demanded the mic and sang “Happy Birthday”, flanked by his entire table of 10 boys, who found birthday boy Eli Stegman at a neighbouring table, and all embraced their mate while belting out the tune. At that point they had been singing for close to an hour, so we had to cut the cord. With Lilian Oats-Mason pleading for one more performance, we announced that everyone in the room had the chance to earn one final point for their team, if they either sang along, or got up and danced. 

A few seconds later, with Lilian on the mic and stepping out the moves, almost the entire room was up, dancing and singing along to the Rick Astley classic “Never Gonna Give You Up”. The whole scene was one of the most phenomenal things staff had seen in their careers. 

We are set up for a terrific semester.