News from the Year 9 Team

Year 9 this year has been given a different space to previous years – the Sheehan Wing. Students have made a really positive start to the year in this ‘new’ area. The Year 9 students’ program this year will include a semester of Applied Learning, which looks at life beyond school and also a semester of Health, which will focus on some strategies to safely navigate through the challenging years of being a teenager. 

Teachers of Year 9 classes have reported that the vast majority of the students are responding really positively in both their core classes of English, Mathematics, Science, Humanities and PE along with enthusiastically engaging in their elective classes. One of the great opportunities that Year 9 students have this Term in their Learning and Wellbeing classes is a ‘Morrisby’ questionnaire which is aimed at helping students to identify their areas of interest and what potential career directions might suit them. 

In Term 2, all Year 9 students will have a one-on-one interview with a Careers Specialist to talk about what careers/pathways the Morrisby questionnaire highlighted they might be interested in. This will also be really helpful for our students leading into Course Counselling and Subject Selections early in Term 3. 

Even though we will not have NAPLAN data for a number of months, all parents and carers can be really proud of the way that all Year 9 students who sat NAPLAN approached the tests. Our Year 9 students were at the test venue on-time and behaved in an exemplary manner before, during and after the tests. All of our Year 9 students can be very proud of taking collective responsibility during their last ever NAPLAN tests!

Finally, it is important to acknowledge our amazing Team Leaders, Kelly Wade and Lachlan Marr who have worked tirelessly to ensure a smooth start to the year for our Year 9 students. 

We hope our students, their families/carers and our staff have a restful break over the Term 1 holidays.

Tim Davey: Assistant Principal Years 9 & 10

Tom Arnold: Sub-School Leader Years 9 & 10