Secondary

Guinness World Record broken

Last week 24 students from year 9/10 class and two staff members travelled to Sydney on an overnight excursion. They spent the first day touring the sites of Sydney visiting prominent landmarks such as the Opera House, Sydney Harbour Bridge, Centre Point Tower, Pitt Street Mall and Darling Harbour.

The second day was spent attending a NSW Department of Education Guinness World Record attempt for attending the largest Mental Health awareness lesson. The record which was previously held by Britain with 800 students was broken. The NSW DoE now holds the record with 1500 students attending in person and a further 1100 students attending via a video link.

All students participated in a lesson where they were introduced to strategies they can employ to improve resilience when coping with mental health issues. One of the strategies was a distraction tactic which can be utilised if they are experiencing stressful thoughts. The lesson delivery style also included an interactive session where students were required to hold up either a ‘thumbs up’ or ‘thumbs down’ card. The students were also taught how to access various help hotlines and websites.  The overall take home message was to remember that in times of crisis you are not alone.

Youth Driver Awareness Program

Last Thursday, students from years 10 and 11 travelled to Cowra to participate in the Rotary Youth Driver Awareness program (RYDA). The program is aimed at young drivers to raise awareness about road safety and how to become a safer driver to benefit not only yourself but others. Schools from surrounding regions such as Grenfell and Cowra also attended the day and a free sausage sizzle was provided for lunch by the local ROTARY group. Students attended numerous workshops and viewed presentations involving risk factors that may contribute to unsafe or risky driving, stopping distances in relations to speed and the use of ABS systems in motor vehicles.

In one of the presentations, students took a personality test to discover what kind of driver they were and how they could improve on their weaknesses. In the last session of the day, students had the opportunity to hear from a man who was involved in a car accident involving the use of a mobile device whilst driving and learn about his story and how simply picking up his phone whilst driving left him in a wheelchair for life.

Overall the day resulted in students gaining a better understanding of how to keep not only yourself but your passengers safe whilst travelling by taking simple precautions such as not using a mobile phone, speeding or driving under the influence of any substance.

Report written by Claudia Edwards Yr11