Middle School Update

Dear Families, Students and Community Members,

The start of 2021 brought hope that we had seen the end of the Covid 19 lockdowns and for the most part that has been true, minus the one-week lockdown that interfered with the Year 7 camp plans. With that hope came positive attitudes towards coming to school; actually interacting in person with teachers and being able to see and play with friends. 

In the 11 weeks that was Term 1, the students of the Middle School have been engaging in their classes and extra-curricular activities, including the swimming sports and the athletic carnival. 

In the last week of Term 1 the first Middle School assembly for the year took place. As two of the Middle School captains were away at the School for Student Leadership, the two remaining captains, Charlotte Zaph and Antonio Marques Vaz Serra were responsible for the running of the assembly. They did an outstanding job! 

The main purpose of the Middle School assembly is to recognise the outstanding work throughout Term 1. Earlier in the term teachers nominated one person per class for one award. There are three different awards that a student has the chance of receiving. They are:

1. LEARNING LEGEND: This is an award given for a student who has achieved outstanding results academically.
2. EXCELLENCE ENDEAVOUR: This award is for a student who may not achieve outstanding results compared to others, but always tries their hardest and is achieving their personal best.
3. ALL-ROUNDER: This award is for students who have been perfect in your class all term. They have been achieving outstanding results, have a great attitude towards learning and always try their best in your class.

In Term 1, 78 individual students were nominated for an award, with 14 of those students being nominated for multiple awards.

The following students received multiple awards at the assembly:

These students have either collected awards at the assembly or will be receiving their certificates in the coming weeks include:

Congratulations to all of the students who achieved awards for Term 1. Hopefully in Term 2 we will see even more recognised for their hard work.

Looking forward to Term 2, students will be undertaking school Cross Country next week and the Middle School will be focussing on positive relationships and behaviours throughout the Mentor Program and the Year 8s, along with some other year levels in the Senior School will also be undertaking a half-day program run by our Wellbeing Team in collaboration with Secondary School Nurses from the surrounding areas.

The Year 7 cohort has made a fantastic start to their time at Mordialloc and have involved themselves in all of the fantastical opportunities Mordialloc College has to offer. Throughout Term 1, Year 7 students have competed in a range of sports through the interschool sport program and enthusiastically participated in both the swimming and athletics carnivals that were held last term. In the 11 weeks that the Year 7s have been at Mordialloc College, it has been great to see their confidence grow; getting to know new friends and teachers and being able to navigate their way around the school campus.

Throughout weeks seven and eight of Term 1 a group of seven Year 7 students, accompanied by two Senior Captains presented to seven local primary schools about the transition to high school and why Mordialloc College is such a great place to learn. They did an amazing job! I would like to thank Cooper Coats, Asha Davis, Charlie Dodds-Vines, Ryan Dollard, April George, Ethan Simons and Mackenzie Taylor for all of the extra work they put in to making their speeches a great success.

Unfortunately, the one week Covid 19 lockdown took place in the same week as Year 7 students were supposed to be on camp at “The Summit”. Luckily we have been able to rearrange the date and Year 7s will now be going on camp in Week 7 of Term 3, something to look forward to!

The Year 8s have had a jam packed Term 1, with one of the highlights being the Year 8 Camp. This year for the first time Mordialloc College went to Rawson Village, which is located roughly 35km north of Moe. Rawson Village was originally created to house the workers that were in the area to build the Thompson Dam in the 1970s.

It was great for the Year 8 students to get out into the bush and undertake activities like, bushwalking where we learned all about back-burning and the history of Rawson, mountain bike riding, high ropes course, swimming, rock climbing, commando course and damper making. The camp was great and everyone had an awesome time.

The Year 9 Mordialloc Experience, otherwise known as MEX is a major part of the Year 9 curriculum. Different MEX groups undertake different units throughout the year, but no matter what time of year students undertake it, the City Experience is always a favourite. During the City Experience students undertake a range of excursions and exploration of the City of Melbourne. In Term 1 two groups were lucky enough to partake in this program and from all reports the students loved exploring our beautiful city. This term we have another two classes that will be undertaking this part of the MEX program. Another highlight of the MEX program is MEXPO where students show off the work they have completed throughout the term. They were asked to design and pitch a product idea that would be perfect for Kmart. It was great to see the outstanding work that the students put into this task.

Throughout Term 1, Mordialloc College had six Year 9 students take the opportunity to take part in the School for Student Leadership, which is a Victorian Government program to develop leadership skills in Year 9 students. It was great to see six of our students attend as approximately only 480 students statewide get this opportunity each year. Below is a newsletter article that was written by one of our students, outlining what it was like to take part in the program:

Daily Life at Snowy

Hi, I’m Caity Ford and I am representing Mordialloc College as a student at the School for Student Leadership at the Snowy River Campus, along with Soma Harrison-Corney, Jaya Abaloz, Lachie Welsh, James Wilson and Jordan Tchea. 

A day in the life at Snowy

Every day at Snowy, we start at 6.30 am when everyone wakes up, usually because the opening and slamming of doors as people run to be the first in the showers is really loud. We have an hour to eat breakfast before the first headcount at 7.30 am. Headcount is basically a roll call, but we all got given a number at the very start of the program which we say in numerical order seven times a day. My number is number 1 so I am always the one to start headcount and we often have to start again because people will zone out and not say their number. After the first headcount, we have an hour and a half of free time where we can do all sorts of things like getting ready for the day, shower, do washing and talk to peers. 

At 9.00 am we have our second headcount and the student leaders for the day will read out their goals and their ‘me in a minute’ which is when they tell the school community a little bit about themselves. The student leaders are two students, one boy and one girl from different schools, they run the headcounts for the day and are part of a video call with the other campuses, and occasionally run some other activities. After that, we have our first class. Our classes will either be under one of the nine Key Learning Concepts which are learning strategies, emotional management, resilience, identity, empathy, respectful relationships, collaboration, health and wellbeing and environments, or it will be an outdoor activity like surfing, mountain biking or canoeing. Morning class goes from 9.00 am until 12 noon with a half an hour break from 10.30 am until 11.00 am for morning tea.

We have lunch at 12.30 pm and then afternoon class from 1.30 pm until 3.30 pm which is the same as morning class. We have afternoon tea at 4.00 pm and then free time until 5.00 pm when we have DEARR (Drop Everything And Read and Reflect). We do DEARR for 30 minutes a day: 10 minutes of reading and then 20 minutes of writing a reflection about what happened during the day. Then we have dinner at 6.00 pm  and then free time until 7.30 pm when we have an evening class. Evening class varies a lot and can include a variety of different classes including a bush dance, creating a community agreement and talk more on the key learning concepts. The evening class goes until 8.30 pm, then we have free time until 9.00 pm and then we have to be down the wings to get ready for bed.

At 9.15 pm we are supposed to be in bed, 9.30 pm is lights out but everyone always stays up. Saturdays are our rest days where we can propose to do different activities on and off-campus. A lot of the time we go surfing. We have free time all day and only have to be there for headcounts. Then after dinner on Saturdays, we have an evening class which is conducted by different classes who run an activity for the night. So far, we have had trivia, a lip sync battle and a just dance battle. That is a regular, very busy and jam-packed day here at Snowy.

Thank you for reading!

Caitlin Ford, Year 9

Daniel Williams

Director of Middle School