Total Wellbeing 

Getting out of our comfort zone on the ice

In week 7, our Year 10 Total Wellbeing class went Ice Skating at O’Brians Ice House on a self-elected afternoon excursion (Lunch/P4/P5). After a very tentative learn-to-skate lesson, we set off on the ice with our varying abilities. Ken and Maggie shot off doing laps around everyone, while a few others weren’t quite prepared to leave the safety of the wall. It was impressive watching the experienced skaters do their twists and twirls in the middle while we battled on. A massive shoutout must go to Allana and Dom for their persistence and amazing improvement over the hour. Ice Skating was a great opportunity to hop out of our comfort zones and learn a new skill. Extending ourselves to learn is great food for the mind and taking the opportunity to try something new is always cherished after covid. There’s something intangible to having the resilience to get back up after we fall and ice skating is a great opportunity to fall for fun.

Critical Thinking Scienceworks Summit

In Total Wellbeing we focus on both mental and physical wellbeing. As part of our exploration of advertising and the impact on mental health, students from our Year 10 class attended a Summit day at Scienceworks. The Summit focused on critically thinking about the tactics harmful industries use in their advertising that targets young people and the impacts that the advertising has on young peoples health and well-being. The Summit was held in the Pumping Station Boiler House which was cold and smelly but a surprisingly inspiring place to spend the day. 

The day was facilitated by Scienceworks and VicHealth. Students listened to guest speakers specialising in advertising and learnt about the types and volume of advertising they are exposed to on the major social media platforms.These guest talks culminated in students receiving an example of harmful advertising and using virtual reality to flip the advertising around into something more positive. Our class did NHS proud by creating the winning piece of flipped advertising. Ella D and Ken F spoke on behalf of their groups to the audience about their thinking behind their designs on the VR platform. They did well speaking to such a big crowd filled with representatives from many different schools.

“The Scienceworks summit day was a great experience to engage and collaborate with other schools and experiment with AR reality programs, and learn about the dangers of false advertising in our lives.” Lily D

“It was amazing to share my idea with the other schools, and listening to other peoples ideas. Had lots of fun playing around with AR programs.” Ken F

~Jess Kruske