Year 9 Wellbeing Day

On Thursday 27 August Year 9 students had a day focusing on Wellbeing. Here, Jeremy Thai Chan and Madi Galland share their experience of this most successful day.

What a cold morning we all woke up to on the 27th of August. It was the greatest start of school for a long time. The overview of the day was Unpacking the Man Box presented by the Men’s Project, a presentation from a VIS athlete on the importance of physical activity and the opportunity to participate in a variety of physical activities. 

The first session we had was the Unpacking the Man Box presented by the Men’s Project. The objective of the session was to break down gender stereotypes and encourage students to challenge themselves. The identification of positive forms of healthy masculinity most certainly was elaborated in a great way. It was a great chance to redefine healthy masculinity for my peers. A big thank you to Tao, Genole and Paul who hosted  Unpacking the Man Box. 

The second session was about identifying unhealthy masculinity in AFL. Based on the Adelaide Football Club experience in 2017, students needed to answer questions about the Man Box pillars and how they could essentially live a better life with healthier masculinity traits. It truly allowed us to reflect on our persona, values and beliefs. The Man Box pillars are the values and actions which are presented in unhealthy male masculinity. The sense of identifying those made us gain knowledge about how we can change for the better in our lives. Thank you for Mr Cummins, Mr Piubello and Mr Potter for leading this engaging and purposeful activity.

The third session was a presentation from a VIS athlete on the importance of physical activities. This was presented by Tess Lloyd, a soon to come Olympic sailor. The advice given about physical activity was truly inspirational. The perseverance and dedication she has had after a near-death experience made us realise that anyone can do absolutely anything. This was further supported by her resilience and motivation when she experienced distance education in Year 12 after her accident. The traumatic and life-changing experiences that she has lived through were absolutely mesmerising. I believe that the most important advice given about life is to ‘have a balance of all lifestyles’. This is something that we can all learn from. Thank you Tess Lloyd.

The last session of the day was carried out by Mr Williams. There were 5 options for physical activities that we could complete. They ranged from yoga and boxing to mini circuits. It was well worth the time to spend completing physical activities. It really does show the students that they most certainly need to complete physical activity. Since all the students spend approximately 6 hours on their screen, it has been strongly encouraged to complete at least 1 hour of exercise. Thank you for Mr Williams, Mr Tze, Mr Panahandehfard and Mr Watters for leading the males with the physical activity.

The boys left having learned much more about people and themselves, as well as about the mental and physical benefits of activities. The Year 9 Wellbeing and Social and Emotional Learning Day couldn’t have happened without the organisation of the Year 9 Coordinator, Mr Cummins and Director of Student Engagement, Ms Mitchell. Thank you so much for an amazing day.

Jeremy Thai Chan

Year 9 Student

Year 9 Girls' Day- Mind, Body, Pedal

The girls were cheerfully greeted by Ang Roan to start our Year 9 wellbeing day. Through Ang’s talk she took us through her journey from Adelaide to Melbourne and the lead up prior to the event. She showcased her experiences -  the good and the bad, bringing motivation and hope to us teenage girls that we can achieve our goals.

After the very insightful and eye-opening presentation, ‘The Ride to School Team’ was up next. This group researched how much physical exercise a teenager should get every day and highlighted that boys and girls are not achieving the standards. The main reasons for this downfall in physical activity is due to: lack of self-confidence and  intimidation in sport, as it is quite male dominant. Jess and Emma are both members of the ‘Ride to School Team’ and have begun empowering us to continue/start riding more and feel comfortable undergoing the ABCD bike check and adjusting your helmet. We brainstormed ideas on why we would not ride our bikes to school; which was quite interesting to see everyone's ideas and opinions. We created a way to school; travelling via bike; that allowed us time to reflect and have some time to relax before we get to school (hoping we eventually go back to onsite learning).

Kate is someone who started an amazing business that explores our inner critic. She was hosting our next meeting. Starting her presentation, Kate brought light upon the statistics that “we have 20,000-17,000 thoughts a day and in this large number 80% are negative and 95% are from the day previous.” We discussed how to train our minds to consciously change and create new positive thoughts. Julia took the girls along a meditation session. “Today is all about listening to yourself”. Beginning with becoming aware that our nervous system controls everything, our stress hormones, our dietary levels, our moods, it pumps electricity through the body when put under anxiety. It has a fight or flight response trigger when we are a little bit stressed; our body tightens, our breath changes and our mind becomes foggy. We then moved on to breathing and analysing our body. Settling into the feet and noticing our own individual number, colour or word they represent what we felt, learning what the tools are, to listen to our bodies. I could almost feel the blood running through my body, almost like everything has woken up and instantly, I wanted to take deep breaths. At the end of the well-being day, I feel all the girls are much more relaxed, less stressed and have developed new ways of handling our negative thoughts.

Madi Galland

Year 9 Student