Year 7 & 8 News

Welcome to the 2024 Learning Year!

The Year 7 and 8 Team would firstly like to welcome all our new Year 7 Students to the Kurnai Learning Community. We would also like to extend a warm welcome to our new and returning families.

For those who do not know me, my name is Daniel Murphy and I am the Campus Assistant Principal and Year 7 and 8 sub-school leader. I will be your primary contact with all and any communications for Year 7 and 8 students. 

In 2024, Sarah Lewis and Anna McGregor are the Assistant Team Leaders for Year 7 and 8 students. We welcome Anna to this role and look forward to seeing what expertise she brings.

I will endeavor to make 2024 the best learning year I can and if there is anything I can do to help our students, please do not hesitate to contact me. 

It has been fantastic getting around to classrooms and seeing students settle in (or back into) our Kurnai Learning Community. We have had a great start to the year, with all Year 7 and 8 students engaged in the classroom, our teachers have been acknowledging these positive behaviours with thousands of green positive write ups (KPAs). Our targeted reading program, Tr@K is also full swing with all students (Year 7-9) placed in classes according to ability. This is a key focus for the College and the results in recent years speak for its value. As a Year 7 and 8 Team, we have started educating our students on our key foci for 2024 through assemblies and promotions around the school. These foci are important areas identified by staff and students and they cover a range of issues, including, but not limited to; Attendance, School Wide Positive Behaviour (SWPBS) and NAPLAN. Our current foci are around uniform, settling back into routines and respect. 

Year 7/8 Team

Daniel Murphy: Assistant Principal & Year 7 and 8 Sub-School Leader (Maths)

Sarah Eccles: Disability & Inclusion Assistant Principal (Science)

Sarah Lewis: Year 7 and 8 Assistant Sub-School Leader (English/Media/Humanities) Anna McGregor: Year 7 and 8 Assistant Sub-School Leader (Humanities/Economics)

Denise Cairnduff: Disability and Inclusion Specialist (PE/English)

Patrick McGrath: School Improvement Specialist (PE/Outdoor Ed/Health & Fitness)

Emma Steen: Advocate (Drama)

Nyssa Beebe: Tr@k/Maths

Shawna Miller: Tr@k/English/Maths/Art

Jessica Qu: Maths/Science 

Shannon Heiberg: Maths/Science

Jeff Derkacs: Tr@k/PE/Maths

Ang Thomas: Art

Roxy Hibberson: Tr@k/Maths/PE

Ben Crawford: Science

Khatt Sims: Music

Tarna Flake: Tr@k/English

Year 7 

The new Year 7 cohort has settled into our Kurnai Learning Community brilliantly; learning how to get into their lockers, navigate our campus, make new friends, and build relationships with their teachers. Getting around to classrooms and seeing learning occur around writing narratives, Civics and Citizenship, numbers, Physics, PE, Health, AUSLAN/Culture, Digi Tech, Textiles, Art and Music has been great.

'My favourite subjects so far are TR@K and P.E. I've liked TR@K, because we've been doing stuff that I have enjoyed, and my teacher, Miss Flake, has been good as well. I have also really enjoyed P.E, where we have been doing cricket, which I have played outside of school for the past 5 years.' - Ashden Madex

'My favourite subject so far is Drama, because you get to do fun activities 3/4 of the class. You don't have to sit on a chair for majority of the class. In the class, you get to do games like silent ball, wink murder, grandma's footsteps and a lot more fun games. You only have to do book work at the start and the end of the lesson. You get to engage with all classmates and you get to work in groups. That's why Drama is my favourite subject.' - Hunter Smith

Year 8

Our Year 8 students have also settled back in and are well and truly a part of our community now. They have been learning about Persuasive Writing, Landforms and Landscapes, Measurement and Geometry, Geology, PE and Health whilst also undertaking a range of electives such as Food Tech, Design Tech, AUSLAN/Culture, Art and Visual Communications. 

'My favourite subject so far is culture because we are learning about different countries and cultures. In our culture class we are putting a power point together about a country we pick to learn about. We are learning about their cultures and their different types of food and their culture stories. Its good to learn about these things because we can understand other peoples backgrounds and their family history.' - Harmony Dobson

'My favourite subject so far is food techbecause we get to learn how to deal with different kinds of food and make different food. We also learn how to use sharp objects and how to be careful with them. Mrs Schwarzenberg teaches us how to clean up after ourselves and have a clean and tidy space around us. Learning how to cook and clean up after ourselves is really good for the future, seeing as we are getting older and we need to learn how to clean up after ourselves and need to make responsibilities for ourselves.'  - Bella Schembri

Student Leadership

Congratulations to our newly elected student leaders at Year 7 and 8. Year 8s were presented with their badges at assembly, with Year 7s to follow next week. These student leaders will work with their peers and staff to lead and drive our school forward and make positive change.  They will be announced officially in the next newsletter. 

Year 7 BBQ

I would like to thank all of the students, families and staff who attended our Year 7 BBQ on the 6th. We had a huge turnout, with free food, live music from our Kurnai band, and Youth Space coming down to provide activities. It is a really important event that all parties work together to get the most out of your child’s education. This event is a great way to start off their high school life on a positive note, show their new school off and for staff to meet and engage with families.

Camp

We are soon to put out the paperwork for Year 7 Camp. This is a really important adventure for our students and the most important camp of their high school years. We will be working with every family to try and ensure 100% attendance at the camp. If you are concerned or expect to face financial difficulties with this camp, please contact us to discuss how we can support you. We will also be preparing for our Year 8 camp. This is another fantastic adventure for our Year 8 students later in the year (Term 4).

Attendance

We are already pushing as another major focus for the year, holding students accountable for being at school all day every day. At our last Year Level Assemblies for Year 7 and 8 we talked about students achieving 95% attendance.

Contact

Please remember that if you need any support with anything for Year 7 or 8 to contact either myself or the Year 7/8 Assistant Team Leaders, Sarah Lewis & Anna McGregor, so that we can support your child to have the best educational experience possible in their early sec