Outside the Classroom

Alpine Camp

Hi. We are the Year 9 students who are currently at The School for Student Leadership. We are attending the Alpine School Campus and have been here since the beginning of the term. We have had many amazing experiences and are super grateful for this opportunity. So far, we have done Expo 1, where we hiked for 2 days along the surrounding mountains and climbed to the summit of Mt Loch. It was fun, but also challenging, as we had to carry heavy packs. Last weekend, we got to see our families again for a day. It was nice to see our families after over a month apart. I spent the 36 hours doing short hikes with my aunts and mum and calling friends and family. I love the environment here, and the classes are fun and interesting.

While we are here, we are working on our Community Learning Project, or our CLP. Our CLP is a project that we organise and implement in our home community to better improve it. Our CLP is on mental health in our school community. We want to improve the connection on mental health between parents and students. The way we are doing this is to create a survey, which both the parents and the students will complete. Then we will post the results for everyone to see. This will help parents and students help the other party understand how they want their mental health to be handled. We will also run an optional Mental Health Education Program for parents and carers, run by headspace.

Thanks for reading,

Althea, Annika, Avi, Lucas and Hakan

Written by Althea

Year 9 Camp

CBD Camp (Term 1 Week 7) - On Thursday of Week 7, the Year 9s set out on a journey to the heart of Melbourne, the CBD. Many took the train to the hostel at which we stayed, and after dropping our luggage, students had a wonderful opportunity to wander and explore the city with their friends, visiting some of the most remarkable and iconic landmarks of Melbourne sampling the diverse cuisine, along the way. In the evening, we had some downtime with friends, before heading to dinner at Grill’d, after which, we went to the ‘gaming solitude’ of Fortress, which entailed rounds of Uno to a Fortnite gaming competition.

Spending the night with friends was arguably one of the most enjoyable experiences during this camp, but on the morning of the following day, we had plenty more to explore of the greatest city in the southern hemisphere! Students were separated into different groups, based on preferences where we participated in different activities, including rock-climbing, swimming and walking the Tan. Following this, students expanded their societal knowledge regarding culture, food, art and fashion, by visiting the Melbourne Museum, the South Melbourne Market, the NGV Art gallery and various shops.

Written by Nik Z (9H) and Joshua M (9I)

Active Transport - Cycling and Walking to Coburg High School

Coburg High School had great success on National Ride 2 School day with over 57% of students taking active transport. This is well above the National average, Coburg High School is setting a great example in this area.

We had several members of Bike Club welcoming students and completing the Hands Up! survey to report on our numbers.

The bigger the community input into improvements to cycling and walking, the healthier a school we can have. We encourage all community members to report to Moreland Conversations:(https://conversations.moreland.vic.gov.au/the-programs) on walking and cycling areas that impact your students' travel to school.

We would also encourage families to pin and flag the following issues around Coburg High School:

Pentridge Boulevard Bike Path
Urquhart Street bike path and crossing
East-West Corridor across Elizabeth Street
Murray Road bike lanes and speed controls.

Chris Bray

Kool Skools

For those who haven’t heard about it before, Kool Skools is a recording project that allows schools to put together an album of song covers and original music. This year, Coburg High are lucky enough to be having our very own Kool Skools album, full of amazing music put together by students such as ourselves. We formed our band last year after hearing about the program, and practised regularly during lunchtimes to put together our very own original song to go on the album. After auditions last year, we started working with our incredible music teachers Anna and April to improve our song, before lockdown unfortunately meant we had to postpone the recording multiple times. Now, after many months of rehearsals, facetimes and isolations, we’ve finally got the opportunity this Thursday and Friday (7th and 8th of April 2022) to record our song at Empire Music Studios, along with the eleven other groups that have been working hard for so long to get to this point. We’re all really excited and grateful for the school to have given us this opportunity, to our teachers for helping us along the way, and to each other for the enriching experience this has been.

13th Rose - Scarlett B, Hasti M, Sally S, Isabella M, Ada S & Celia P

House Program

This term started off with a splash for House events, with the Swimming Carnival and finished with a bang and the Athletics Carnival. Pentridge won the swimming carnival putting them in first place for Houses, it didn’t take long for Lake to take the lead in Compass points. For every Green Compass point received the houses slowly edged forward. It wasn’t just the sporting events and showing the school principles that saw points awarded this term. Students who were involved in all aspects of school life were also awarded ones including; Kool Skools musicians, Debaters winners and participants, Education Perfect Languages Champions, Library trivia masters, Interschool Tennis, Interschool Cricket, Interschool Baseball, Interschool Volleyball, Divisional Swimming, Student Voice and the Entrepreneurs Club members. A special thanks to those Student Agency students who worked tirelessly in the week leading up to and helping to run the Student Pride Tent for the Athletics Carnival many stayed behind until 5pm on Monday and Tuesday cutting and sewing Survivor style buffs and painting house pride signs. During the day they manned the tent painting nails, selling the buffs, painting faces and spraying hair with house colours. Next term more events are planned including Cross Country Trials and a Masterchef competition.

The current House Points are as follows:

Pentridge ~ 2679

Bell ~ 2898

Merri ~ 2750

Lake ~ 2988

Lydia Burns

VCE Dance - Top Class Excursion

CHS Dance students recently spent a day in the city watching the Top Class Dance performances at the Melbourne Recital Centre. It was lovely to see the state’s top VCE performers from 2021 showcase the solos they created throughout lockdown - a true display of resilience and talent! Our VCE dancers took extensive notes and inspiration from the Skills and Composition solos they saw, and are looking forward to showcasing their own solos at the end of semester showcase in Term 2.

Thank you to the families of these students for supporting them to attend this event.

Year 10 Spanish

On Wednesday in the last week of term, Year 10 Spanish students tried South American food (like empanadas and milanesa argentina) at Neruda’s Café in Brunswick. Students ordered their meals entirely in Spanish and enjoyed sampling David’s favourite Venezuelan drink, Pony Malta. We loved the wait staff’s hospitality and commitment to speaking Spanish only to the students. This was an excellent first excursion back and a morale boost for students to keep challenging themselves in the classroom.

Emma Webley

Pat Cronin Violence Incursion

(Term 1, Week 8 Friday the 18th of March)

The Year 9’s got to experience the “BeWise” presentation by the Pat Cronin Foundation. The Foundation’s mission is to spread awareness on violence and how it not only affects the person it is inflicted on, but also the family and friends of them. Be Wise empowers young people to handle conflict, look after their mates and make wise decisions. We got to experience a story first hand, and the inside story to the family and situation of violence against men.

Pat Cronin was a 19 year old boy who went out on Saturday 16th of April, 2016. After playing his first senior football match, he and his mates went out for a few drinks, which he had done many times before, but this time was different. A brawl broke out just outside the pub and being the caring friend he was, he stepped in to pull his friend away, in the midst of doing that he got struck in the head from behind. This sadly and depressingly led to him passing away.

This presentation was a great experience for the Year 9s as it taught us the consequences for our actions. To be extra careful, to unclench our fists and walk away.

Written by Penelope 9G, Lana 9F and Taneisha 9A

Smashed Alcohol Presentation to Year 9s

(Term 1 Week 8 Tuesday 15th March)

To teach students about the misuse of alcohol and the consequences it presents to our society, it was organised for Year 9s to participate in a performance by the Gibber Education. This organisation aims to reduce the effects of alcohol misuse in our community. The performance also looks at social media and how peer pressure plays an important role in underage drinking. Told by young people and designed for young people, the performance tells a story that goes with the rhythm of today’s young people, which empowered students to learn about personal responsibility, decision making and communication.

The performance was a very touching experience for many students and hit close to home. There were mixed reactions from the crowds but it gained the students' liking over time.

“I felt like it was performed in a great way to catch everyone's attention and keep them intrigued”

Hasti M 9B | Rebecca Z 9E

Permission to Pause Program

Caring for oneself is an important part of maintaining resilience and healthy relationships with others which prompted the Student Wellbeing team to develop the Permission to Pause Program. This initiative was open to students from all year levels and invited them to curiously explore various self-care strategies in a safe and supportive environment.

The 6 weeks program attracted 20 students where we began by playing get to know you games and eating snacks to foster social connections.

This was followed by a self-care activity, ranging from making chocolate coconut balls enclosed with affirmations to yoga which helped to calm the mind and ground the body. Other elements included, playing with pets to regulate mood, showing gratitude with rock painting and building succulent terrariums as part of horticulture therapy.

Each activity was designed to be engaging, practical and something that students can bring home to remind them of the benefits of taking care of oneself.

Pek Lin Cerase

Permission to Pause is an amazing program focusing on pausing and calming down. There have been many activities and strategies to help us pause and calm down. Some of the things that we have been doing are bullet journaling, baking treats and doing yoga. Each of these things has been teaching us different ways to understand our emotions and take a bit of a break from the busy world that we live in.

I have found each of the topics we have done interesting and have taught me many different things whether it be from learning that emotions are stored in particular parts of your body or learning how it can be useful to track your emotions.

My experience with the program has been amazing. I have loved meeting new people and exploring different things and learning many new and different techniques. I would also like to thank Pek Lin who has been running the program and anyone who has come to help out and teach us different calming techniques.

Ella - Year 7

Education Perfect

Well done to our Year 7 Spanish representatives at the Pizza Party to celebrate those that made it into the school's top 30 highest achievers in the Education Perfect Language Championships. They worked hard, they conquered, they ate all the pizza and said the whole experience was 'fantástico!'

Angela Smith