Secondary News
Secondary School Welcome 2023
“For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.”
This verse is a great reminder for the start of the academic school year that God gifted His children with courage, power, love, and self-control. As we head into the 2023 academic school year, we pray that our students and families embark upon a year filled with love, happiness, compassion, challenges and success.
New beginnings can sometimes be challenging for our students, especially those new to Lakeside College or those students moving from our Primary school to the Secondary school. We are all so pleased to see how well the year has started for all of our students – new and existing. I get such great pleasure walking past classrooms across the Secondary school and seeing our students so engaged in their learning, collaborating and sharing their learning.
At the start of every year staff in the Secondary school work hard to ensure that our students are set up for success. Our pastoral care program has commenced successfully and many sessions have been spent providing our students with tips and strategies to achieve success. In particular, our students are benefitting from the use of organisation charts and their home learning journal. In order to do everything we can to help set our students up for success we have also commenced a Study Club for our senior school students and a Home Learning Club for all students in Year 7 to 9. These sessions take place on a Thursday afternoon after school and are staffed by specialist teachers. Students are able to attend these sessions for any assistance they might need, or just to have a quiet and supportive environment in which to complete school work.
Preparing our senior students for success involved having presenters from Elevate attend their respective camps to run study skills sessions. The sessions were designed to assist our senior students with strategies for revision of student assessed coursework and examination preparation. Elevate will also run further sessions toward the end of the year. The sessions ran for two hours each and the presenters, all high achieving students, were able to share their strategies for a successful VCE. They also provided students with great role modelling and inspiration.
Week 1 of Term 1 saw our Year 11 and 12 students attend our camp program. Year 12 students were stationed at Merrick Lodge in Merricks, whilst the Year 11 students attended Golden Valley camp. The camps ran for three days and provided our students with an opportunity to develop valuable team building skills, challenge themselves through both physical and mental activities and reflect upon their goals and aspirations for the year. Our Year 12 students also participated in a session on the beach where they were given the opportunity to acknowledge and celebrate the life of their dear classmate, Nick Maan, who passed away tragically over the summer break. The camp program was also a time for our students to reflect upon the place of God in their lives and think about their own faith journey. Experiences such as these are incredibly valuable for our students and the development of a strong, connected and unified cohort.
2023 is destined to be a very exciting year for the entire Lakeside College community. We look forward to working with families so that the very best of outcomes are achieved for our students.
Mr Robert Tassoni
Head of Secondary School
Year 12 Camp Newsletter Report
Having not been on a camp for a while, the 2023 Year 12 cohort took no time at all to embrace camp conditions as they attended the annual retreat at Merricks Lodge about a 10-minute drive north of Flinders on the Mornington Peninsula. On arrival, we did the usual settling in to the accommodation and then re-boarded the bus to travel to the nearby Point Leo beach on the shore of Westernport Bay.
There students and staff held a brief remembrance ceremony for our dear recently lost student, a member of the 2022 class in Year 11, Nick. We stood in silence for a while in a sand circle, looking into the centre where we could lay our tributes. Each person there, in their own way, was left with their thoughts and for the rest of the time on that beach we knew that support was there for all of us, tacit, sometimes with kind words, and whilst wading in the shallows.
After that, we walked along the beach, and as the sea was at low tide, explored the rock platform, finding all sorts of interesting sea-life, such as starfish and the ubiquitous Neptune’s Necklace seaweed. Beach cricket followed with all playing to a high standard, several catches, quite varied bowling and batting styles and many shots played off the toes into the foam at the water’s edge.
Others were content to chat, look out to sea and ramble across the sand.
The next day, the lodge staff lead our students in a round-robin of challenge activities before and after lunch. One aqua challenge activity saw up to six people boarding a canoe in the pool. The High ropes activity meant that a student was lifted high up near the tree tops, for an excellent view of their classmates well below.
A formal evening was held on the Thursday night, with the camp providing a special food for us, and the students in their finery walked down a shimmering blue catwalk as they were announced to the dinner. A resplendent seventeenth century butler announced the diners mainly in pairs, sometimes ringing his bell and reading their names from a scroll. Each of the participants had adopted a title for the evening.
Talks by Mrs Scheffer and the Elevate team were well received and valuable advice passed on to students to equip them well for the challenges ahead in Year 12.
We thank Mr Vaughan, Ms David and Mrs Scheffer for their invaluable contribution in their roles and in making this a very successful camp. That success was also due to every one of the students attending, prompting comments about how well our students were in support of each other by our hosts.
Nevil Schultz
Year 12 Camp Coordinator
Homework Club/Maths Help Years 7-9
Homework Club/Maths Help will begin on Thursday 16th February at 3:00 pm until 4:00 pm in S4. This will continue every week on Thursday for the rest of the year.
Homework Club/Maths Help is for students who would like some extra assistance with their maths work or any homework they may have for other subjects. It can also be utilised by students who just want a quiet space to work on homework tasks, knowing there is a teacher on hand for assistance if needed.
Any students in Years 7-9 are welcome to attend. You don't have to stay for the whole hour, you can come for whatever length of time suits you. You also do not need to sign up to attend or attend every week. You can just come when you have a maths or homework need.
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me.
Mrs Joanne Rothwell