Middle Years  News

Middle Years Team

It’s hard to believe that we’re already halfway through Term 3. As always, we’ve had an incredibly busy start to the Term. As the time of publishing, Year 9 students have selected their subjects for Year 10 and have attended their 1-to-1 course counselling sessions and the Year 8s have selected their subjects for Year 9.

A huge congratulations to our Middle School students who participated in our recent musical The Sound of Music, whether it was on stage or behind the scenes, I was thoroughly blown away by the professionalism and talent of our students! My congratulations to Brianna Lee, Aliyah R-Shakeel, Indiana Iannotti, Levi Henson, Miranda Appleby, Alysha Clegg, Tehmi Harding, Gwen Mander, Zarah Buchanan, Payoja Basak, Ella Bridges, Poppy Taylor and Bethani Bingley for their on-stage contributions; and James Rice, Keeley Storrar-Carey, Skye Schaper, Kady McGrath, Jamie Tite, Jeremy Ball, Lachlan Yap, Zac Watkins, Hilary Dods, Sabrina Hutchinson, Zoe Newbury, Micaela Poon, Ash Jackson, Leah Yau, Khushi Patel, Lauren Doraimanickam, Gabi Huber, Sienna Forrest, Nell Tlozek and James Panchmatia for their work backstage.

Further congratulations for our Term 2 House People – Remy Spalding 7B (McCubbin), Lily Louis 9D (Roberts) and Khushi Patel 9C (Streeton) for their massive and impressive contributions to their Houses throughout Term 2! Keep up the fantastic efforts!

The Middle Years team has been very impressed with the students and the kindness, compassion and respect they have shown for each other this term. We encourage all students to continue to demonstrate this Koonung spirit!

100 days of Year 7!

On the last day of term 2 it was 100 days of Year 7. The first 4 periods were as usual, but the last period, when there would usually be 7 sports, the year 7 cohort split up into different groups for activities. I attended dodgeball. It was quite fun, and it got a lot of us active. Along with that, we also received free Zooper Doopers at the end of lunch play.

Ryan Li 7D

The day began pretty normally, and it was regular for the first 4 periods until the fun happened in period 5. We had a blast playing sports and having an icy snack to cool down and have a bite of. The day overall was pretty exciting as everyone was waiting for last period.

Ethan Ng 7D

Year 8 Connections Excursion

The Year 8 Connection Excursion was a fun way for our group of friends to have fun together and enjoy a day of sport. The Action Indoor Sports facilities were perfect for the day because you could section off each group in each of the courts. They were also multipurpose and did not have to be used for a particular game. Sport is a good way to bond with new people as you have to work together/against each other and you have to trust your teammates. I enjoyed the excursion because my friends and I were able to play together and it was a really close contest in every game that we played. To sum up the day, it was a good way to have a break from school, because it allowed us to play with our friends and play fun sports with everyone.

Harvey  Christodoulou 8A

I liked that the excursion involved a range of sports so everyone had an activity that they enjoyed. We were able to choose who we wanted to work with so we could spend the day with our friends. I also liked that the sports were inclusive and if you didn’t want to play a certain sport you weren’t forced to. Overall, I enjoyed the experience and I had a great day with my friends and it was a nice break from school.  

Lauren Cidoni 8A

Soccer Star!

Congratulations to Year 7 student, Taz Zlatanovski who attended a soccer Global Football Network showcase and has been invited to join the squad which will go to London later this year to play against some of the best young soccer players from some of the biggest professional pro-club academies in England, including Manchester United. 

Taz currently captains his local club, the Rowville Eagles, and led the Year 7 boys in the interschool soccer back in June. This is an extremely tough selection process in front of scouts, with only a few selections from hundreds of players. This is an incredible achievement and we wish Taz the best of luck in his upcoming tournament in December.

Badminton Star!

In a previous newsletter we congratulated Year 8D student Jowdy Moh who was selected to represent  Badminton Victoria in the 2022 U15 Australian National Championships. Jowdy went to Adelaide in July for this event and has fulfilled her dream of winning gold! This is an amazing effort and we couldn't be more excited for Jowdy! Well done and we look forward to following Jowdy's journey in this sport. 

The Victorian team has also successfully won Gold in all teams’ events entered at the Badminton Nationals against competitors from NSW, SA, QLD, WA & ACT.

Middle School reminders 

• Year 7 Sport Education Day is Thursdays, students are to wear their PE uniform all day
• Year 8 Sport Education Day is Wednesdays, students are to wear their PE uniform all day
• Live Life casual dress days, students are to wear neat casual clothing
• School starts at 8.50am
• Students and parents must check Compass every day for room and class changes
• Students are encouraged to bring drink bottles in the warmer weather.
• If your child has Physical Education during the day they can wear their PE uniform all day
• Sports equipment can be borrowed at recess and lunchtime from the old Middle Years Centre
• Students should be using ‘My Tasks’ on compass to record day to day homework

Mat Delaney

Director of Learning: Middle School

Mathew.delaney@education.vic.gov.au

Girl Power in Engineering and IT 

The Melbourne University Girl Power in Engineering and IT program is a 4 year (Year 9 - Year 12) STEM program run and funded by Melbourne University that anyone in Year 9 can apply to. The first part of the program was a 4 day camp on the Melbourne University Parkville Campus with the other 40 girls in the program. We all got to do lots of activities mainly focused on the different fields of engineering (there are so many different fields!). One of our tasks was to make a video to promote engineering especially for girls (but for everyone too!). This is the video my group and I made so enjoy and hopefully some of you would consider applying to the program or a career in engineering and/or IT 

Joana Goi 9D

Live Life SELF

In week three of live life - SELF this term (after two weeks of preparation) our group got the opportunity to lead the excursion into the city. We were able to successfully run the excursion by following our research and plan. Our group leader Nathan lead everyone on and off of the public transport as his role was to find how to get there and back ensuring we arrived to the city and return to school on time. Levi undertook the documentation and uploaded our information, Gabe prepared the details for the student vote on where our SELF groups would visit this term and I wrote the newsletter article. Emilio was in our group too.

This excursion taught us life skills like teamwork and time management. Because we had to be back at school by 3:15 everyone was able to explore, find the different challenges we set and meet back at the designated meeting spot in time. 

As the leaders of the excursion we were able to learn how to plan a trip as well as lead a large group of people across a public space. At the city we did many activity including eating and shopping around. Overall the experience was great for everyone and we had a great time being able to explore a new location. We really enjoyed the experience and had a lot of fun.

Below are some pictures of what students had to search for and take a photo with them in it:

Jayden Cao 9A     

Trevor vanden Driesen 

Live Life Teacher