Year 9 News

Term 4 is almost over and our Year 9’s have been working hard to complete their CAT’s (common assessment tasks) over the last couple of weeks. With feedback week and award ceremonies all coming up quickly, we are powering towards HeadStart and getting ready for our Year 9’s to begin their 2024 Year 10 programs. We have also seen a massive increase in the number of green KPA’s (Kurnai Positive Acknowledgement) our students have been earning over the last couple of weeks. 

Our most recent week, saw the cohort collect almost 250 positive acknowledgements and over 100 KPA’s more than our weekly average. They are signs that our Year 9’s are working hard to have a successful end to the year.

HeadStart

Year 9s will be beginning their HeadStart program on Monday 4th December. This is a great opportunity for our students to begin their Year 10 program in 2023 and get an early start to next year’s learning, as well as meeting new staff, and in some cases, new class members. HeadStart will conclude with the Celebration Day at Gumbuya World on the 13th. 

Gumbuya World

Celebration Day at Gumbuya World will be taking place on 13th December.  Permission forms are available on Compass.  Please contact the General Office if you require a paper copy.

Awards

Congratulations to our year 9 Award recipients, who were celebrated in a ceremony on Wednesday.

Morrisby testing and interviews

Students have now completed their interviews, with almost the entire cohort being involved in the interview process, and have started to identify possible pathways for their future. We received extremely positive feedback from the interviewers, who reported that our students were amongst the politest and engaged participants they have worked with across Victoria. Our students were great representatives for the school and themselves, and have hopefully taken some great insights from this process to support them in the future.

Attendance

This week at the Year 9 assembly, we acknowledged the students who have shown a high level of attendance throughout this year. There are a lot of different things that happen in all of our day-to-day life that require us to be away from work/school and while we acknowledge this, I also believe it further demonstrates the extraordinary effort that our students have shown to maintain their consistent attendance at school. Well done to the students who were acknowledged at the recent assembly.

Bonus food for thought - A student who attends school 90% of the year misses approximately 22 days for the year. This equates to over 4 in school weeks of learning, which in most cases is just under half of a term of learning time. Every day away matters.

LBU acknowledgements

On Tuesday 21st of November students who received an LBU score above 3.5 were acknowledged with a hot chip reward lunch. Students were acknowledged for their consistent positive learning behaviours across all their subjects and had the chance to enjoy a hot lunch on a chilly day. Special mention to the group who stayed back to ensure none went to waste. 

It has been great to see students enjoy these reward lunches across the year, though these are only a small benefit for the effort they consistently put in. The real reward is the learning that they can achieve as a result of their consistent effort. Well done to those who have been able to do this for the most recent LBU’s and across the year.

Community Project

Over the past term, students from year 9 who attended the School for Student Leadership (SSL) have worked in a larger group to make their Community Project (CLP) as magnificent, effective, and memorable as possible. Throughout the duration of term 4, the Community Project elective class has dedicated their Monday double period every week this term to complete the second phase of the Community Project. 

The second phase of this project was to go to two local schools – Yinnar Primary School and Churchill North Primary School – to teach the 1/2 and 3/4 classes about leadership and why it’s so important; they did this through games that the students from the SSL had learnt while they were away and they also added in their own games to make it a bit more fun and memorable. They spent three Monday double periods at both schools teaching them about Respectful Relationships, Collaboration, Learning Strategies and Resilience as these concepts will benefit them the most in the future when faced with all kinds of challenges.

Now that their mission is finally over, it is time to let new students have a chance to do something just like this. I encourage you as a student who attended the SSL to give it your all, make all your actions from now until next year’s SSL Program wise, respectful and to the best of your abilities, the program is truly a once in a lifetime opportunity that changes your perspectives, attitudes and much more. I know that the year 8s have started their application process and to those who are applying I wish you the best, and I hope that whatever group of students do get selected have as much fun and take as much away from the program as I and the other past students did.

Claire Laing

Art

Students have been exploring the topic of mental health and creating informative artwork using a range of materials.

Concerns or queries

If you have any concerns or queries about any of the items mentioned above, Year 9 student matters, or just general inquiries, please do not hesitate to give the Year 9 team a call at (03) 5132 3700 or email Matthew.Suter@education.vic.gov.au

Matt Suter

Year 9 Team Leader