Year Seven News

Welcome back to Term 2

Term 2 is upon us and the students have returned with great gusto, ready to learn. During our first assembly, we unpacked the Year 7-9 uniform policy which incorporates two capsules (Academic and Sport). This is available to families via our school website and has also been emailed out to all primary caregivers. If you need to clarify any items or points mentioned in the policy, please contact Ms O'Connor at sarah.oconnor2@education.vic.gov.au. 

NAPLAN weeks are fast approaching and the students are focusing on consolidating,  revising,  and extending their capabilities and content knowledge at their own personal level. We would like to acknowledge all their efforts in the lead up to this week and wish them all the best on the testing days. 

Kind regards,

Year Seven Team

English & Humanities

To begin this term, English and Humanities lessons have focused on preparation for NAPLAN. Our students have engaged in activities designed to develop skills and strategies to interpret the tests in Reading, Writing and Language Conventions. Students have spent time unpacking each test, looking at previous years as examples of wording, layout, and test organisation in preparation for their test in week 3. The English team consisting of Mrs Morison, Mrs Tolfo, Ms O’Connor, and Mrs Ryan have all worked with students at their point of need during these first two weeks of term; students have been grouped for Reading and Writing, working across classes, and allocated to teachers to target their learning needs. Students have participated in activities in these groups that focused on interpreting questions, inferring information, using the text to support comprehension answers, generating ideas, development of sentence structure and how to link information together to form a cohesive text.

On the completion of NAPLAN in week three, students will begin to undertake their next unit of work across both English and Humanities. In English we will begin our novel study on the text ‘Dry: What will you do when the taps run dry?’. This text links directly to our Humanities inquiry into Geological history, drought, land change, and will focus on answering the question ‘what happens to civilisations when they lose access to a useable water source?’ We look forward to seeing where this unit will take our Year Seven students.

Coding and Robotics

In the final week of Term One, our first group of Year Seven Coding students completed the Introduction to Coding course. Participating the CS in Schools computer science program, Year Sevens at Saltwater College learn the Python coding language.

Our partnership with CS in Schools also connected us with Anton Wintergerst, a software designer, who spoke to students about his career over Webex. We heard how he had worked on several projects including websites, virtual reality and game design for companies including Seek.com, RealEstate.com and Cadbury.

We now welcome a new group of Year Seven students to coding class. Students have learned to display text on the screen and are already writing programs that respond to user input.

In a separate initiative, students seeking extension in Robotics and Coding are now able to borrow school equipment and work through self-paced project modules. Students can learn about electronics, Arduino and coding using microcontrollers, breadboards and a range of components. Equipment is organised into kits complete with project booklets. Students will need a computer with internet access to work through the activities at home. Sequences of modules lead to Beginner and Advanced Arduino certificates recognising student achievement. Please see Ms Fowler if you are interested in this opportunity.

Music

What a fantastic start to Term Two Music. Our Year Seven Music students have been exploring the various Periods of Music (Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic and Modern) and testing the concept that Music is influenced by society.  

In their inquiry, the students considered what was happening within various areas of society at the time the composer created the musical piece.  These areas included government, religion, fashion, visual arts, available instruments, and other world events.

It is wonderful to see our Term Two Music Elective students settle into the safe and creative environment of music.  Each student is demonstrating a reflective and respectful approach to music, accepting that others have differing views, and exploring how music evokes these diversities within their approach to thinking and wonderings.

Food Technology

The end of last term saw the first round of Year 7 students completing their unit of Food Technology. Students were tasked with creating a proposal for the school canteen of a cookie that could potentially be sold for Saltwater students to purchase. Students had to write the recipe, create a scaled-up recipe for a commercial batch of cookies, and complete a cost analysis for how much the cookies would cost to make and how much to sell them for in order to make a profit.

Some of the proposals included shortbread, salted caramel, fortune cookies, red velvet and kinder bueno cookies amongst others. The Year 7 students did a great job with their test batches of cookies and it was a great way to wrap up the term.

This term’s Year 7 group started this week and I can’t wait to see what they cook up in the coming weeks!

Wood Technology

So far this Term, Year Seven Wood Technology students have been exploring health and safety in the Wood Tech room. We have identified what hazards or risks are prevalent on the Wood Tech room, considered how serious injuries could occur and how we can minimise these injuries by removing the hazards.

The students have also begun learning about various hand saws, in particular the Tenon Saw and how to operate them correctly and safely. In the coming weeks, the students will begin learning about other types of woodworking hand tools such as the Claw Hammer and Bevelled Edge Chisel and practice using them safely.

The classes are all excited to begin using these tools and, for some, experiencing them for the first time.

Dance

The Year Seven students are off to a flying start tackling all that has been put before them with such a positive mindset and attitude. The first week began with setting out our outlook on what's ahead combined with the right tools and focus needed to achieve it. A full intense stretch and warm up starts off their classes taking them on a more in depth look at other ways to prepare and warm the body up before any physical activity. This helped students reflect on how to better look after  and conditions their body's when playing sports to gain maximum benefit with minimum risk or injury.                                                                                                    

We worked on certain grooves and flowing movements to help release the body, learning how to let go and be a lot more free and loose while maintaining control and execution in the choreography. This covered range of movement, contrast and light and shade in the steps provided, but also trying to balance out the energy without overdoing it.                              We started working with chairs as props in week two teaching the students how to work with various elements other than their body's. This opened up their minds to making props an extension of their body's while maintaining the choreography, control, musicality, and the order of what's provided. This also taught the students about accountability, ownership and how to trust themselves more so, than following others or at any given point. They were awesome classes with amazing positive energy throughout with so much learnt in such a short time already!