Secondary School News

Wishing you all a happy holiday and see you in 2022.

Keep safe and well

Judith Clelland

Assistant Principal

Secondary Education

Year 7 & 8 End of Year Reflection

2021 was not the year we had hoped for but I would like to congratulate all students in their resilience in another interrupted year of learning.

We had some excellent excursions and camps run at the beginning of the year which were wonderful experiences of all students involved after a quiet 2020. The remote learning period was challenging for all students in differing ways. It was great to see so many students online and interacting each day with their class.

During the final two weeks of this term students from Years 7-9 participated in our Activities Week. So many happy memories were made – especially during the colour run – which saw perfect weather conditions. It was wonderful to see all the students participate in a range of incursions and excursions run by the different learning areas across the school.

Thank you to all students for their continued perseverance in their learning this year. I want to wish everyone a safe, happy and restful holiday period. Looking forward to seeing you all in 2022 for a fantastic year of learning.

Angela Watters

Year 7 & 8 Education and Programs Leader

High School Eurythmy Concert

We had an end of the year eurythmy concert inviting Steiner Primary Class 3-6 students. Our High School Eurythmy students from Class 7-9 did a great presentation and were received very well by our beautiful audience. We thank all our staff members who supported this event. We are also grateful to our Collingwood community to make silk veils for our class 9 students. They looked fantastic with full costumes. Then we thank you for our wonderful class 11 students : Matt, Wil, and Finn for lighting. All the presentations were enhanced with their work.

We are already planning an upper Primary to High School Eurythmy Concert as well as an interschool Eurythmy Concert with Sophia Mundi next year. We are very sure that our students will rise to the occasion.

Warm regards

Rie and Vera

Treasure Island Production

Here are some photos from the wonderful production of Treasure Island

End of Year Program - Chinese Cultural Activities

In Week 10, Monday, 6 December, Year 7/8 classes were involved in the Chinese cultural activities as part of the 2021 End of Year Program. There are varied Chinese cultural activities arranged by our LOTE teachers and teacher assistant. Students actively participated in doing the Chinese calligraphy, using the Chinese abacus – the traditional calculator for calculations, holding Chinese chopsticks to pick up the beads and doing folding and cutting as well.

We also invited Dana Wang, the martial arts master from Qian Li Dao Academy to come for a wonderful demonstration. Our students engaged in all the activities quite well. They showed respect to the master and enjoyed the Chinese martial arts. We were pleased to see many smiling faces on that day. Many thanks go to the college leadership, especially Angela and Tim for providing this opportunity to our students in learning Chinese language and culture in a fun way, especially at the end of this challenging year.

LOTE Department

Duke of Edinburgh Awards Update

Collingwood College is having its first group of students complete their Bronze Award. Congratulations Rosie M for being the very first to submit! Congratulations to all students who have participated this year. COVID really made getting volunteers hours up very challenging.

The Bronze/Silver Award will be open for any Year 9&10 students that are interested again in 2022 and will be supported by the Yr 9&10 team. Speak to your homegroup teacher about it next year.

About the Award

The Award is a leading structured (non-formal education) youth development program, empowering all young Australians aged 14-24 to explore their full potential and find their purpose, passion and place in the world, regardless of their location or circumstance. The Award is a fully inclusive program and has no social, political, or religious affiliations.

How is an Award Achieved?

To achieve an Award, each young person must learn a skill, improve their physical well being, volunteer in their community and experience a team adventure in a new environment. All Participants are supported by a network of adult Award Leaders, Assessors, and Supervisors.

The key elements of our program are:

Open to all young people aged 14 to 24.
Three levels: Bronze, Silver, and Gold – each progressively more challenging.
Four Sections: Physical Recreation, Skills, Voluntary Service, Adventurous Journey plus Gold Residential Project (Gold Level only).
Achieving an Award recognises individual goal setting and self-improvement through persistence and achievement.

Time requirements:

Bronze – minimum 6 months
Silver – minimum 6 months if completed Bronze otherwise 12 months for direct entrants
Gold – minimum 12 months if completed Silver otherwise 18 months for direct entrants

What impact does the Award have on a young person?

Through this challenging journey of self-discovery, our Participants:

Are equipped and empowered to achieve their personal best
Learn to take responsibility for their goals and choices
Become connected to and actively engaged within their immediate community
Make a real difference to society through their positive contributions and involvement
Learn to persevere and overcome barriers to success
Learn important life skills
Increase their career opportunities.

Hannah Young

Year 10 Coordinator

8D Science Class

8D compared Dry ice (-80 degree C) and normal ice (0 degree C)

Statistical Reasoning Project

This year the secondary maths team has been focusing on building their understanding of how to best teach students to be good statistical reasoners - a very important skill in this day and age. We used research and assessment tools from the Reframing Mathematical Future Project II to identify students' learning needs and develop engaging and inclusive differentiated lessons. This project and the lessons were shared by Dilys, Michelle, and Hannah at the Mathematics Association of Victoria Annual conference last Friday.

In particular, we found that working through lessons that run a full data cycle (problem, plan, data, analysis, conclusion) compared with addressing discrete skills without context, resulted in better outcomes for all learners with both their mathematical fluency and understanding, as well as their reasoning. This was particularly highlighted for our EAL learners whose ability to interpret questions improved substantially.

Here are our before and aver results. The students in Blue are EAL students.

Below are some photos of the Year 9s conducting their experiments.

This is a poster created as part of the students' investigations comparing Year 9 students with Grade 3 students. By Jean 9B

Collingwood student Highly Commended in Photo Competition

My name is Sally Kaack and I’m part of the Course Advisor team at Photography Studies College (PSC). At PSC we recently held a photo competition called Inspire, which was open for current Year 11 – 12 high school students.

One of Collingwood College students, Oisin O’Leary, participated in our competition and received a Highly Commended! This means, he has won a $250 fine art printing voucher! I contacted Oisin and he seemed very pleased! On behalf of PSC, I’d like to thank your art/media teacher for encouraging your students to enter our competition.

We will be hosting an Awards Ceremony, on Wednesday 8 December, from 4:30 pm at our new South Melbourne campus.

Kind regards,

Sally Kaack

Course Advisor