Year 7 News

What a magnificent start to the year we have had so far! The students have settled into secondary school life exceptionally well and have quickly adapted to changing classes, using lockers, moving around the school and of course spending big at the KPA shop. 

We have had a busy start and want to thank all the families for their support with both the Welcome BBQ, and the Tech School Excursion. We recognise extra things can take time and present challenges and we do appreciate the contributions you make to our school community. 

Year 7 Team

A big welcome to the 2025 Year 7 team, both continuing and new!

This year, the team consists of:

Erin Gruis: Team Leader

Russell White

Rachel Dodd

Jack Hallson

Kayleigh O'Neill

Chris Gretton

Jane Webber

Isabelle Lynch-Berends

Resilience and Relationships 

This year, we have partnered with the “Resilience Project” to deliver the mandatory Respectful Relationships element of the curriculum. These past few weeks we have been focusing on emotional literacy at year 7 with some fun activities including Tiny Teddies and Emoji Celebrity Heads. The students have all been gifted a 12-month journal to support their “healthy habit” tracking and help get organised at school. 

Student Leaders

We had more than 20 students nominated for Year 7 Student Leaders, and the cohort participated in a blind vote of their nominees. I would like to extend a congratulations to: Hudson Harris, Quade Jobling, Liam Butchers, Bella Watson and Anabell Riddle who are excited to represent the year 7 cohort. Our student leaders play an important part throughout the year and will be expected to support our transition program throughout the year, including Primary School visits and awareness day as well as contributing to the School Representative Council (SRC) and the newsletter!

Year 7 School Recap 

Before I started high school, I was excited and a little bit nervous. On our first day we were the only year level at school which was good because I didn’t have my brother annoying me. All the teachers were supportive and helped me find my classes. Over the first week, I managed to quickly get the hang of my subjects and where they were, I made new friends, and I learnt a lot of new things. My favourite subjects are art and math. I have Miss Lee for art, and I love that we get to be creative and use our own perspective to make projects. I have Mr. Kimpton for math’s, and we do fun interactive things like math online. I like high school better than primary school, because we get to express ourselves more and there’s a lot more things to do. I’m really looking forward to doing instrumental music this term and I am excited to be a student leader this year and get to help on awareness day and other extra activities. 

– Bella Watson

Tech School Excursion

Thie week, the Year 7s traveled to Morwell for their first school excursion. The Gippsland Tech School is a high-tech learning environment, with innovative education programs linked with local industry delivering real-world learning to students. Kurnai College utilises the resources and specialised programs offered by the Tech School throughout the year, and the Year 7 students will have the opportunity to participate in a number of different programs during their schooling years at Kurnai College.

The students particpated in the ‘Introduction to Sports Science’ program which provides an introduction to new technologies relating to sport and exercise and increase awareness of careers in Sports Science. 

Tuesday and Wednesday of week 4, all the year 7s went to the Tech School in Morwell. We all got split up in 3 groups and did rotations, one of them was with Dan he taught us about how virtual reality can be used for fitness, we simulated skiing using VR. In the other rotations we put on a wrist band that tracked our heartrate. Once we put the wrist band on, we used fitness machine like the treadmill and others. The highest heartrate was 170 after that we went with Phil and built the program of a Fitbit so every time, we took a step the number on the micro-bit would count and once you reached ten it would beep and celebrate. My personal favourite was the heartrate rotation. 

– Hudson Harris

Family BBQ

Last Wednesday, the year 7’s had a barbeque. It began at 5:30 PM and finished an hour and a half later at 7 PM. We had free sausages, burgers and drinks. It was a fun time to have a chat and catch up with friends, and an excellent opportunity for parents to meet all their child’s teachers. Many of us played cricket, which was very enjoyable. There were also games run by the advocates and staff outside of the year 7 building. The Kurnai Band were playing wonderful music throughout the night. My personal highlight would have to be the Paula’s excellent food. Overall, everybody enjoyed the night from the games to the music it was amazing. 

– Quade Jobling

Upcoming Events

In week 7, students will be attending their first College Athletics day. College Athletics will be held at Joe Carmody Reserve in Moe, there is no cost for this event and is an opportunity, not only for those athletic students to showcase their skills, but also all students can participate in fun activities such as the egg and spoon race and water balloon toss. Students are NOT required to wear their school uniform and are encouraged to dress up and in their house colours. If your child is not sure which house colour, they are in they can check this on COMPASS in their profile. 

KPA's and Behaviours

The year 7’s were trying to beat the KPA record set by 2024 year 7’s. The target for the first 4 weeks was 1,100. 

The students have absolutely exceeded all expectations with a whopping 2,368 KPA’s by the end of week 3. We will celebrate as a cohort their achievements in week 5.

A special shout out to not only the highest KPA receivers in year 7 but also for the whole campus!

Xavier Middlebrook

Kenzie Savage

Abigail Bailey

Isla Godfrey

Patrick Price

Vienna Moss

Seth McCausland

Liam Butchers

Annika Alda

Learning Behaviour Updates

Teachers are currently completing students first Learning Behaviour Updates. These are valuable assessments that allow parents to check in on how students are performing in the classroom. Learning Behaviour Updates are published on COMPASS and you will receive a notification when they are published, these are not a reflection of academic achievement but based entirely on learning dispositions. 

Contact Details 

If you have any concerns regarding Year 7 students, please don’t hesitate to contact me at (03) 5165 0600 or Erin.Gruis@education.vic.gov.au 

Erin Gruis

Tear 7 Team Leader