Student News
Middle School | Term 4 Update
The Middle School students and staff have looked forward to returning to face-to-face teaching and learning, and have embraced the return with great enthusiasm. Year 7s were engaged and raring to go. Home Groups have created "welcome back" banners and all Year 7s were gifted the special token of a college pen, usually reserved for our senior students. Activities ranged from raffles to special dress days. Footy Theme Day was very popular, as was Book Week. Our students paid homage to many of their favourite characters from popular novels and teachers also joined in the celebrations.
Likewise on the return of our Year 8 and 9 students, we welcomed them with a unique gift. "Welcome back" cookies in many fabulous colours were a treat and greatly appreciated. Together, Middle School students have embraced learning and final assessments for the year and the buzz in the yard included sounds of friendships reunited. Student Voice has recently requested ideas for our end of year activities. Many of these will be selected to end the year in a positive manner. We ask Middle School students to continue to finish on a high note by completing their final CATS by the 4th of December.
Ms. Angela Field | Middle School Leader
Year 7 Drama | Scripting Interrogations
We’re BACK! Starting the semester by miming in our living rooms, these Year 7 Drama students finally had the chance to engage in dialogue scene work! Writing their own absurd interrogation scenes, directing and rehearsing with a partner and finally – bringing these scenes to (socially distanced) life!
Here are some reflections from our Year 7s on the process of rehearsing and performing their scripted scenes:
"Ava and I functioned well; we were able to work well together. We were productive because after writing the script, we then started to rehearse our script. After we were comfortable without reading the script, we started to get into character. With a little more rehearsal time, we started to polish and clean our performance to the best of our ability. There were sometimes where we goofed a little, but we were just having a good time. So yes, I think we were productive in the making of our script and performance. We also communicated really well on what we were going to accomplish in that lesson. " - Aphroditi A
"We worked well in rehearsal because we all gave advice and feed back to each other on how we could improve and helped each other to remember certain parts of the script." - Emma N
Ms. Genelle Lentini | Year 7 Drama
Book Week 2020 | Curious Creatures, Wild Minds
Book Week is the highlight of the literary calendar, and a chance for students (and staff!) to explore the limits of imagination and creativity! This years' theme - "Curious Creatures, Wild Minds" - brought out a menagerie of colourful characters, from wicked witches, to dino tamers, to Queens with anger management problems. Fantastic work, team!
VicSRC | Annual Congress
The Victorian Student Representative Council ran their annual Congress event remotely this year. Two of our SRC members at WHSC, Chloe K and Rabi Z, attended this event, which focuses on bringing student leaders together to explore important issues facing students in education today. Students nominated issues that were important to them and worked in action teams to explore the issue further and develop action plans for positive change. Congratulations to Chloe and Rabi for representing our College at this event!
Ms. Gemma McMahon | SRC Coordinator
"I had a phenomenal experience participating in the annual VICSRC Congress program this year. I had the extraordinary opportunity to meet like-minded students from across the state to discuss the issues facing the Victorian education system, and solutions to these issues. My group specifically created a pitch for the proposal relating to getting students onto principal selection panels. Despite COVID-19, we managed to all work together digitally and we had a very productive week modelling our arguments and refining our points. Another key issue which was discussed by the wider congress was the teaching of real world skills within school, such as filing taxes or buying a house for example. This is something that we could possibly look into next year by surveying students on what they think are basic practical skills that young people should learn in school. Overall, I really enjoyed my time at Congress and look forward to attending in person next year!" – Rabi Z
“I am so happy to have had the privilege of attending VIC SRC Congress 2020, this year was a lot different to how it would normally run however, I think the team did such an amazing job with it over the self-isolation period. Over the 4 days of the remote camp, I was very lucky to meet lots of new people and make heaps of new friends. Also gaining more confidence with new skills such as speaking publicly and responsibility traits.
"The first day of the remote camp, we had a big introduction from all the employees and organisers. It was good to meet everyone and I was getting really excited to start working and participating. The second and third day we met and got to know our group and started to come up with new ideas for our topic. It was enjoyable getting to hear everyone’s different ideas and point of views as it helped the team create a bigger and better pitch. The fourth and final day was about presenting our pitch in front of all the other students and teachers. My group did really well in my point of view as we had a really good say and were very convincing. It was also sad to say goodbye to everyone I had met however this was an experience I will never forget.
"I loved being able to participate in this and gain many close friends within this experience. I learnt a lot about public speaking and learning how to pitch. i hope to experience this next year and many years to come.” – Chloe K
Design Tech Week 2020
Week 2 of Term 4 was the National Design and Technology Week! The focus of the week is to showcase the importance and excitement around the various Design and Technology areas. At WHSC Design and Technology is seen within amazing food products in the Food Technologies and in the incredible pieces of student work in the Material Technologies. In addition to this Design Thinking is central to the many STEM programs which we take part in. Certainly, an important learning area that requires the creativity, innovation and challenge bringing together so much learning from across the school.
As this year half of the school was learning remotely and half of the school was onsite we celebrated all the exciting areas of Design Technology through daily quizzes to test how much the WHSC student knew about these exciting learning areas. The quizzes had the students thinking about the product design process, the Australian Guide to Healthy Eating, computer-aided design and 3D printing. Students really demonstrated excellence in developing great responses to the quizzes across the school but at the end we had to pick some winners. The students who came up on top for the quizzes were Daniel W (7D), Bri C (8C), Koby W (9E), Kai J (10D), and Austin A (12B). Well done to our winners and all of the students who participated!
Mr. Pedro Mello | STEM Leader
Academy for Enterprising Girl’s Workshop
The Academy for Enterprising Girl’s workshop was a fun course designed to help girls learn about entrepreneurship, design thinking and how to start up their own business or social enterprise to make a positive change in the community. The online program had a bunch of videos and fun activities to help us follow a step by step structured process for the start-up of a business.
We learned about some of Australia’s inspiring business people and their success stories. They shared their experiences and gave us expert advice. While establishing our business idea, we developed essential skills and learnt to be resilient. We gained an understanding of problem-solving when overcoming challenges. Working in a team, we significantly improved our teamwork and communication skills that are important in a work environment. Besides all of the above, most importantly, the program gave us the confidence and ability to make our ideas come to life.
In our opinion, the best part of the workshop was being able to use our creativity and learn so many things in a very enjoyable and interactive way. We would definitely recommend it to other girls who want to contribute to society in a positive way. It will help them develop a mindset and a passion for entrepreneurship.
While collectively we benefited from this program, we also encountered many challenges along the way. During a brainstorming session on a plethora of topics we thought were abundant in the world, we struggled a little to narrow it down to a particular one. After some deliberation we settled on the topic of ‘children transitioning into high school from a range of different environments’. The goal we were aiming to achieve was to make it easier for children to transition into high school via the help of an app or service, no matter where they come from or what their skills are. We chose to design and develop an app, and had a detailed idea of what we wanted the app to look and feel like but we had some trouble working out the time frame in which it would be useful to students. Specifically, whether it should accommodate for use over a long or shorter period of time, depending on the needs of the transitioning student. As a group we decided to design the app to be available for however long they needed it. The final prototype included many cool features like anonymous and identified chatting, calendars of events that could be edited and added to by students, learning resources for all classes and chat matching with other students as well as mentors, who would be from Year 10 and paired with a transitioning students to help them discover things about the school and its students. Another challenge that was faced head on by our group was, understanding and creating a design brief for the audience at hand. We had a pretty solid idea when it came to the final product however, the process of creating the product was a challenge in itself. After a lot of tests and communication with the rest of the team, we managed to come up with a solid final product.
The experience taught us many things about the world and society we live in, and what we can do to understand and create the best future for each other and ourselves. The workshop was all about our futures and also gave us an insight of what we would be up against. In the workshop we discovered what it would be like to become young entrepreneurs, we wish to achieve that goal in the future.
“Personally I loved the experience and want to gain more knowledge and learn by failing multiple times before I achieve my goal. Alas, the only way I will get to the moon is if I hit one of the stars on the way. From here, I would go to learning and working harder on entrepreneurship to make my future the best that it could be. Seeing everyone else in the workshop from different schools collaborating together and sharing ideas was very lovely to see. It reset my mindset of how everyone has something to offer and have dreams and ideas of their own. Listening to the ideas of other students and visualizing the world through a fresh pair of eyes was what I enjoyed most. As well as collaborating with my team to put out our ideas and receiving feedback was just as thrilling. It felt like our voice was being heard and it boosted my confidence to strive high. The Enterprising Girls Workshop was a big eye opener and I am glad to have been part of an exciting new experience!” - Simone J
“I would say that after completing this workshop, I will definitely consider more careers in the entrepreneurial and STEM fields to further pursue my passion” - Maryam A
“This workshop opened my eyes exponentially in terms of possible career paths and business opportunities that I could participate in to benefit the world in its entirety”. - Renae V
Year 11 English | COVID Reflections
Year 11 English students have been writing reflections based on their experience of COVID-19, and how the return to on-site learning has affected them and their studies.
COVID and Me
In Year 11 English, we have had some difficulties adapting to our new learning environment - going in and out of onsite learning and figuring out how to learn at home without having our teachers with us. Now after returning to onsite learning, we can reflect on how online learning affected all of us. For me, it was hard to go to school without being able to see my friends and socialise every day - and you forget how convenient it is to have your teacher in the same room without an awkward silence after every question. However, it was nice to have shorter lessons and we were able to learn about our own habits and our individual learning styles. (I did enjoy being able to eat during lessons and wear pyjamas to school.)
We are onsite once again, and it is now our last week of lessons for this year. We are working hard to learn as much as we can before our exam for both a comparative essay and article analysis. Overall, I think that we as a cohort developed a new sense of respect for our teachers and each other after seeing how hard we all worked to complete our required work. Hopefully we all stick to it and finish the year off on a high note!
By Chelsea G, Alannah D, and Jess P.
Return to Revision
In the year 2020, we faced a tremendous amount of challenges and hardships with our education. We were finally able to return to face to face learning on the 12th of October, and have spent the past couple of weeks undertaking important revision for our exams. Our English exam will test our knowledge and comparative skills of ‘The Happiest Refugee’, a memoir by Anh Do, and ‘Brooklyn’, a movie directed by John Crowley. During our 2-and-a-half-hour exam, we will also be writing an article analysis based on an article provided on the day.
On our return, we looked at the analysis piece. Collaboratively, we began practicing and gathering important information about the provided articles, finding author, contention, tone and persuasive techniques. We repeated this on 1-2 chosen articles, rotating within different groups to share our knowledge. We continued to answer questions provided that encouraged further analysis. Using this information, we were encouraged to individually write practice introductions and paragraphs, analysing the articles. We then received valuable feedback from our teachers.
In the past week we revisited Brooklyn and The Happiest Refugee. We refreshed our memory on the texts, remembering quotes and their significance, addressing the themes, settings and complications they experienced. In the final lessons leading up to the exam, we will continue to complete practice pieces and revise quotes, themes and persuasive techniques. There is significant revision that goes into preparing well for exams.
By Amelia P, Jessica H, and Dennis Q .