Murdoch Specialist Program

What a week! – By Caitlin Amery (Year 7)

Monday 21st – 25th of March 

The week started off with a bang with cross country in session 1 on Monday, where M73’s very own Jess Amos and Flynn Johnston both placed in the top 10, securing a spot in the cross-country district team. Jess came 2nd in the under 13’s female race, with a time of 8:58, and Flynn came 8th in the under 13’s male race, with a time of 9:26. We wish them both the best of luck at district, representing EMC and M73!  

On Tuesday morning we had Home Ec, where we made pizza with whatever toppings we wanted. There were Hawaiian pizzas, pepperoni pizzas, garlic pizzas and cheese pizzas. And boy did the kitchen smell amazing!  

On Wednesday in Humanities the awesome Miss Cahill took us down to the EMC Meeting Place in the courtyard, where we learnt about the significance it held to the Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander people and how important it was to EMC and our relationship with those people. 

On Thursday we had a big year 7 and 9 practice for NAPLAN, which is in May. Each year level went into the senior building and went through a series of practice tests exactly like the ones we will do in the real NAPLAN. This is the first year NAPLAN will be happening fully online at EMC, and doing this practice allowed the school to see if it could handle so many students being online at the one time and helped them see where improvement was needed. 

Finally, on Friday after school was the annual College Working Bee to get ready and prepare for the Open Night. It was awesome to see so many students stay from half an hour to up to 3 hours after school, picking up rubbish, cleaning lockers, gardening and showing pride in EMC! 

A Day at Cruden Farm – Friday 18th March

By Asher Lee (Year 7)

Last week were extremely fortunate to be able to go on an excursion to Cruden Farm. I would like to thank Ms Foot-Connelly for organising the excursion for us. Giving us the opportunity to learn about Cruden Farm and participate in the activities that the teachers had organised. 

Cruden Farm was a wedding gift from Keith Murdoch in 1928 to his bride, Elisabeth Greene. Through the years they have added to the original landscape of the property, to create what we are able to enjoy today.

At Cruden Farm we were split up into groups to get us used to each other and make new friends from the other specialist classes. We then got straight to the fun activities!

The first activity we did was to make posters about an issue in the school. A popular issue that was presented by a few groups was healthy eating.

The second activity we completed was a team building exercise where, we had to make paper boats as a team and flipping a tarp while about 10 stood on it. How on earth do you do that?

The final activity we had was a public speaking exercise where we answered some interview questions in front of a camera. We had to try not to say words like ‘um’ and ‘like’ to improve how we speak. 

We all had a great time at Cruden Farm and I think we all agree we should go there again some time. We are also very lucky to be in such a close proximity to the farm.