Years 7 - 9 Community 

Humanities

Another term down and many more learning opportunities have been provided to our 7-8 students at Northern Bay College. While the federal election has taken over our TV screens and radio stations for the majority of this term,  our students have been learning about the entire government system, including preferential voting, different levels of government, the Constitution, the Referendum and in particular freedom of speech. 

This humanities unit has provided our students many hands-on, practical experiences to develop their understanding of these concepts. As the unit winds to a close, it is exciting to see the students learning through their created political parties and what policies they are advocating for. These political debates will wrap up during the final week of term. 

To further enrich our students' experience of Government, all campuses had an excursion to Melbourne to explore Government House, Parliament House and the added experiences of being in the big smoke. While the weather was not kind to our students, the life experiences they received were priceless. 

Some students went on their first tram ride, while others had never been to Melbourne before. A highlight for some students was as simple as purchasing food from Chinatown, Starbucks and other city convenience stores. Some students views on the unit and the excursion are below. 

Students thoughts on the year so far:

Learning about different political parties and how they campaign during election time has been a real eye opener. If I hear the “There’s a hole in your budget. Dear Labor” again I think my mind will explode. 

But from examining the techniques used, I now understand why this was so effective. Not only did it rhyme and was very catchy, it stuck in your head. The use of repetition was very powerful as well. 

I have really enjoyed our democracy unit this term and the experience to Melbourne was outstanding. The student voice we had around what we did and the experiences we underwent was fantastic. 

By Maddison and Katelyn

Curriculum Day Staff PD

A very exciting opportunity presented itself during term 2 for our staff, and our students will start to see the benefits of this opportunity in the next few terms and beyond. All staff during the curriculum day underwent some training in a writing methodology called VCOP. This acronym stands for Vocabulary, Connectives, Openers and Punctuation. This methodology is based around enriching the students language and enhancing the oral language skills to improve our writing. Students will have the opportunities to complete ‘Big Writes’, up level their work and participate in many different VCOP games to develop the different writing concepts. 

Mr Josh Brown

Assistant Principal

Peacock Campus

Years 7-9

Stages of Learning

Coordinator