Middle School

Middle School Update

Wow! How quickly the semester has flown by. Just yesterday we were welcoming the students to the start of another year.

Six months in and NAPLAN has come and gone (congratulations to the students on the way they conducted themselves during the testing), sporting teams are constantly competing in all manner of events, debaters are honing their skills, the play was a great success, the musical is beginning soon and lunchtime activities have proved popular with students. It is great to hear that students are getting involved with the many activities/opportunities available to them.

A reminder that Breakfast Club operates every Friday from 8am-8:30am in the Middle Year’s Centre. It is open to students from Years 7 to 9 and is a great way to meet fellow students and have a juice or some cereal on those cold wet mornings. In addition, a Middle Years Girls Lunchtime Fitness Group runs every Friday 1pm – 1:30pm in the hall.

Reports are being collated as you read this and it is very important that all assessment and learning tasks have been submitted. These results are particularly helpful early in Term 3 for the year 9 students as they begin to make subject choices for 2019. Please also make sure that any absences for the semester have been accounted for by parents.

On June 6 Mr Tuffnell attended a conference on teenage wellbeing. He noted that teens need 9 hours of sleep (science is irrefutable) but at best getting 7.5 hours – there is big disconnect between social norms and the science. If sleep patterns are not developed effectively in Year 7 to 9 then after that it is too late and it takes 2 consecutive nights of good sleep to learn (& retain) information– 1st night is for short term memory to work effectively, 2nd night is needed for REM sleep used to retain learning into long term memory effectively.

Boys tend to be very bad at managing a schedule in the evening.

Have a safe holiday. Come back in Term 3 refreshed and ready to hit the ground running.

Middle Year’s Team

Live life program

It has been another successful term for Live Life program. 40 students attended various community placements from kindergarten, to aged care and contributed to everyday activities.

Here is an overview of one student’s community placement at Birralee Primary school:

On Wednesday the 23 of May, Angus Purnell and myself took a bus (and walked a bit) to Birralee Primary School, located in Doncaster, for our first taste at our Live Life Community Placement. We were unsure at what to expect, however the nerves soon settled once we arrived. I spent my first day in 1P, a class full of loud, happy six -year-old kids. The first day was fun as I helped the kids with their work.

The next Wednesday I was in 6E, with kids who were much bigger and far less likely to want a hug like the grade ones. All the kids were welcoming and the teacher, Eloise, was a past Koonung student who was happy to involve me in helping the kids with their learning. This day was great as we played soccer at lunch and got to know a lot more kids. The next few Wednesdays were much the same and were great learning experiences as we got to experience a classroom not as a student, but like a teacher does.

The final Wednesday came around, and as we knew it was the last one, we felt a bit weird as we didn’t know what to do in terms of saying goodbye. 6E, however, knew what to do as they made me a card with lovely messages full of praise and thanks. I recommend anyone doing Live Life Community in the future to pick a Primary school as it helps with getting a reference and experience for a future job. Overall Birralee Primary School was a terrific experience and I really enjoyed it.

Mitchell Rowe

This past term I’ve been in the Group Module for Live Life working with Annabel Zerna, Ella McPhee and Bridie Weller-O’Flynn. We decided to learn how to knit scarves to donate to the Salvation Army for the homeless. Annabel already knew how to knit so she and Miss Munro taught the rest of us the basic stitches for knitting a scarf. It took a lot of attempts to finally get the hang of it, we became frustrated and were thinking about changing projects. When we were finally were able to knit a row we were overjoyed!

From then on our skills improved and we were able to knit faster and faster. After each lesson we were able to admire the new scarves produced in their different colours and shapes. By the end of the term we had made 24 scarves ready to donate to the Salvos and they came to school to pick them up on the last Tuesday of term. It was such an exhilarating feeling handing the bags over because our project was completed and we knew that our hard work was now going to be of use to someone in need.

They Salvos were very grateful for our donation and it was great to share a common interest in caring for others. Once our scarves were donated we went to class wondering if we would ever see someone in city wearing a scarf that we had hand knitted.