SECONDARY SCHOOL

WELCOME TO THE NEW

St Andrews Secondary School!

It has been a fantastic start to the year as we transition to a Secondary School. I am very blessed to lead a wonderful team of teachers and staff who are working hard to support the education of your children.

The new structure will allow us to further build upon our curriculum development—seeing a focus on the improvement in the scope and sequence of our curriculum. The addition of an elective program at Year 8, and the further expansion of the elective program at Years 9 and 10 have meant our students have never had such an array of choices available to them in their academic program. We are intentional to ensure that all our subjects have a distinct pathway to preparing students for not only their VCE, but life after St Andrews as well.

I want to congratulate the Class of 2020 for an outstanding year, especially as they persevered through multiple lockdowns and the postponements and cancellations of annual events. The way the class of 2020 remained connected and engaged with school is to be admired.

The academic results received by students was inspiring. The median study score of 33 is the highest the College has ever achieved, with the school ranked number 66 in the state, and the highest ranked school in the City of Knox. Congratulations to our students!

The Secondary School has also welcomed a number of new teachers. They have been excellent additions to the College community already. Please make sure you welcome the new teachers:

Lisa Wilks-Beasy (Head of English)
Doug Allison (Head of Teaching and Learning- Secondary)
Winnie Lam (Secondary School Teacher)
Jessica Rowe (Secondary School Teacher)
Lukas Willig (Secondary School Teacher)
Maria Wheelton (Secondary School Teacher)

I trust this year will be one filled with fun, excitement, and most of all learning. With our students learning more about themselves and their God given talents and abilities. As the theme for the year emphasises, my hope is that your child learns to trust God more this year.

John Presant

Head of Secondary School

Prep and Year 12 Buddies first meet up

Above are some pictures from the first meeting of the Prep and Year 12 buddies. Lots of smiles and new friendships were shared.

Kathryn Brown,

Secondary School Teacher

Year 7H Memories of Camp Coolamatong

Our Homeroom are just so grateful for the opportunity to go on camp! Our theme is “Trust in the Lord” and this was reinforced by the Coolamatong leaders and interns, in our devotions and throughout activities.

When debriefing after a bike ride, one leader challenged the students to look around and pick up a leaf, a stick and a rock. He asked them, ‘What will you leaf (leave) at camp – fears, worries, insecurities? What will stick with you – an experience, a realization, a new skill? What has rocked your world – a new found relationship with Jesus, having overcome a fear or made a new friend?”

Here are some responses.

Stick - The amazing memories of tubing are unforgettable,

Rock - people work there have rock my world,

Leaf - by the way, leaving behind the pain and sorrow.

Leaf - I will leaf behind the marsh flies also that they don't have to bite us anymore

Stick - something that will stick with me will be the gorgeous sight of the waves crashing against the fallen trees and stones. The sun setting, making the water glow and shimmer as it flows. The fun activities and the amazing (but scary) kangaroos as they hopped.

Rock - Something that rocked my world was when I was able to sail a boat

Camp Coolamatong was surely an amazing experience! Something that I really enjoyed was when the wind set the water to ripples and as the jellyfish blobbed around under the water

Leaf - I will leave behind the memories

Stick - The best things about camp was tubing and sailing

Rock - What changed my life was trying new things

Leaf- I will leave behind not knowing the teachers.

Stick- The memories of the camp will stick to me.

Rock- I will change how l use spin in table tennis.

Leaf - my fear of homesickness

Stick - the friendships I’ve made

Rock - the new things I’ve tried gave me a whole new perspective on things

Leaf - I will leave behind the spiky shells and rocks

Stick - the memories of all the activities

Rock - when I first went, I didn't know what tubing was but when I tried it, it was my favourite activity

Leaf - I will leaf behind sharing a cup of orange juice with 5 other people.

Stick - The tubing will stick with me with because of falling off purposely

Rock - Sailing will rock my world looking at all the things God created

Leaf - The thing that I would leave behind is the mosquito bites because they were not very nice.

Stick - I would stick with the fun activities that I did

Rock - The thing that rocked my world was the great memories I made :)

A cool breeze smashed onto my face as the jetty took off into the ocean, pulling 3 people, in tubes, behind us, as Clint started doing some twisty turns Mrs. Heading went on a 80 degree angle, that was one of the best scenes I’ve ever seen.

Leaf - My favourite stick

Stick - making the raft

Rock - New friendships from 7F

Leaf - I will leave behind the fun tubing.

Stick - My sailing skills will stick with me.

Rock - My friends.

Coolamatong was the most awesome camp ever. It made me more responsible and independent (and the activities were awesome of course) but most importantly, it strengthened my relationship with God.

Leaf - I will leave behind the very itchy mosquito bites

Stick - I will remember the amazing tubing experience

Rock - I understood the Bible a lot more

I really enjoyed camp because I got to do some activities I was never able to do because of COVID last year. I learnt how caring everyone was when your hurt and how you can trust a lot of people when you actually get to know them.

Leaf - I left my shyness of interacting and getting to know all the new people.

Stick - I really enjoyed being able to finally go out to the open and also experiencing being with change from all the students from last year.

Rock - I never knew I would have so much fun in a forest and especially because I don’t really like water activities

There are basically no words to explain camp Coolamatong except absolutely exhilarating! The activities pushed us to our limits and in the end they were totally worth it because we had so much fun!

Leaf- I will leave behind my fear of bugs :)

Stick- the time when I fell into the water when I was tubing

Rock- the new friendships that I have made and built over the week

Leaf- I will leave behind my worries of new things

Stick - My tubing experience will stick with me

Rock - All my new friends has rocked my world!

Sentence: I really enjoyed Camp Coolamatong because I made many new connections and friends.

Leaf - I will leave behind the worry of not knowing all the new students’ names

Stick - Something that will stick with me are the many new friendships I made.

Rock - Learning so many new things like sailing and stand up paddle boarding really rocked my world.

Marina Heading

7H Homeroom Teacher

Year 7 Camp Coolamatong

We would like to thank our College administration, teachers and parents who had the TRUST IN GOD that we could do this camp. Special thanks to Mrs Heading for all the hard work behind the scenes. Students of Homeroom 7F along with the 7H students loved being part of such an exciting and rewarding experience at Camp Coolamatong. Under the supervision of our teachers and the Coolamatong staff, students grew respect for each other and themselves. All activities were built around our college theme: Trust in the Lord.

Students of 7F were asked a couple of questions as part of their feedback which we would like to share with our college community.

Best thing about the camp

The food
Doing activities with your friends and getting to know others
Tubing 100%
Tubing and the yummy food!
The adventure race, I also loved sitting in the Tebins with my friends.
Tubing was really fun and the Adventure Race.
Meeting camp leader, trying new things and making new friends.

Something new that you learnt or did on this camp

Stand up paddle boarding and canoeing
How to build a raft and tie strong knots
Camp Coolamatong has a big history behind the beautiful sunset.
I learnt how to steer a sail boat which was so much fun to do.
Learnt how to play ping pong, nine squares.

What will you remember from the camp?

The amazing staff
Tubing with my friends and enjoying camp with my teachers and friends
Tubing, the walk, beautiful sunset, food and the Tebins.
I will remember the fun, exciting and new activities that I did and all the nice staff there
All the activities and how we needed to Trust each other.
I learnt more about God and memorized our school theme verse.
Always keep trusting in the Lord.
All the fun activities and friendly people.
Everything – it was the BEST CAMP EVERRRRRRRRR – I really mean it.

Louis Fernandes

7F Homeroom Teacher

Working Scientifically

I would like to congratulate all our students from Year 7F for successfully displaying scientific skills of ‘how to light a Bunsen burner’. All students have officially been recognised and now hold a license to ‘blow up things in the lab’ of course they are going to keep lab risk assessment in mind.

Students were able to name the various parts of the Bunsen burner and produce a yellow [safety] flame and a blue [working] flame. Thanks to Mrs Hooi – our lab technician for organising lab coats and safety goggles which enabled us to carry out this activity.

Louis Fernandes

7F Science Teacher

Birthday Blessing

In 11A Homeroom we have explored what a covenant relationship with God and each other looks like and how to be a blessing.

To recognise and celebrate that we are a community we have committed to bringing in a cake for each other’s birthdays. On Thursday morning (after lockdown) Kayle brought in this cake for Travis.

Doug Allison

Head of Learning and Teaching – Secondary, Secondary School Teacher