Year 8 & 9
Assistant Principal's Report
It has been a pleasure to participate in several school activities that have run recently such as RU ok day and Wear it Purple day. Being an inclusive school means that we are accepting of all abilities, cultures and personal identities. The staff and students always have a lot of fun on these days when we celebrate at break times and come together as a college.
There has been a lot to celebrate this term academically with students completing a multitude of classroom-based activities assessments. Reports were distributed last week and we hope you have had the opportunity to come in and discuss these with your child’s teachers at our Parent Teacher Conference.
I wanted to take this opportunity to raise a very important matter with you all around online safety. I attended a briefing held by the eSafety Commissioner last week and I think there is important information to share with families. The internet offers children valuable opportunities to connect with peers, play, learn, be entertained, be creative and seek information. Yet going online also poses risks to children, including cyberbullying, exposure to harmful material, and the potential for online grooming. Supporting children to safely navigate these risks and avoid being harmed, while enabling them to develop the skills they need to thrive in an increasingly digital world, is one of the greatest parenting challenges of our time.
Parents have an important role to play in helping their children be safe online, and they are rising to the challenge. However, there remain significant gaps in parental awareness of children’s online lives – particularly in relation to children’s exposure to potentially harmful online content. Digital parenting needs to evolve as children grow older, in order to better respond to children’s encounters with harmful content online.
The following website: https://www.esafety.gov.au/ has links to a wide range of resources designed especially for parents to help you know what to be alert to in terms of online behaviour. It also tells you how to talk to your children, as well as where to get help if needed. Online safety is very important for our children who are vulnerable and targeted.
We hope that you all enjoy some time home with your children over break and look forward to seeing everyone happy and refreshed for term four.
Megan Taylor - Assistant Principal Years 8 - 9
Year Level Leader's Report Year 8
Wow, what a term it’s been at Year 8!
One thing that’s been great to see this term is Year 8s’ participation in a variety of Assembly Tutor Challenges. Each challenge provides 9 points for first place, 6 for second, 3 for 3rd and 1 for participation. Challenges have included Planking, kickups with a soccer ball, Arm wrestling, balancing and book-carrying. This term’s winners are 8J, who will have a pizza lunch to look forward to.
The students have been flooding forward with ideas for Term 4’s tutor challenges, so watch this space!
Congratulations to the Term 3 Students of the Week:
- Rubi Hindle – 8A
- Annah Parmar - 8H
- Eric Wilson-Walton – 8H
- Amanda Say – 8A
- Sebastian Mineo – 8B
- Julie Ramon – 8C
We had a couple of winners in Science Week, through some phenomenal ideas and designs. Congratulations to Swati Veerappan and Charli Monk, both of 8B. A working model of the human heart is always impressive to see, so a huge congratulations to Charli on winning First Place!
Random Acts of Kindness:
Huge thanks to Ms Rebecca Sandlant for providing two of our Year 8 groups an opportunity to help us trial a new program. The aim of Peace Education’s Random Acts of Kindness Program is to foster resilience and confidence through teamwork and celebration of diversity. Our two groups met their facilitators for the first time in week 9, and will continue the program through most of Term 4. We hope this will be something we can implement for the whole year level in the future.
Iron Armour:
Chris and Rochelle from the Iron Armour Academy agreed to join our Y8s for a session to provide a talk on motivation, self-confidence and empowerment. Chris was phenomenally engaging and our kids took to his style immediately. A number of our students have taken up the opportunity to be a part of Chris and Rochelle’s program moving forward into Term 4, which will be really exciting to see.
Downball:
Ms Sandlant’s connections paid off again as Downball Australia came to WCC for a day to provide our Y8s with some professional coaching and tips from the nation’s downball elite! Our kids took great advantage of the opportunity to learn from the pros and we’ll surely be seeing the fruits of their training in the yard!
VolleyBall:
A large number our students have volunteered to help out a volleyball carnival for local primary schools held on the 24th of October. To these year 8 students thank you for showing the community our school values of respect, co-operation and excellence.
Tales of Poe:
Ms Vlahos and her wonderful crew pulled off a fantastical spooky school performance interpreting seven tales of Edgar Allan Poe. It was great to see many of the year eight cohort helping out with the play, either onstage, backstage or in the band. Well done to all involved. Look out for our addition of Volleyball courts in Term 4.
From the year 8 team have a safe and happy end of term three break.
Allan Nilsen - Year 8 Year Level Leader & Ewan Slater - Year 8 Year Level Leader
andreas.nilsen@education.vic.gov.au ewan.slater@education.vic.gov.au
Year Level Leader's Report Year 9
Can you believe it is the end of term!
What a term Year 9 has had. We have held several competitions and challenges over the course of Term 3. Week 5 saw the judging of our “Adopt-a-Window” challenge. Each tutor class selected a window within the Deakin building. There were some wonderful displays created by our tutor classes and led by our wonderful tutor teachers. Four guest judges awarded points based on creativity, connectedness of the tutor group and representation of class members. Ms Gagatsis awarded her Principal’s choice award to 9J’s beautifully decorated space. Year 9 Coordinator, Mr Robson, awarded his choice award to 9C, whose space was a representation of Spanish speaking countries and linked to their involvement in our Spanish Immersion Program.
The results are as follows:
1st place – 9F with 53 points
2nd place – 9J with 50 points.
3rd place – 9E with 49 points
Winning classes were also awarded points towards our Term 3 tutor challenge.
Over the last four weeks we have held an inter-tutor sport challenge. Students have participated in sports such as Basketball, Table tennis, Football/Soccer and Handball. A running tally of points were collated over each week. Well done to 9E for outstanding participation in each round.
Round One students participated in games of Handball. Students from 9A, 9E, 9F, 9G and
9S all represented their respective tutor groups in Round one with the overall win going to 9E. Round two saw another overall triumph of 9E in football. 9E proved too strong for the competing tutor groups. Round Three 9D talked the big Basketball talk but were ultimately defeated by 9C and 9S. 9C were victorious, narrowly defeating 9S. Our Final round was in the game of table tennis. The table tennis tournament was a very even competition with strong performances from students from 9E, 9G, 9H and 9S. In the end 9S narrowly defeated 9G with 9E and 9H coming in joint third. Well done to all students in participating in each round and thank you to our wonderful teachers who assisted each week. A massive thank you to Mr Robson for organising such a fantastic competition for our students.
Celebration, competition and community remain the focus of our weekly year 9 assemblies. More tutor classes have taken up the challenge of running their own assemblies. 9J, 9S and 9C all ran fun and engaging assemblies for their cohort. We have seen some wonderful performances from many of our talented year 9s, from violins and guitars to singing. Well done and thank you to all that have performed over past few weeks. Student of the week has remained a key pillar to our assemblies with students being nominated for their investing and driving in their learning. Students of the week are as follows:
Week 3 – Lwel Moo of 9D for both a fantastic performance in multicultural week and also being nominated for continuing to produce excellent work and maintain her effort levels.
Week 4 - Artem Shevchuk of 9E for consistently nominated throughout the year for his excellent work ethic and effort across all subjects.
Week 5 – Stephany Williams of 9J for her superb contribution to the tutor challenge.
Week 6 – Isabelle Tippet of 9S for driving her learning with her great work ethic, participation and engagement.
Week 7 - Willow Madden, Tereza Moo Blow, Miyah Deveney and David Ler of 9S for leading the way in their STEM projects.
Week 8 – Feneti Ibrahim of 9H for her hard work in each of her classes and for investing in her learning.
Week 9 – Eh Gay of 9E for always driving her learning by trying her best, always polite and for always being willing to help other students
Well done to all students mentioned above, please keep up the great work in driving your learning in each of your classes.
The Tutor challenge is heating up for Term 3 with a close race to be run in the final week of term. The points are as below. 9E are determined to be back-to-back winners and 9S strive to be our first tutor class to be twice-crowned champions. This term has seen challenges include our tutor teachers competing on behalf of their respective tutor classes.
On to the final stretch that is term 4. I cannot believe how quickly this term has flown by.
Our Year 9s have continued to amaze and surprise as they continue to grow and learn.
Amelia Coster - Acting Year 9 Year Level Leader