Junior School

Year 8 Wellbeing Days

As noted in our last newsletter, all of our Year 8 students attended a Wellbeing Day at EV’s in Croydon last month. One of the participants, Jessica Suares had this to share about her experience:

From the 24-26th of July, all of the Year Eight students travelled to EV’s Youth Centre in Croydon for the day to participate in REL8, a wellbeing excursion. On these days, the Year Eights were involved in three activities: a boot camp, a session on Respectful Relationships, and a session on Sexting, Cyber Bullying and the Law.

The boot camp session was conducted by a personal trainer at Aquahub. In this session, we did many exercises so we could see how physical activity can impact our mental health. The Respectful Relationships session was conducted by Relationships Australia. In this session, we witnessed a presentation called ‘I Like, Like You’ and we learned about what a respectful relationship is and what goes into making a relationship respectful. The session on Sexting, Cyber Bullying and the Law was conducted by Legal Aid Ringwood. In this session, we learnt about what has to happen to make sexting illegal and under which circumstances sexting is legal. We also touched on cyber bullying and how the law can affect this issue. I think all of the Year Eights enjoyed this excursion a lot and we all learnt something new that we will take into the future.

Year 7 Incursion ‘The Hurting Game’

As part of the ongoing transition program, all year 7 students watched a performance of "The Hurting Game" by Brainstorm productions. The play encouraged students to consider how ongoing negative relationships at school and online can affect their self-esteem and their future. Students were clearly engaged in the performance which ran in the last session of the day and made a nice way to end their shortened week.

Junior School Awards

On Wednesday 1st of August we celebrated the academic achievement of over 100 of our Year 7 and 8s. Students who earned a High Distinction or Distinction in all but one of their subjects were honoured for their endeavour at our bi -annual Awards assembly. It was delightful to see so many parents and grandparents supporting their children and grandchildren and enjoying the delicious afternoon tea which followed the awards ceremony. Thanks to conductors Dane Sorenson and Elizabeth Nicholls and the beautiful performances of their amazing Training and Junior Stage bands.

Dance unit in Physical Education

Over the last two weeks our Junior School students have been doing a unit of dance in their Physical Education classes. Some groups have been mixing with the Year 10s to learn a variety of new dances, both traditional and modern. Most enjoyed the opportunity to work with a variety of their classmates and especially the chance to choreograph their own hip hop dance routine.

Junior School Assemblies

Year 7 students did some thinking about the importance of goal setting in their most recent assembly. Miss Friend provided some useful information about identifying goals and shared valuable tips for ensuring that students stay motivated and organised enough to accomplish them. Students wrote their goals on sticky notes which they placed on our communal white board as a shared reminder.

In their most recent assembly, Year 8s were informed about the process for subject selection for Year 9. Head of Middle School, Mr. Tucker spoke with the cohort about how to access the Middle School Course selection handbook and what was required in making their subject selections for next year. This booklet can be downloaded at: https://www.ringwoodsc.vic.edu.au/files/file/Middle_School_Course_Seletion_Handbook_-_2019.pdf

Please note that subject selections have to made on-line via the following link: http://www.ringwoodsc.vic.edu.au/middle-school-course-selection

Once this is completed students will receive a hard copy confirmation sheet to be signed by their parent or guardian and this form is due no later than the 25th of August.

Monitoring iPad usage

Parents sometimes ask us for advice on how they can monitor their child’s screen time on iPads outside of school hours. The new iOS 12 software update offers tools to help you and your child better understand and control the time they spend with apps and websites. Screen Time creates detailed daily and weekly Activity Reports that show the total you’re your child spends in each app they use, their usage across categories of apps, how many notifications they receive and how often they pick up their iPhone or iPad.   By understanding how your child interacts with their iOS devices, you can take control of how much time they spend in a particular app, website or category of apps. The App Limits feature allows you to set a specific amount of time to be in an app, and sends users a notification when a time limit is about to expire. More information can be found at: https://www.apple.com/au/newsroom/2018/06/ios-12-introduces-new-features-to-reduce-interruptions-and-manage-screen-time/