Secondary Sub School Rooms 19 - 27

Hello everyone,

I have just recently returned from a week of Long Service Leave. I was greeted with lots of enthusiasm when I returned on Monday. This is another reason as to why I love working at Jacana School for Autism!

While looking through some classroom Seesaw posts I have seen some of the awesome things classes have been doing during the past fortnight. 

I am particularly enjoying viewing excursion photos. It is pleasing to see our students with smiles on their faces representing our school in such a positive light.

I also found lots of excellent gardening photos. The weather has been fantastic lately making for some awesome gardening photos. 

Finally, a very big highlight was seeing Rooms 25 and 23`s photographs. These photos show students engaged and smiling. With so many great pictures it is a hard decision to choose which photos to include in the JSA Newsletter. 

Kind regards,

Ash

Room 22

Room 22 had a great start to the year as all the students were very excited to commence the Victorian Pathways Certificate (VPC). The VPC is the new secondary qualification that offers students an individualised program at a more accessible level than the VCE or VCE Vocational Major (VM). The students spent some time at the start of the year learning about the VPC and had to become familiar with the program’s 4 main subjects: Literacy, Numeracy, Work Related Skills and Personal Development Skills. 

As part of the VPC, students are to either undertake a School Based Apprenticeship (SBAT) or a VET course. In Room 22 some students are doing an SBAT at Northpoint (supply chain operations), AGA (Trade Taster) and JSA (Assisting Will with PE lessons), and some are doing a VET course at JSA (Hospitality with Helen) and Hume Valley School (Visual Arts). All students are progressing well in in their SBATs or VET courses and are enjoying them. 

As part of the VPC students are to undertake a project. Students in Room 22 will be making a documentary about people in our local community who have Autism but are also homeless, have a disability, are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander and are elderly. So far, the students have come up with a title for the documentary: “Community on the Spectrum”, and have completed their elevator pitch. On Monday, March 25 the students will have a visit from a professional filmmaker whom they will be presenting their elevator pitch to. In addition to planning for this project students have been learning about the history of film and about the 3 stages of film production: pre-production, production and post production. The students have also enjoyed watching films made by their teacher Angela who has a filmmaking background and is a specialist Media teacher and who continues to work on independent films in her spare time.

Room 22 went on two excursions this term: The Salvation Army and to the Career Networking Expo. The students enjoyed the Youth Homeless City Tour with the Salvation Army where they were told a story about a homeless person. The students found the careers expo to be very valuable as they had the opportunity to talk to many organisations about various career pathways and further education. 

Room 22 are looking forward to the Term 1 school holidays. I hope that everyone has a lovely Easter break. We cannot believe how fast the term has flown!