Year 9 City School
From May 14th to 16th, our Year 9 students took part in the annual City School program—an immersive three-day experience designed to foster independence and learning beyond the traditional classroom. Students embraced a variety of activities, including producing their own radio show at SYNFM, gaining insights into homelessness through a visit to The Big Issue headquarters, and exploring First Nations histories and cultures with an Uncle at the Royal Botanic Gardens. Other highlights included taking in panoramic views from the Eureka Skydeck and enjoying an immersive 3D film experience at IMAX.
On Thursday afternoon, students chose from one of four exciting electives: meeting an Olympian at the MCG, exploring creativity at the NGV, making music at the Arts Centre, or tackling STEM challenges at RMIT. We are incredibly proud of how our students conducted themselves throughout the program and hope they found these experiences memorable.
Ms Shields and Mr McDowell
Student reflection
Our highlights from City School were the Old Melbourne GAOL, SYN FM, and the Royal Botanical Gardens. At the Old Melbourne GAOL, we got such a good tour guide called Troy. Troy was able to connect with our class and make the GAOL tour have so much laughter and fun. He made the tour enjoyable as well as being very educational and informative. We learnt a lot about the people who went to jail, like Ned Kelly, the areas of the jail and why they were important to the structure of the building. We also learnt about the different punishments men and women would receive throughout their time in jail. Near the end of the tour, we got to get into groups and explore some of the cells that the GAOL had. In these cells, there would be facts and artifacts like guns, clay faces of past prisoners and armour.
During our time in the city, we stopped by the Royal Botanical Gardens, where two of the year 9 classes met to explore and learn about the lands around us. Whilst on the first tour, we learnt about native Australian plants and we got to eat different ones, for example, lomandra. We could only chew on the bottom of one of the leaves, which causes people's bodies to create more saliva to stop them from hallucinating during long periods without water. Our guide then showed us a type of grass called snake grass that can create a bird-like whistle that Aboriginal children used to use when they were in danger. We also learnt about how Aboriginal people receive possum skins with a meaningful artwork every year on their birthday to then create a cloak that tells the story of who they are. On our second tour, we learnt how to weave using dried lomandra to make the start of an eel trap. Eel traps were made in a specific way so that only full-grown eels get caught, and the younger ones and other fish can escape. This experience was very fun and educational, and has taught us lots of things about the lands around us.
During day 3 of the City School Program, we visited the RMIT University at its campus in the city. At RMIT, we were taken to their recording studios and told we were making our own radio episode as a class. We learnt about what makes a good radio show, and what things can and can’t be included on the ‘Schools on air’ program. We then split off into groups to brainstorm ideas for our radio segments. From there, the class supported each other as we listened to our classmates record their segments for the episode.
Alkira Nelson and Amelie Heron 9G
