Junior School News

Year 7 High Achievers

Three Year 7 students are to be congratulated for their outstanding achievements in recent extracurricular and sporting events. These achievements highlight the determination of these Year 7 students to strive for excellence and become the very best that they can be.

Austin Voges in 7A won a Minor Bursary award for the Science Poster that he submitted in this year’s Science Talent Search. This was the second highest award in the competition.

Randheer Thogata in 7G won 7 of the 8 games that he played In the Chess Victoria Open Secondary State Final, which was held on the 10th of October. Randheer was not only the top scoring student from Glen Eira College but was also the equal second highest scoring player in the tournament, out of the 232 students who participated.

Audrey Salinas in 7E is to be congratulated for two outstanding achievements. Audrey was the highest scoring student from Glen Eira College winning 4 of her 7 games in the Chess Victoria Secondary Girls State Final, which was held on 11th October. Audrey also recently participated in the Adelaide International Judo Open, together with her sister Genevieve Salinas in 9E. Both girls fought in two weight divisions and they each won two gold medals in those divisions. Well done to you all. We are so proud of you.

Year 7 students are reminded of the importance of always wearing the correct school uniform and being punctual for school and their classes. As always, your year level coordinators are available to provide support, so please don’t hesitate to see Ms Maniatis or Mr Zuccala if you have any queries or concerns.

Mary Maniatis and Chris Zuccala

Year 7 Coordinators

Year 9 News

We hope everyone has settled in well for the last school term of this year. There is a lot happening in Year 9. What a busy start to term we have had! The weather is improving now and the days are full of energy and excitement. It is fantastic to see high levels of participation and enthusiasm from our students in so many extracurricular activities.

Recently, the Science department organised and supported students in the Science Talent Search. We have two Minor Bursary awards in the 9B class, Jamie Katic and Alex Tari (for a creative video). It means these students will also receive a monetary award and it is the second highest award in the competition. A Distinction award was given to Yug Soni (9G) and Tvisha Amin Year 8 (for a video). Lastly Arun Sankar (9G) achieved a Merit award for his creative writing essay. This was great result as it was his first time in the completion. So thank you very much for all staff that helped them with this competition. Congratulations to these students who did a great job!

We also had a group of Year 9 students participate in the Chess Victoria Open Secondary State Final at Brighton Grammar School on Monday 10 October. The students were Casper Agnew-Mildren, Jesse Cappel, Param Dave, Arlo Grimwade, Jamie Katic and Alexander Tari.

We had 7 athletes competing in 18 events at the State Track and Field Championships. Qualifying this number of athletes is an incredible achievement – thank you to all the teachers who have supported our students this year.

In the 2022 International Judo Competition in Adelaide on Saturday 15th October two GEC girls, Genevieve Salinas of (9E) and Audrey Salinas (7E), participated in two weight divisions each. Both girls won 2 gold medals each for those divisions. Well done girls!

This term six Year 9 students students are attending the Marlo campus of the School for Student Leadership. During their nine week stay until 9th December, students will live and work in a very close environment with their peers. There are challenges and lessons on human relationships that will arise from this lifestyle. Great friendships are made, tolerance is learned, and teamwork and leadership is created.

The students who were selected for this camp are: Angus McNeil, Daisy Merrifield David Scott, Emma Blair, Hasini Teddu and Nathan Loyer. Thank you to Mr Petersen for all the work involved in ensuring our students have access to this wonderful opportunity.

Our Year 9 camp is scheduled in week 6 from 7/11/22 to 11/11/22. Students who are going on camp are strongly advised to double check the packing list and bring a spare pair of shoes. Those who are not going on camp need to attend school as per their timetabled classes.

This term’s student progress reports are now published which indicate students' learning progress quality of work, effort, classroom participation, classroom behaviour and home work. I advise Year 9s to reflect on these reports and set new goals or keep trying to achieve your pre-set goals.

In your school planners, there is a lot of information to assist you in doing your best at school in each class. Have a look at page 27 of your school planner for the tips for studying. In a nutshell, we always want to see 5 things from our students as per our Glen Eira 5 statement. This includes:

Being enthusiastic and motivated for learning
Communicate and be respectful
Seize opportunities to participate and learn.
Work together, act responsibly and creatively
Direct your own learning through questioning and exploring.

All this covers the Behaviour for learning (Do your best, allow other’s to do their best, always act respectfully) to guide you to achieve your learning goals.

Also a reminder to 9B SEAL students and their families that semester 2 exams for English, Maths, Science and Humanities are coming soon. These one hour exams are scheduled in week 8 on 21/11/22 and 22/11/22. Once ready, the timetable for the exams will be posted on the Year 9 2022 google classroom.

From week 9 of this term, our Year 9s will go into the transition to Year 10 classes. This transition will conclude on 13/12/22. Any further updates will be notified to student on their google classroom by their year level coordinator.

We are proud of all the amazing work you all have been doing by seizing opportunities and participating in extracurricular activities. We would like to see more Year 9s get involved in extracurricular activities outside the school, at sports, chess club, robotics club, Art club, Enterprising & Sewing club etc. So please encourage your child to read the daily student bulletin and take any opportunity that seems interesting. If you have any questions or concerns regarding any competition or lunch time clubs please feel free to contact relevant teachers or year level coordinators as per information on our student weekly bulletin.

Lastly, there are changes to the Year 9 timetable again this term. We want students to check their daily timetable on XUNO a day before, so required learning equipment and uniform items can be organised especially for PE and non PE days.

We seek support from all Year 9 families to successfully implement the GEC school uniform policy at school, especially in regards to: no nose piercing policy, only natural hair colours are permitted, plain black lace up shoes and plain black socks are the part of school uniform. All this information is on our school website and in the student planner.

If a student can’t wear the expected uniform item, we require a note signed by parents/carers to inform the school. If the student does come in the wrong uniform without a note a consequence will be issued. Further, it is the school policy that no earbud earphones are allowed in the corridor or the school yard due to OHS reasons, and allowed only for educational needs if the class teacher requests them in class.

Thank you to all the families again for their continued support. Please do not hesitate to email us if there are any questions or concerns at any time.

Parminder Kaur and Edgar Bonne

Year 9 Coordinators