Junior School News

Year 7 News

Rawson Village Camp 

Term 1 has been an exciting time of transition for our Year 7 community, that is, students, families and staff. Our dedicated and caring staff have worked collaboratively to ensure that our students have matured into high school and accepted opportunities to Get Organised, Get Involved and Get Focused. The teaching staff are pleased to see how quickly students change into independent students full of curiosity and ready to step outside their comfort zone. 

 

This was especially so with the success of the Rawson Village Year 7 Camp. Students forged new friendships by working together in teams and developing personal confidence through a range of activities designed to excite and challenge them. The little sleepy town of Rawson was a wonderful retreat away from technology and the hustle and bustle of school that enabled most students to step outside their comfort zone and develop confidence and resilience.

 

 

Note to parents

After 10 weeks of adapting to planners, timetables, lockers and new classrooms to learn new skills and knowledge, in addition to immersing themselves into the vast opportunities GEC offers, such as clubs, sport, music, competitions, swimming and much more, it’s time to reflect upon how families can support their child’s learning trajectory. Research shows that placing the student’s learning at the centre of all discussions and actions when working together with our educational community, especially families, ensures a safe and happy environment for learning. 

 

Here are some thoughts to consider as we regroup towards Term 2:

 

Healthy food for recess and lunch

Our five period timetable and one hour lessons requires healthy fuel for students to concentrate and learn. A lunch box packed with fresh fruit, vegetables and a healthy lunch allows energy to think right up to the end of the day. Remember, students are involved in physical activities and they burn energy quickly so we need to replenish their body to ensure they are can continue to learn in the classroom. 

 

A drink bottle is necessary to keep hydrated in and out the classroom. Having 25 students in a classroom raises the temperature and students need to drink water throughout the day to stay hydrated. By period five students are exhausted if they have had no water and it is difficult for everyone to learn when dehydrated. Please support your child’s learning by including a water bottle along with healthy food for the whole day.

 

Planners and uniform

Being organised for high school includes the effective use of the daily planner. Completing the week’s subjects so students can document homework and other commitments allows students to know what is required daily and weekly which in turn reduces any stress and develops an effective learning student. Please check planners with your child so that we are all on the same page and modelling good practices.

 

 

If you are unaware of the school uniform, check out page 14 of the student planner. Wearing the correct uniform is a requirement of attending school and develops a sense of identity, pride and equality across all students. Please contact the school if you have any questions around school uniform and we will help you out.

 

As we head towards the conclusion of Term 1 and reflect on the changes and growth of our school community we take this opportunity to congratulate everyone for a job well done. 

 

Thank you to all parents by supporting their child and by extension the school to achieve a smooth transition after a very difficult year in 2020. Students are building new knowledge, skills, resilience and voice as a foundation to maturity and success. This is not possible without the support and involvement of our fabulous parents, the commitment and care of teachers and staff and of course, the enthusiasm and focus on learning by our wonderful students. There is always a lot going on at school so, congratulations and thank you for a great start to the 2021 academic year. We look forward to new challenges and great celebrations in Term 2.

 

Deborah Cordingley and Jake Sherman

Year 7 Coordinators

 

Year 8 News

On Friday 19th March, Year 8 students participated in the Term 1 interschool sports competition. Congratulations to all students who got involved in the tennis, cricket, softball, volleyball and lawn bowls. Our students represented our college with pride! Well done. 

 

This term we welcomed our new Year 8 coordinator, Mr Zuccala and we couldn't be more grateful for all the support he is giving our Year 8 students already. We have been busy doing lots of planning behind the scenes for our Year 8 camp coming up in Term 4. Watch this space!! As term 1 comes to a close, we wish you all a safe and happy term break.

 

Jess Ballingall and Chris Zuccala

Year 8 Coordinators 

 

Year 8 Interschool Sports

It was a great pleasure to take the Year 8 boys out to cricket for the Interschool Sports Day. The 12 boys taken were a great team led by their fantastic Captain Adi Reddycharla and Assistant Captain Zander Jason. All boys represented Glen Eira College very well with their excellent behaviour, sportsmanship and outstanding play. They won their three games, GEC V Albert Park 85 to 12, GEC V Prahran 90 to 18 and the grand final GEC V Yavneh 60 to 29.

 

The team is listed below:

Nathan Loyer

Angus Laing

Mack O'Keeffe

Zander Jason

Joshua Datt

Adi Reddycharla

Param Dave

Lachlan Newby

Luca Nicolo

Sean Burke

Ben Fluxman

Salil Gudup

 

Sue Rio

Food Technology Teacher

 

Year 8 Boys Cricket
Year 8 Boys Cricket

 

Well done Year 9

It is almost the end of term 1, with many success stories to celebrate from progress reports and a huge amount of participation by Year 9s in the school extracurricular activities such as - Netball, Maths Poster-making Competition, Celebrating Pi day etc. We are proud of everyone and how you all are showing your initiative by Seizing Opportunities, which is our key focus for this year.  Well done everyone! 

 

There are many more events planned for the upcoming terms, so we encourage you all to keep signing up for new clubs at lunchtime or extracurricular activities according to your interests at school for new adventures and new learning.

 

We celebrated Cultural Diversity Week last week. This year's theme was “Everybody Belongs”. We enjoyed seeing students wearing their cultural outfits or an orange colour outfit on 26th March as the casual dress day of Term 1. We believe this is one of the best times of the year where everyone can feel proud of their cultural heritage and share their history and feelings. Also the breakfast club had an exciting Japanese breakfast on Monday, French breakfast on Wednesday and Indian breakfast on Friday.

 

We hope all parents were able to watch the recording of the Year 9 Parent Information night session held online this term. As mentioned in this session, progress reports are the indicator of how students are performing on a daily basis at school. Term 1 progress reports are available on XUNO and indicate the key aspects of a student’s learning such as Quality of Work, Level of Effort, Classroom Participation, Classroom Behaviour and Overall Progress in each subject based on their Assessment Tasks and daily work (which includes classwork and homework).

 

We are very thankful to all the parents for their ongoing support, to enable teachers to get the best of every child at school. We are asking for more support again from parents to establish a study routine and sleeping routine at home so we can get everybody’s attendance rate above 95% as expected by the Department of Education. 

 

We would also like to clarify with parents that students are required to purchase textbooks including hard copy and/or digital as per booklist. Schools only fund these resources under certain established criteria like- financial hardship etc. Please speak to the Administration office for more information.

 

This year our second focus for Year 9 will be to develop their organisation skills by guiding them how to use their school diary/planners effectively. We expect all students to carry a school diary/planner to every class and take it home every day so they can also learn from parents/guardians how to prioritise their tasks and complete them by due date along with the advice from their teacher. This will also make parents aware of any upcoming assessment/task to assist their child and guide them on how to set up a study/sleep routine to get assessments/homework done on time. We cannot be more proud to see how many students are already doing this well but we want to ensure that every student feels successful. 

 

We are also proud to see how many Year 9s are respecting school uniform policy by wearing correct items and bringing a note from home in case of emergency situations. We still need more support from parents with jewellery items and nail polish at this time. Please check our school uniform policy for more information as no nail paint is allowed, no dangling earrings are allowed and only 2 pairs of studs or sleeper are permitted.

 

Lastly, Parent Teacher interviews are on 30th March 11:25am - 7pm and bookings close on XUNO at 9am on Tuesday 30th March. Remember, there are no scheduled classes for this day. On 1st April, we have Cross Country and students will be dismissed at 2:30pm on this day.

 

We wish all our students happy and safe Term 1 break.

 

Parminder Kaur and Sasha Byrnes

Year 9 Coordinators