Year 8 News

The Year 8 Team would like to welcome students to Semester 2! In my experience, the second half of Year 8 is a time where students flourish, coming into their own and starting to think about what the rest of their schooling looks like.

We ended last term with many interschool sports, celebration lunches, free dress days, and incursions from external facilitators such as Brainstorm Productions and The Emerging Young Leaders Forum which were all great successes. This term students have hit the ground running – with new classes, electives, enrolments and having already been out on Year 8 camp with more exciting opportunities to come.

Around the Cohort

Electives

With a new semester comes new opportunities to experience different classes. All students have switched electives, allowing them to experience most of the elective opportunities we have at Kurnai.

Resilience & Relationships

Resilience & Relationships (R&R) is a pastoral care style class new to Kurnai this year, that facilitates several programs that Kurnai fosters including SWPBS, The Berry Street Education Model and The Resilience Project.

At this point in the year and Year 8 students lives, it is invaluable to practice the guiding principles of The Resilience Project; Gratitude, Empathy, Mindfulness and Emotional Literacy (GEM).

Studies show that students who practice GEM have reduced stress and anxiety, improved confidence and self-esteem, knowledge to identify and express emotions, increased positive relationships at school and home, and more supportive classrooms.

Year 8 Camp

Phillip Island Adventure Resort

In Week 2, Churchill Year 8 students embarked on their inaugural camp at Phillip Island Adventure Resort. Over three action-packed days, students took part in a wide range of activities including disc golf, team rescue, archery, the giant swing, flying fox, bush cooking, high ropes, laser strike, a movie night, trivia and visiting San Remo and Cowes beaches. Throughout the camp, students exemplified our four pillars—engagement, work ethic, relationships, and excellence—while also showing remarkable resilience in the face of both physical challenges and unpredictable weather.