Electives Wrap 

It's been a short but productive term of electives and by all accounts the students have thoroughly enjoyed them. The program can enable students to build knowledge and skills that provide a foundation for other school subjects, tertiary courses or career options. The middle years are a time for learning and exploring and therefore it is important for students throughout the year to choose from a variety of activities as this gives them an opportunity to broaden their experience.

Kitchen Garden

with John Collins & Sarah Alexandra

Kitchen Garden has  once again focused on ethical eating or “eating green”. The students enjoyed sourcing nutritious and delicious "green" recipes, which they cooked up each week. They have also been lucky enough to have one of our resident Science teachers, Sarah, to help take care of the kitchen garden crops which involved a total landscape makeover and a trip to Bunnings. Sarah will continue the garden challenge with John next term.

Photowalk

by Clare Coman

"Every Tuesday in Term One a small group of very keen amateur photographers walks around the streets of Kew photographing everything from beautifully textured older trees and footpaths to a variety of plants. The skills and talent these budding young photographers have shown speaks for itself through their breathtaking pictures. As we have discovered new streets and gardens, I have observed the discussions and friendships between the students develop along the way. Each student has compiled a ‘photo book’ as a keepsake.

Learning Partnerships Program: Doctors

by Fiona Martin

Drama teacher, Fiona Martin, who has had specialist training at The University of Melbourne for this, facilitated the Doctors Program in conjunction with Dr Anthea Rhodes. "I was very proud of the students who took part in this program. During the final workshop held at Preshil on Tuesday 14 March they were enthusiastic, polite and well versed. Feedback from the medical students and my co-facilitator was extremely positive." (You can read more about this elective on the Learning Partnerships Program page in this newsletter.) 

Mixed Media AV Club

by David Cobb

 In this elective students were able to select an area of Media that they were interested in and explore some creative work in that field. We had some Year 7 students who were introduced to filmmaking, and learned to plan, shoot and edit short films. They produced some really interesting, promising work that will be on show at PIFF later this year. Several groups of Year 10 boys continued to explore their interest in filmmaking and enjoyed undertaking short, humorous projects free from the formal requirements of a regular Media class. We also had two Year 9 students who showed a keen interest in photography and took some great pictures both here at school and off-campus during the term.

Fashion Illustration - Wool4Schools

with Jennie Spruch

This term our  budding young fashion designers were first inspired by Dutch fashion artists Viktor & Rolf and their very radical concept of wearable art. They took these inspirations back to the art room to produce some very well executed designs. They also got to make a visual representation of their ideas using miniature dollies. 

Philosophy

with Chris Dite

This elective got students thinking about how the robot threat is upon us. Are machines stealing our jobs? Is artificial intelligence threatening our chess champion status or is there an existential threat to our species as a whole? These are all serious predictions which have recently made headlines that had students enthralled. The students had many discussions about the rise of the robots and were very lucky to hear from guest experts in the field and visit the advanced IBM Research AI lab. (You can read more about this on the Philosophy page in this newsletter.) 

Fencing

by Pieter Leeuwenburgh

Students this term have been lucky enough to experience the Olympic sport of fencing. They learnt the basic skills of fencing, how to referee and score as well as the etiquette of the sport. Once learnt, students developed their own fencing strategies. Bouting occurred each week and in the final week students fenced electrically with the epee. If you are interested in taking more classes or joining a club you can contact Pieter direct on teapea@internode.on.net  or call 0403 320 817 (BH).

Basketball

with Adam Simon

Adam has been very busy getting the students to improve their ball-handling skills which are paramount during the game, with players rapidly switching between offensive and defensive play. 

Tennis

with Bill Madafferi

Each term the students really enjoy their tennis as they learn the various disciplines of the game and are challenged to improve their skills. Lessons are held at MCC Kew, next door to Preshil's Primary campus. You can contact Bill by email for further information about tennis lessons and holiday clinics: bill@tennismad.com.au  

Art Extension Group

by Michael Hawkins

Students in the Art extension group have been busy working on a variety of projects, including body painting, video (exploring notions of identity), ongoing claymation and stop motion that use the art room as their canvas, animated drawing/digital art and carving/woodcutting.

Ceramics

by Skye Gallagher

Students involved in this elective created a number of beautiful ceramic pieces. They had the opportunity to try out a range of different ceramic techniques and then focus on an area in which they were interested. The students got stuck in straight away learning various hand-building skills such as coil and slab pots, the joy and satisfying precision of slip-casting and the calming zen of wheel throwing! They learned the importance of being super gentle with un-fired  clay, why you don't glaze the bottom of a pot and not to worry as clay definitely comes out of clothes! Next term we will be exploring the exciting properties of porcelain and more new glazing techniques.