Head of Middle Years

Welcome everybody to our final Term of the year. It’s hard to imagine that we are moving toward the final weeks of the Term. Nonetheless, there are so many activities and events planned for this term!

Middle Years Exam Week

As you are aware, during Week 7 of this term, students across the Middle Years will participate in an Exam Week which will run from Monday 21 to Friday 25 November 2022. Students will attend school as per usual, and all exams will be scheduled throughout this week. 

Middle Year exams provide an opportunity for students to become familiar with year level-based assessments under timed test conditions. As they begin to prepare themselves for future years of learning, it is very important for students to develop the ability to handle such tasks, expectations, and experiences, and as educators, we understand that this is improved by repeated practice, with specific content-based purposes.

Tests and exams are an expected part of the assessment profile in secondary schooling at all levels. Examinations will be assessed according to MYP criteria as all assessment tasks have been this year. Examination results will form part of the overall grade your child receives in their end-of-year report. The examination result will not appear as a separate item on the report. 

As such, we request that you take this important event into consideration for planning purposes. 

Step-Up Week

We are looking forward to Week 8 of this Term, 28 November – 2 December, where students will commence their 2023 timetable. It is an opportunity for each Year Level to learn about, and be introduced to, their new subjects and expectations, as well as their new subject teacher and peers. The Step-Up week will also allow students to meet their New Pastoral Care teachers and classmates. 

Year 9 Community Project (CP) Market Day

There was a real buzz in the air during the Year 9 CP Market Day. Students prepared a variety of stalls with baked goods such as cakes and cookies, ice-cream, sausages, fairy floss as well as ice-cream sodas. Students had the opportunity to advertise and market their goods for the purpose of raising awareness of a charity/organisation as well as raising funds for a specific cause they were passionate about. Close to $1,000 was raised for a variety of worthy charities. We are looking forward to viewing the final CP presentation very soon. 

Students

Elena P was nominated for Wyndham’s Female Junior Coach of the Year for 2022. Out of nine nominees, she won and was awarded Junior Female Coach of the Year.

She has been coaching since the age of 9 with Good News Power Basketball Club. She continues to coach the same team of boys that are now in under 14’s. In her time coaching these boys, they have won 6 finals and have worked up the ladder to play A grade. 

Elena loves basketball, she not only coaches, she plays domestic basketball and has also recently been named to play representative basketball for the U18’s Wyndham Basketball Association. Along with all that, she now also referees at the stadium! 

Congratulations to Tahnee H from Year 7 who the represented our College recently at state level, for the School Sports Victoria (SSV) Track and Field competition in the U12/13 girls 200m sprint. The competition was extremely competitive at this event with Tahnee achieving 6th position overall. What a spectacular achievement.

Congratulations to Callum W who was chosen for the Victorian squad from Under 13 Hockey boys around Victoria to compete in the National Under 13's Hockey Competition in Hobart over the holidays.  

Two teams of 15 players were taken to Hobart from Victoria. The competition was furious, and Callum's team was the development team who came 11 and the other team from Victoria won the competition.

Express Yourself

Students from Years 6 & 7 attended the interactive “Express Yourself” Rap/Hip-Hop Performance - an initiative of the Victorian Department of Education’s Positive Start 2022 program.  Selected students had the opportunity to get up and take part in the freestyling, beat-making, & turntabling activities.

The presenters, Mantra & DJ Sizzle, ‘told their story’, through some of the performance elements of Hip-Hop, such as MC’ing, DJ’ing and Turntablism, Rhyming, and Performing.  Obviously, there’s a whole lot more out there to know and talk about like Breaking, Graffiti Art & Sampling, and students may look forward to working on this in future Music classes.

And, judging by the many happy faces in the room, students may now be further inspired to explore more of the music and culture of rap and hip hop.