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eSafety Commissioner webinars for parents and carers 2022

The eSafety Commissioner has released their 2022 webinar series for parents and carers to develop knowledge, skills and tools to support young people to have safe online experiences. Term 1 topics include:

Parent guide to helping kids thrive online: Offers tips about how to support young people to socialise, learn and have fun online safely. It is designed for parents and carers of young people aged 5-12 years old.

Parent guide to cyberbullying and online drama: Provides you with the tools to support young people to have safe and respectful online relationships. It will also offer advice about when things go wrong. It is designed for parents and carers of young people aged 11-18 years old. 

Future topics include:

May- Parental controls

June- Online Gaming

August- Popular apps

September- Online sexual harassment and image-based bullying

October- Digital technologies and mental health

November- Guide to the holidays

Please see eSafety Commissioner website for the 2022 schedule and ho to book online- https://www.esafety.gov.au/parents/webinars

Kyling Dorsett (Mental Health Practitioner - Acacia Campus)

Love was all around Keysborough College as both campuses celebrated Valentine’s Day/Week. 

This was the first opportunity all our student voice leaders were able to come together to plan, troubleshoot and deliver hundreds of roses along with photo booths and karaoke along with an out of uniform day with the colour red/pink theme to celebrate love, friendship and inclusion. 

Thanks to Danny’s flowers who was able to deliver hundreds of roses to both campuses in quick time and then it was our students' turn to label, deliver and in some cases re-deliver roses throughout the campuses. This was a mammoth task to undertake and the student voice leaders stepped up and worked hard to make the week successful and heart- warming. Students enjoyed music on the lawn, and it was a real party atmosphere and the weather was just as kind.

Both campuses raised money for their chosen charities with Banksia choosing State School Relief and Acacia choosing Heart Kids.

I would like to take this opportunity to recognise and congratulate our student voice leaders for their hard work and contributions along with other staff members who have supported this by purchasing roses and assisting myself and Fiona to make this a special week for all.

 Amber Cron & Fiona Chamley

As we are all well aware, the 14th of February was Valentine’s Day and the Keysborough College Student Voice team put together a bunch of Valentine’s Day activities including a photo booth, karaoke, and sweet shop. What a refreshing burst of interaction during these covid-ridden times but I hope you all kept a decent distance from others and wore your masks. I’d also like to thank the Student Voice team on behalf of the Keysborough Chronicle news crew for giving us something awesome to write about.

As I walked around, taking photos for the Keysborough Chronicle, many groups were quite shy, preferring their friends to jump in the spotlight instead of themselves and many made interesting poses! It was good fun seeing how different people take group photos, they all came out wonderfully. At some point there were some young ladies slow dancing in front of the senior building, honestly, this was my favourite photo opportunity. Which photos were your favourites? And to those that might have wanted a photo in the newsletter, I’m sorry, maybe we’ll catch you next time. 

Elena Mitrevska

Year 7 Induction Week

Hello everyone,

My name is Wayne and I’m here to tell you about my first week at Keysborough Secondary school.

I was a year 6 going into secondary school and I was nervous! I was thinking about the homework and making new friends which really scared me, but the teachers reassured me that everything would be just fine. They gave us a booklet with all of the classes for that week and I was freaking out. “I don’t know how to read this”! I thought to myself. The teachers went over the booklet and how to read it, which was helpful. Then they brought us into a room where they gave us our IPads and here’s a tip, make sure to order your IPad as soon as they give you a chance to because I had to wait 2 weeks before mine came.

Also in that class we learnt how to use our IPads and which apps to download. The teachers walked us through it and it was a great time in general.

Now let me talk about my friends. I met them on the first day of school when we were in class. They all went to the school that I used to go to so we all got along but one of my friends didn’t go to the same school. I met him when we were getting to know people in our class and me and Robin (which is my friends name) were pared together. After chatting for a while we saw how many similar things we had in common and became friends from there.

The next few days were about the same, go to class, learn more about the IPads, do other classes like science, gym, math and humanities. But one class was different. And that class was when we got our lockers!

For the few days we were there without lockers we would carry around heavy bags with all of are books in them which was very irritating for most. But when we got our lockers we were all beaming with joy! The teacher gave us all a combination lock and a code. Then he told us to open it. But that was easier said then done. You could here the clicking of metal and the frustration of the students. It took around 10 minutes for someone to open the lock. After that it gave us the motivation to keep on going. After a while everyone got it. It was really satisfying to here all the locks opening together, just like music. We all felt great when we got our own lockers and put our bags down. Just make sure to get them when school is over. The only problem is that it is very cramped where the lockers are so you might be late to class because some people were taking too long and it wasn’t even your fault. But besides that the lockers are really nice to have.

Here is one more tip before I go, make sure to ask teachers where to go if you don’t know where the room is. I had a class in a place I didn’t know where it was so I asked a teacher who showed me where it was. Turned out that more then half the class was lost so a teacher had to go and round them up to bring them to class.

And that was how my first week of Secondary school went. Thanks for reading!

Wayne 7D – Banksia Campus

Last week all the year 7’s had two special guest from Project Rocket talk to us about the importance of cyber safety and cyber bullying. We learnt about the many types of cyber bullying and its impact on how we feel. Some of these types of bullying include verbal, physical and emotional bullying. Then of course there is cyber bullying. Project Rocket played games with us where you had to your use actions to get your message across to your peer to show the different ways we communicate. We learnt about a story of a girl in high school that went from grade 6 to 7 and had lots of friends. In year 7 a rumour, which was not true, was spread about her online. It got really bad and was all over the internet. People that did not even know her joined in. One day her friend called her and asked the simple question: ARE YOU OKAY? The girl felt like someone noticed her, and actually cared about her which kept her coming to school. Everyone took a message away from that story, that it just takes one person to check in and ask if they are okay and to not join in with cyber bullying. You just need to think of others, and know you all have people at school that care about you and think of you. Stay safe online and make sure you ask if you need support! 

By Mia D’Afflitto 7I 

Year 7 House Activity Day

Two weeks ago on the eleventh of February, the Acacia Campus year sevens along with the Junior School house captains participated in a fun day celebrating our houses. We participated in lots of fun activities that would reward your house with points such as: arts and crafts, a fashion show and capture the flag. We spent time getting to know other students in our house, and also learning about the history of our houses. To start off the day we had a Kahoot about the gods our houses were named after. I’m in Artemis house, Artemis is the goddess of wild animals, the hunt and the moon. We then had to get creative, and create mascots for our house and display this is a fashion show. In our fashion show we had our mascots dress up themed as the gods/goddesses, and they would represent our team on capture the flag. Overall the house day was really fun as a break from our new school work. Thanks to all the people that helped make the day happen.

-Isabella Barrington 7H

LOTE Chinese

At the very beginning of Term 1, our Year 7s celebrated Spring Festival in classrooms. We tried Chinese calligraphy in class. We experienced writing those pictographic Chinese characters of spring and blessing messages for Chinese New Year with brush pens, by recognising the basic radicals telling meaning in Chinese language. We also had lots of fun in papercutting and making fish, spring mobiles and red pockets. 

During the first 5 weeks in Term 1, we focus on all macro skills of listening, speaking, reading, viewing and writing skills in all classes. We practice oral speaking for tongue twisters (numbers) and role plays (greetings/name/age etc.), listening and responding to audios, reading, viewing and responding to written texts, and writing words in both Pinyin spelling system and character writing system. We improve our literacy skills in listening with note taking and in reading with skimming, skipping and scanning strategies. What's more, we enhance our numeracy skills in our Chinese classes, figuring out equations to calculate numbers in Chinese. We do times table puzzles in Chinese, too! It can’t be more fun! Well done, our engaged beginning learners!

If you have visited Banksia Junior Library lately, you may have noticed a stack of boxes tucked away in corners, and under tables. These are full of previous edition text books, and the like, from the four Keysborough College libraries. They are still in great condition, but no longer used by our teachers.

In order to create space for new editions and new titles (we always want to keep the materials in the libraries relevant and current; new and exciting for our Keysborough College community) we need to clear out ‘the old’. 

Fortunately, last year we received a request for donations of old books, which was fantastic.

In 2021 a batch went to Indie College, a not-for-profit training organisation that supports young people and adults to re-engage with education and training, and, in 2022 a batch will be going to ‘Teach for the Philippines’, a non-profit organisation that works towards a vision in which all Filipino children benefit from an excellent, inclusive and relevant education.

To see our previously-loved books being put to good use is a wonderful thing!

KEYSBOROUGH CHRONICLES INTERVIEWS

New Teachers 

Being a new teacher is like being a student. In everything we do or expect, we try to achieve our best to deliver it to everyone. Being taught or the one teaching, seeing similarities is what forms a bond between teachers and students. 

Ms. Hendricks, who is a new teacher at Acacia Keysborough College, has found “students are excellent and nice”.  She teaches VCE chemistry, Junior Science as well as Mathematics. Although, being a geek, she also likes reading and writing stories. And mostly like everyone, she also watches T.V shows and fantasy cartoons! Ms. Hendricks stated that when “[she] first arrived here, [she] was nervous because it’s [her] first time teaching”. - First time but already nailing it! She happily tells us that it is what she loves and is contented with her career choice. She is looking forward to many years of teaching at our school. 

Contributed by: Shania Santos 

Over the past couple of weeks, Rina, Diana, Dane, and Sophia have been interviewing some of this year’s new teachers, asking some mundane and deep questions. Here are the responses.

Rina, Diana and Sophia decided to get to know the new teachers a bit more personally, asking the real deep questions. They asked them to describe themselves, what makes them smile, what scares them and lastly, their strengths and weaknesses. 

Firstly, Rina interviewed Ms Jong who is a Maths, Commerce and a VCAL teacher. She said that she would describe herself as fun-sized, adventurous and an ambivert. Being outside and enjoying the sun makes her happy while ghosts terrify her. Her greatest strength would be her determination and that she believes that there is no such thing as weakness as everything can be improved on. Awe, how optimistic! 

Diana took on interviewing Mr Wood who is a Food tech and PE teacher. He described himself as energetic, tall and outgoing and says that his greatest strength would be his emotional flexibility. His weakness would be being too invested in things which actually led to overworking (they literally had to remind him to eat). Spending time with family and friends makes him happy while spiders scares him.

Sophia interviewed Ms Mouradian, an English and Psychology teacher. She described herself as fair, caring and generous. So sweet! Her dog Maxi makes her smile (he’s so cute by the way) and horror films scare her. She said that people have told her that she has a lot of patience.

Dane interviewed Mr Brew, a new P.E teacher and asked a couple of questions about his classes and experience as a teacher. 

What year level are you teaching? “I am teaching two year 7 classes, one year 8, two year 9’s and one year 10 field sports class.”

What have your classes been like? “My classes have been good, some classes enjoy minor games mostly, and other classes for the most part would rather get straight into full sport games.” 

Did you have any expectations about being a P.E teacher? “I don’t recall having any specific expectations of being a P.E teacher.” .

What did you have to do to become a P.E teacher? “To become a P.E teacher, I completed a 4 year Health and Physical Education Bachelor’s degree at University.”

What are some of the more difficult aspects as a P.E and newer teacher? “As a P.E teacher, a more difficult aspect is planning lessons/activities that you hope are going to be entertaining and engaging for students to enjoy playing. A difficult aspect as a newer teacher is figuring out what you can do/need to do as a teacher, to get the best out of  your students.”

Contributed by: Diana, Rina, Sophia, and Dane

Attendance

If your child cannot come to school please let the school know as soon as possible and explain why you child cannot attend school. To report a student absence please either call your Campus office, call the student absence line (Acacia 9549 8510 or Banksia 9549 8511) or enter the attendance note through your compass education app. If you need assistance signing in to your parent compass please contact the school.