Year 9 News

Hey everyone, 

There is a lot happening with our Year 9’s over the past few weeks and I’m excited to get to share some of these things with our community. The students have settled into the year and we are seeing a lot of positive learning happening across the year level. Each week we are seeing an increase in our KPA’s (Kurnai Positive Acknowledgements) with a peak of over 500 acknowledgments in a week. The green Compass reports acknowledge the positive learning behaviours our students have shown, which I share each week with our students at assembly. Please continue to support us in acknowledging your child’s great work by talking to them about these KPA’s at home. 

LBU Reward Lunch 

Recently we acknowledged the strong start to the year our students have achieved by giving students who achieved an LBU of above 3.5 a certificate at assembly. We had many students across the year level get above a 3.5 or get very close to it, which is amazing to see. As well as being acknowledged at assembly and receiving a certificate to put in their professional portfolio; students who achieved a score above 3.5 also were rewarded with a hot chip lunch and a can of drink. The next round of LBU’s are due out shortly and I look forward to seeing the amazing effort our students have put in recently be acknowledged in those reports. 

Don Valley School of Leadership

Congratulations to Nicola MacGregor, Armani Matthews, Arabella Altavas, Claire Lindsay, Harry Forbes, and Toby Mountjoy for being accepted to the Don Valley School of Leadership in Term 2. 

This program allows students to live onsite at the school to undertake an 8-week program aimed at developing their leadership skills, amongst other personal qualities, and work collaboratively with other year 9 students from a number of high schools across Victoria. They will get to continue their learning in this unique environment while also participating in many adventure activities and working together to develop a community learning project which will benefit the entire school community. I can’t wait to see what they come up with and the growth that they will undoubtedly show through their participation in this program.

NAPLAN

Well done to both of our Year 7 and Year 9 cohorts for the efforts they have put into completing their Naplan testing this year. Students were treated to extra brain food and the chance to enjoy a hot Milo before these tests to ensure they were fuelled and ready to give these tests the best effort they could. 

Naplan is a great opportunity for our students to identify their growth across a 2-year period of schooling. From my observations walking around and monitoring these tests our students have worked hard and I can’t wait to see the amazing growth that their results will show. I look forward to celebrating our student's achievements with them once we get the results later this year. 

Year 9 Camp to Melbourne

The Year 9 camp to Melbourne is beginning to come together and I look forward to providing this opportunity to our students. The camp will be running from the 14th of August to the 18th of August. I will be providing more details to students and their families over the next couple of weeks so please stay tuned and get involved once this event becomes life on Compass.

Art - Say it! Creating an impact with art

Students have been learning about stereotypes and how they can influence a population. The class has learnt to be mindful that what we see is a 2-dimensional version of people and that humans are a mix of many things, not just to be judged by the trait that we show. 

The class has worked on twisted Fairy tale stereotypical characters and has changed them in one of four ways: Make life bad for the ‘hero’ character, make the ‘hero’ character evil, give the character the opposite personality, or change the species of the character. 

The students have then given their new versions a name to match the changes and presented their characters with a background setting.

Concerns or queries

If you have any concerns or queries about any of the items mentioned above, Year 9 student matters, or just general inquiries, please do not hesitate to give the year 9 team a call on 51323700 or email Matthew Suter.        

Matthew.Suter@education.vic.gov.au