Learning & Teaching News

SIS Book In A Day

On Thursday, 11 August 2022, St. Peter's College Clyde North hosted one region of SIS schools for the Book in a Day competitions. Teams of eight students attended from Casey Grammar and St. Peter's College Cranbourne Campus. The teams of talented writers plotted a 4000 word novella based around prompts given to each team at the start of the day. They were provided with: theme, primary and secondary characters that were both human and non-human. Five randomly generated words had to be used in the novella. Students planned the narrative together and allocated parts to each team-member. The collaboration and creativity required for this task was immense and each team. The novella-front, back and throughout the booklet also required illustrations giving students the opportunity to visually express themselves. It was interesting to view the different approaches each team used to plan the novella. Each student deserves praise for their collaborative efforts on the day.

Our team consisted of: 

Fiona Gallagher and Kathleen McCormick

Learning Adjustment Leader Exceptional Learners

Australian Maths Challenge Clyde North Campus

On July 3rd, thirty-one high achieving Maths students from Year 7 to Year 10 volunteered to be registered for the Australian Maths Competition (AMC). The AMC is an engaging 30-problem online competition that demonstrates the importance and relevance of mathematics in students’ everyday lives. Australia’s leading educators and academics, with a deep understanding of the national curriculum standards, actively design the unique AMC problems each year.

The students prepared for the AMC competition for six weeks before it was held under supervision on campus on Friday, the 5th of August. They tenaciously applied themselves to the 75-minute test of their capabilities against their peers across Australia. The participating students will receive results and certificates for their efforts once all the nation’s results are tabulated after September 28th. The students who participated were: 

Fiona Gallagher                                       Irene Balder

Learning Adjustment Leader           Mathematics Coach

Exceptional Learners 

Thriving Minds

On 22 July 2022, five Year 7 students from St. Peter's College Cranbourne Campus and five Year 7 from St. Peter's College Clyde North Campus attended Scotch College Hawthorn for the Australian Junior Thriving Minds Conference. In attendance were several schools that also selected their exceptional students to attend. 

This conference aims to engage intellectually talented students to

• Improve their thinking skills
• Begin to be able to identify what is fundamental from what is trivial
• Become intellectually creative
• Identify assumptions and distinguish between good and poor arguments,
• Think systematically and rigorously about relevant modern day issues

The presentations were:

• An Introduction to Quantum Mechanics
• Guided Community of Inquiry. Celery Munchers vs Steak Stokers. Is Diet a free choice?
• Justice Truth and Beauty

And the day finished with:

• The BIG Debate-” This house believes that Freewill is an illusion”

The students were buzzing with enthusiasm from the topics presented to them, and each student became actively involved in the house discussions.

The Clyde North students who were up early for a 7.30 am departure were:  Hannah Mathew, Vansh Ramanandi, Alyce Vassallo, Tanish Hasija, Adiel Amod Antony.

The Cranbourne students were:  Diya Dinesh, Chloe Barbaressos and Dhaan Abarnasuthan.

“It was an enjoyable experience to not only meet people from the other campus but also to meet intellectually talented people from other schools. We collaborated with students from multiple schools and discussed important matters in today’s modern society”.  

- Alyce Vassallo Clyde North

"Going to Scotch College, learning and exploring and working with other students who have innovative minds was a complete honour. The program was incredible, organised and very informative as I had learned new things I had never even thought of. Thank you for this experience"  

- Diya Dinesh Cranbourne

Science Fair

"Happy Science Week Everyone!!”

On Monday 15 August, we exploded into Science Week with our annual Clyde North Campus Science Fair! After not being able to run this event the last two years due to COVID, it was wonderful to see our Year 8 Students display their Projects/Scientific Investigations in our Lyons Labs!

We had everything on show-Flame Colours, pH, DNA, a Lipstick Investigation, Burning Paper and even a Rocket Ship! We had a huge attendance of both staff and students, and everyone had an amazing time discussing the investigations and some very impressive results!

But it’s not over yet!  Science Week will continue for the remainder of the week!

Cranbourne Year 8 students will display their Science Projects this Friday.

Brett Barber (Science Coach) and the Clyde North Science team

Student Learning Conferences

Parents will soon be invited to book Student Learning Conferences online so as to meet with teachers to discuss their child’s learning progress.  These are important meetings and provide a real opportunity to discuss how your child is progressing and what you can do to assist them in their learning.  We are again offering the opportunity for parents and guardians to meet with their child and teacher either in person or via Zoom. If you are meeting via Zoom then it is very important that you log in with your child’s laptop as only authenticated St Peter’s College users will be allowed access.  Learning Advisors will remind or teach students how to do this in the week leading up to the interviews.  The dates for these 8-minute interviews are:

Tuesday, 30 August, 2.30 pm to 8.30 pm: In person at your respective campus.

Wednesday, 31 August, 4.00 pm to 6.30 pm: Via Zoom.

Accelerated Subject Interviews

From Monday, 22 August, the Curriculum Team will be conducting interview with students who have elected to do an accelerated subject.  This mainly involves Year 10 students who have chosen a VCE Unit 1 & 2 subject or if they are doing a standard Year 10 course (not Applied Learning) and wish to do a blocked VET subject.  Both these choices require extra commitment and maturity from students owing to the more demanding nature of VCE subjects. Year 10 students studying a VET subject will not be given a study period and will miss normal classes when they study a VET subject on a particular day. 

The purpose of the interviews is to ensure students are aware of the demands of accelerating their studies and that they are, in our judgment, capable of undertaking the chosen course without undue pressure or stress.  Year 11 students will only be required to attend an accelerated interview if they have not been particularly successful in their VCE Unit 1 & 2 subject and we want to determine if it is wise to defer the Unit 3 & 4 study until Year 12. Please take this opportunity to discuss with your child what they intend to do differently next year to ensure success in undertaking an accelerated course.  This is one of the questions we will be keen to ask our students at the interviews.

Daniel Green                                                          David Hansen

Acting Learning & Teaching                           Deputy Principal – Learning & Teaching

Pedagogical Coach Clyde North