Middle School 

Middle School Snapshot 

Koonung has numerous clubs and lunchtime activities for students to join. Many students are already active in these groups and others are starting new ones. A group of Year 8 students will be starting a breakfast club next term, whilst other brave Middle Years students have joined Koonung Equality Collective. Three Year 7 students joined this club because they thought it sounded fun and interesting. According to these three Year 7 students a club like this is important so that we have social justice at our school and inequalities can be resolved. Similarly, another student from 7E has already been an active member of the SRC.  For her, the SRC is fun, but also an opportunity to be part of the school and work towards a cause such the World’s Greatest Shave.

Two Year 7 students are in the school choir. They joined because they love singing and the challenge of singing in a group, but they thought it was also a good way to make new friends. At the moment they are learning a Portuguese song and they’re finding it fun to harmonise with others. Two year 7 boys have put together a team for Hoop Time.  Their love of basketball has brought them together and they think it will be fun to play against teachers and older students. They also play at others times like at recess and lunchtime, and have already beaten the Year 8 and Year 9 teams.

It is so fantastic to see students making the most of their time at Koonung and actively being part of the school community.

Middle Years School Captains are currently being elected after a thorough process of nominees applying in writing, giving speeches at a Year 9 Assembly last week and an interview with a teacher panel.  All speeches given by the nominees at the assembly were excellent. The two captains and two vice captains will be announced at the Year 9 Assembly on the last week of term one. Congratulations to all nominees for their applications so far.

As term one comes to an end the Year 9 students are finishing the first of four Live Life modules: Community, Group, Life, Self. ‘Community’ students are completing their reflections on their community placement (such as Salvation Army Café, Uniting Aged Care). Twenty ‘Self’ students completed the overnight camping and surf camp to Point Leo Foreshore Reserve last Tuesday and Wednesday. ‘Group’ students are presenting the project they created and experientially worked on with their peers throughout the term, and ‘Life’ students are wrapping up their life skills (budgeting, tax file numbers, etc) unit this week.  All students should now have their student-designed Live Life t-shirts (t-shirts finally arrived two weeks ago) to wear on all excursions and outings on Wednesdays.

Darren Marsh

Director of Learning, Middle Years Subschool

Live Life Program

Live Life – Community Module

Scope is a company based around helping people with disabilities, who gave us an amazing opportunity in the first week of the module to help others less fortunate that us. We went ice-skating with their clients, which was really fun as we got to talk to and skate around with these lovely people. It was perfect timing to go skating as well, as the winter Olympics were on at the time. Although introducing yourself to the participants was a bit daunting at first, by the end of the session we were all really comfortable to approach them and join them for a skate. This experienced also taught us to never ‘judge a book by its cover’ as the people we met were really inspiring and had some remarkable stories.

For the rest of the term, everybody (in pairs) had a placement at different community organisations such as kindergartens, primary schools and aged care facilities. We chose to do the Aged Care as we thought this would give us a good time to talk and share stories with the residents.

Our placement with at Uniting Aged Care in Thames Street, Box Hill, and we thoroughly enjoyed it. Both the staff and residents were very friendly and enjoyable to talk to, and of course were happy to have a laugh with them. The residents’ astonishing stories blew our minds , such as their tales from across the world. From journeys in Hungary and northern England, to teaching students in New Zealand, each resident had their own history and stories to tell. Each week we also played games with the residents to help with memory and mental ability, which was enjoyable, and very rewarding. The time we spent there really changed us and helped us to become more thoughtful people and to help people in need. Overall we had a blast at our placement, and certainly looked forward to seeing the residents each and every Wednesday.

We would really recommend choosing Aged Care, for students who will experience the incredible Live Life community module in the coming terms. The people we met were full of joy when they saw us arriving and at the end of the session, they always said that they looked forward to next time, which was a very warming feeling as we knew that we were doing a good thing towards the community and also for ourselves as a people.

Michael Thomson and Richard Xu,

Year 9 students