Middle School

Interschool debating

On 10th May, Sarah Farmer, Sophia Tran and Reese Firme of Year 8 took part in an evening debate against three Year 9 students from Glen Waverley Secondary College. The topic was, "That we should ban gambling advertising," and the St Andrews team argued the negative position. In delivering the verdict - a clear win to St Andrews - the adjudicator praised our students for considering multiple angles of the topic and for responding effectively to arguments made by the other team. Sarah Farmer was best speaker on the night.

Congratulations, girls!

Daniel Broadbridge

Debating Coordinator

Year 8s at Hanging Rock

Fieldwork is an important skill that provides a wonderful opportunity for students to study Geography outside the classroom. It is a fundamental aspect of Geography to engage students and develop a deep understanding of geographical processes and enquiry skills.

On 14 May, the Year 8 students went on a fieldtrip to Hanging Rock, following the completion of the topic, “Mountain Landscapes”, in Term 1.  The aim of this fieldtrip was to investigate the natural and human changes in the Hanging Rock region.

While at the location, students were actively engaged in observing the environment and recording their observations, as well as taking photographs and drawing annotated field sketches to present as evidence in their reports.

It was a glorious, sunny day, and in addition to learning firsthand about mountain landscapes, students had great fun climbing to the summit,

appreciating the spectacular views and finally finishing off with a Picnic at Hanging Rock.

Rajes Krishnan

Middle School Teacher

Year 7 Camp

The Year 7s spent a week at the beautiful Forest Edge Campsite recently.

The camp focused on developing them personally, developing their friendships, developing leadership skills and enjoying the bush, the food and the fire.

When asked what was the best thing about camp their answers vary widely from the initiative games to team challenges, from high ropes to the food and the free time with friends.

Whichever way you look at it everyone agrees, it was a great camp!

Middle School Artists

Middle School Artists have been very busy this term experimenting with the inspiring Kinetic Art of Mako Fujimura and Jackson Pollock; Synthetic Cubism portraits with Pablo Picasso; and the fluid glass designs of Dale Chihuly. 

I have been impressed by each student’s willingness to try a new expressive way of creating abstract art, working well with others in a group project and continuing to develop sketching and design skills. 

Middle School art was on display on Tuesday’s ensemble concert in Rembrandt’s.  It was such a fantastic way to showcase and celebrate the incredible skill of our St Andrew’s artists!! Please also pop into the Innovation Centre to view this term’s marvellous student work!  

I’m so proud of all my students.

Marina Heading

Art Teacher

Year 7 – A Year of Opportunities!

(Part 5)

In the previous newsletters, we introduced a series where Year 7 students of 2017 will be advising the 2018 Year 7 students on some essential skills to make this a successful year.

Lawrence Qi

This year, I had learnt many things that I wish I had learned before Year 7. I learned that writing essays well takes a lot of time, studying for tests helps you to get good marks, bringing all books to class for each subject is important, keeping your locker clean and tidy is harder than it seems, and the importance of remembering all the work I need to do.

Writing essays is time-consuming for me, because I need to think of reasons, ideas and arguments that make a decent amount of sense. I also need to write a plan, which basically comes down to planning the essay in dot points. This method works fairly efficiently.

Studying for tests is not something I like, because it takes a large amount of time to read through my huge text books and write down summaries (on a piece of paper which I will eventually lose…).  It is nevertheless necessary to study if I want a decent score on a test. Usually I study for the test when I am about a week away from it, but if I have extra time, I will use it to study more. Exams are different, though, and I use all the time I can find to study for them.

Remembering which books I need for each class, is pretty easy for me. The hard part is getting to the class on time! I need to get to the locker bay, unlock my locker, read through my timetable, sift through my books for the right ones, lock my locker and run to my class. I usually manage all of this on time, but when I am coming from the MPH, Art or Rembrandts, I might be a little late.

Keeping my locker tidy is pretty hard, as I have no filing system to keep books and things in order. I try to clean out my locker at least once a term, so I can get rid of loose sheets of paper, rubbish and things like that.

I have learnt that keeping track of all the work one needs to do, is kind of hard if you are disorganised and have a messy locker. An important piece of paper might fall out of my book and end up at the bottom of my locker, and then I need to look for it so that I can finish it.

In conclusion, I have learnt many new skills in Year 7, that will serve me well for the rest of my school career.

Lawrence Qi

Year 8 Student

Emily Adams

In Year 7, we have learnt many important things in Science, Biblical Studies, Drama and Sport.

In Science, we learnt about the Bunsen burner in Term 1. This was very important, as it was fun to learn about and do experiments with the Bunsen burner. There were also many other exciting things to learn in Science, for instance learning about animals and how they live, classification and different types of animal kingdoms; and about solids, liquids and gases.

In Biblical Studies we learnt about saying “yes” to God, how not to judge people, how to look out for one another and how to love one another. The most important thing out of all of this was how not to judge people. When you judge people by the way they look, smell, dress, eat and do things, it hurts them. If we encourage people and say nice things about them, they will feel loved and know that people care about them.

In Year 7 we also learnt a lot in Drama. We have done many awesome and fun things in Drama, like acting, singing and dancing. The best things I have learnt in Drama is to always have fun, use a loud voice when performing, give your best, and always have a go. I have been having so much fun in Drama.

One last thing I learnt in Year 7, was to play soccer. In Sport, we did a few weeks of soccer. At first I wasn’t so good at it, but now I am starting to get better. I have learnt to dribble the ball, to juggle, and many other skills. It was so much fun learning to be better at soccer.

In conclusion, Year 7 has been a big year of learning new things that I had not learnt before. It has been a year of challenges to face and conquer. I cannot wait to learn more new things in the years ahead.

Emily Adams

Year 8 Student