Year 7 & 8 News

Student Leaders 

We are lucky enough this year to have a really strong student leadership team at Year 7 and Year 8. 

These students have already welcomed 2 politicians into Kurnai College, been to a Youth Leadership Summit, and will start to run their respective year level assemblies. I look forward to working with and developing our future leaders.

Year 7:

Zoltina Richards 

Chelsea Parr

Ben Carrigy 

Isabella Laming 

Year 8: 

Harmonie Seddon

Jia Osman 

Liam Duncan 

Riley Robins 

Attendance 

With a great start to our schooling year, it is important to continue tracking our goals of attendance. We know that attendance is one of the key factors to success at school. At Kurnai College we would like all students to aim to 95% attendance.  This is so they can get the most out of their time at school. If you are having trouble with getting your son or daughter to school, please do not hesitate to contact me for support. 

• Remember: 1 day a fortnight missed = 20 days a year = 4 weeks a year = Over 1.5 years of missed learning (P-12) 
• 1 day a week missed = 40 days a year = 8 weeks a year = Over 2.5 years of missed learning (P-12) 
• 2 days a week missed = 80 days a year = 16 weeks a year = Over 5 years of missed learning (P-12) 
• 3 days a week = 120 days a year = 24 weeks a year = Nearly 8 years of missed learning (P-12)

AWARENESS DAY 

As many in the Learning Community know, each year we have an extensive transition program for students coming up from primary schools. This starts with our Awareness Day program on the 5th May, next term, where we will welcome our feeder schools into the Kurnai Learning Community. These students will take the first step in experiencing high school life. 

Due to the increased number of students in the school at that time, some other year levels will be released from school that day.

We will update all families with more details closer to the date. 

YEAR 7 CAMP 

Our Year 7 camp planning continues, with permission forms being sent home over the next week.  These are due back as soon as possible. From the Year 7 and 8 Teams’ point of view, we believe it is really important that we have all students participate in this camp. Camp Coolamatong works really well with us and we ask for you to please work with us to overcome any barriers to your child attending so that they can get the full benefit of the curriculum and opportunities that we offer to them in Year 7. 

The students were certainly very excited about camp and the activities in store when I spoke with them all earlier in the week. 

FEELING SAFE AT SCHOOL 

We have been talking with the students about the right to feel safe at school and the need for everybody to respect the safety of others. This has been an area that we have been particularly impressed with this year. Like all schools, from time-to-time issues arise, and we work actively with families and students to resolve them. If you ever feel like your child is experiencing issues at school, encourage them to communicate with us and follow up with us yourself to make sure they have. 

Year 7 and 8 Goals (Kurnai Positive Acknowledgments)

I would like to promote the continued fantastic start our students have made towards their learning. We understand that the importance of celebrating the positive success our students demonstrate every day. This can mean showing improvement in the learning or behaviour right the way through to our high-end academic achievers. As you can see below the numbers of our positives are extraordinary and encourage you to continue the conversations you are having at home about the positive choices our learners are showing every day.   

Number of Positive student chronical entries:

Parent BBQ

I would like to thank all our students and parents for the great turn out at our Parent Welcome BBQ. It is great to meet all our families, new and on-going, of our new 

Year 7 students. It was a great atmosphere created by the enthusiasm of our newest students showing off their new school. I would also like to thank the staff and the Youth Space program facilitators that gave up their time to cook the BBQ, set up the lawn games and play live music. 

Mancave Program

Late last week we took all Year 7 and Year 8 boys out to the Man Cave program at the Youth Space centre. The Mancave program is using evidence-based workshops and expert facilitation, to provide boys with the critical emotional and social skills they need to lead flourishing lives for themselves, their relationships and their communities. 

Mancave’s vision is to create a world in which every young man has healthy relationships, reaches his full potential and contributes to his community.

Girls Day In

In light of the boys heading down to the Youth Space centre to participate in the Man Cave program, we thought it was a great opportunity to run a “Girls’ Day In”. The program was designed by Emma Hudson and targeted key social and emotional developmental skills though a hands-on learning approach. All the girls had a great day, with high levels of engagement from all students.