Middle School
YEAR 9 SCHOOL STUDENT LEADERSHIP
Last term I went to the Snowy River Campus for the Year 9 School for Student Leadership with Declan Garratt. When you first arrive it is kind of scary as there are a lot of people you don’t know.
We were put into Expo teams made up of around 12 students from your school as well as one or two other school groups.
You also get room partners and it is one from the city and one from the country. Me room partners and I bonded extremely well and became really good friends and she's one of the best things from the program.
We did lots of outdoor and indoor activities which were awesome fun. The outdoor ones are things like caving, surfing, two expeditions (expo’s), bike riding and canoeing. When we had to do caving I was really terrified as I am really scared of small spaces but even though you are scared you always manage to do it.
Indoor classes include things like self-awareness, social awareness, first aid and food hygiene. You write a report at the end of the day and each day has a different theme.
On Fridays you had feedback Friday and someone in your expo team gives you feedback on the goals you set yourself.
I missed my family over the nine weeks, but I had an amazing time!
Rhiannon Kelly
PAT CRONIN FOUNDATION – guest speaker
Be Wise Presentation
Be Wise Presentation
‘On Saturday 16th of April 2016, Pat went out to a local bar for a quiet night. Whilst assisting a mate in trouble, Pat was punched from behind. Two days later, his family made the agonising decision to turn off his life support.
The Pat Cronin Foundation is providing an optimistic voice to End the Coward Punch, helping people feel empowered to make change through wise decisions.
On Monday 19th August the entire student cohort from Years' 9-12 listened to guest speaker Ben O’Toole from the Pat Cronin Foundation. Through documentary excerpts, Pat’s story was told from the perspectives of his parents, siblings and friends. In 2007, a coward punch nearly took presenter Ben’s life. He was lucky to make a full recovery and now shares his story to inspire others.
This session aimed to increase student awareness of how one poor decision can ruin many lives. The impact violence can have on both the victims and the offenders was confronting, however Ben showed our students they can be a part of the solution to help End the Coward Punch.
J. Holland
YEAR 9 FARM SCHOOL PROGRAM
CERTIFICATE 1 – CONSERVATION AND LAND MANAGEMENT
Last week at the Farm School, there were a few new faces to the group and after a week off, everyone got straight into it. Our students did a range of different things throughout the day and the group worked well and even completed their first unit of book work for the course. The unit of work was titled ‘Work Safely’ and it's one of the two ‘CORE’ units within the program.
After a recess break, they all headed outside and did some jobs around the place, including moving an old concrete pipe to a new location and taking all the cuttings from a recent pruning job over to
a fire pile to be burnt off.
The students then headed into the nursery to propagate some seedlings and they all did a great job.
After an extended lunch break and many rounds of pancakes, they went back outside to prune some of the Heritage Plum trees in our orchard. Hopefully this orchard bears lots of fruit for the group to enjoy later in the year!
This week at Farm School, the group will be taking an excursion to Kilcunda, to explore the coastline and its rich history.
Year 10 Love Bites Program
This year all students in Year 10 participated in a successful school-based Domestic and Family Violence and Sexual Assault prevention program – ‘Love Bites’. Love Bites is based on best practice standards for education programs as recommended by the Federal Government funded Australian Domestic and Family Violence Clearing House and other leading academics in the area of violence against women. Over 100,000 high school students throughout Australia have participated in this interactive and innovative program aimed at 14-16 year olds.
The Love Bites program consisted of two interactive education workshops on Domestic and Family Violence and Sexual Assault, followed by a creative art workshop that consolidated content from the previous two sessions.
The program was delivered by Julian Holland with assistance from Lisa Mathieson and Lyn Scotchmoor in Wellbeing.