Year 11 Retreat

Retreat Reflection 

by Liana Donnelly & Emilia Walmaggia

On Wednesday the 10th of March, up until Friday the 12th of March, the Year 11 cohort made their way to Beechworth to stay a couple of nights at The Old Priory. The journey started at 6:30am; we hopped onto the buses and off we went! During the ride, we were lucky enough to watch The Breakfast Club which helped us throughout our time of reflecting later on. After about 4 hours, it was finally time to settle in for the next 3 days. The retreat's main purpose was to reflect and recognise significant events that one may face in their lifetime, as well as bringing the whole year level together to form new friendships and relationships and to build on what was already there. The first half of day 1 was mainly based on getting to know our groups and participating in small activities that allowed us to gain a deeper understanding of each person and their travels. During the 3 days that we were in Beechworth, we were also asked to prepare a letter filled with positive affirmations for someone that we weren’t quite close with in our groups. The first night ended in a nice, calming meditation.

The second day came around and most of us were quite refreshed from our rest the night before. We went straight into activities with our small groups. We were asked to reflect upon the strengths, weaknesses and characteristics that we each believe we show as individuals. A big part of this trip was getting each student to create a mask that represented what they believed they were hiding behind. This activity gave us the opportunity to realise that we have all been through times where we’ve had to showcase our faces completely different to what we were actually feeling. This brought out a few tears from some students, but it was totally worth being able to explore our emotions in depth. In the afternoon, we were lucky enough to be able to explore the town of Beechworth and to see what it had to offer. Our main task, while in town, was to find an object that symbolises something meaningful to us. Then, we were asked to take a photo of it and later on, discuss why we chose the image and how it corresponds to a particular event in our lives. Reflecting on these images allowed us to highlight significant topics that we were thinking and feeling about on this trip. Later that night Mrs. Luecke, and a group of Year 11s, organised a liturgy where we got to display the wonderful masks that we had made, as well as hearing from Mr. Desmond (Director of Education in the Diocese of Sandhurst) who spoke to inspire us with our futures. This helped us become refreshed and to clear our minds of all of the stress and worries that we had been facing earlier that week. We ended our night with a game of trivia, which was then followed by a talent show. This exposed the extraordinary talents of our peers! Before we knew it, it was time for bed.

On the last day, we unfortunately did not have much time for activities because we were scheduled to leave quite early from the accommodation. Before leaving on our journey back home, we reflected on our time at The Old Priory, and what we had learnt from being there. All of the activities allowed us to realise multiple things about ourselves, as well learning more about our peers as individuals. Although several tears were shed, our happiness and laughter overshadowed the times where we felt most vulnerable. We believe that this retreat helped us to grow as people, as well as helping us move forward, letting go of the past and building long lasting relationships that we will all cherish forever.

Group Statements on Hopes

The aim of these statements was to give a general overview of how the group sees themselves as individuals; how they see their life journey and their hopes for the future.

Collectively we have come together and agreed on our symbol statement being to  create positive energy through growing,  laughing and radiating serenity.

Every image is unique and holds memories and expresses 1000 emotions. We all come from ONE TREE each branch lives a different story.  Everyone is a RAW GEM that is eagerly waiting to GET POLISHED by the KNOWLEDGE of LIFE.

Our journeys are not the same, but in our differences there are similarities.  One individual cannot achieve as much as ten combined, so we will strive to achieve happiness as a team. Our symbol is a Mask which is not perfectly cut because none of us are perfect. But what is perfection anyway?  The inside is beautiful - it is not about the outside.  You never know about someone until you really get to hear their story and see how awesome a person they really are.  Which is what our group is experiencing.

As a team we collectively feel we are just starting our journeys.  We recognise that change is inevitable.  Out change cannot and should not be compared to others.  We will all wear different hats to meet our individual needs.

As a group we discussed our past childhood experiences.  There were many common emotions such as love, security and simplicity.  We are feeling eager for the future as we are on the road to self-discovery. We also reflected on the fact that we enjoy every moment before it is lost.  In the future we yearn for a prosperous journey filled with love.

Although we all have different characteristics, strengths and experience different challenges and changes in life, we still all help each other to remove our masks and show our true selves.  We are all in this together.

We are a group of individuals like the different sweets in the sweet shop.  All of us have been through many ups and downs like a rollercoaster and this will continue throughout our lives.  However, our memories including those that make us sad like the rain will help us to grow strong like the trees in nature.

With the diversity of our group we reflected upon the past clearly so we may advance through the fog covering the path to our futures. 

As Group 16, we have come closer to an understanding who we are as individuals.  We have decided that our past, present and future, molds us into the people we are and it makes us open to challenges, which are essential part of personal growth.  We understand that challenges are a necessary part of life and that failure is our teacher.  We have found importance in finding ourselves in this world, and we know that we see ourselves in many things, and that it is important to connect and make connections in life.  Life is an unsure journey that we must live to the fullest, and perhaps life does not need to be understood, and may never be understood but that is okay.

We are all unique with unique journeys working on independence, regardless of this we will support each other even if our roads diverge.  We will accept and embrace each others difference and it will make us stronger.

We are all our own unique seeds originating from previous plants.  In order to nurture it's growth from strong roots we must go through both light and dark to learn about ourselves and our personalities and from our past mistakes.  So that we can stand strong and sturdy in the future.

Our groups brides because we stick together and break together.  The foundation of our journey is adventure - that is filled with ups and downs.  Yet, we are always curious and looking forward to the brighter side.  We continue to discover our strengths, and also our weaknesses.  At the end of the day, ask Bricks, we know there is support around us and unity.  Together we have learned from our mistakes and how to appreciate all the precious memories along the journey - the good and bad.  From our mascot, sir cuddles we have learned to forever be grateful for our bricks and our friends.

As a group we have development ourselves and used out past to create a better future together as one. We have open up out weaknesses and strengths and uncovered our masks together.

We see ourselves as a tree and have deep roots that spread far. The extension of our branches are not limited to where we began, Like the branches each of us will go our different ways but together we are the trunk that helps each other grow.  For each of the seasons there will be changes.  We will have our own......  On our leaves are: independence, respect, strength, courage, empathy, vulnerability heart warmth, honesty, open hearts, support, encouragement, trust and friendship. When the leaves fall, they help the tree regrow, these are our challenges and hardships As we fall, we learn that we try and we fail but we must never fail to try. We are like and evergreen tree, we are always resilient.

Student Reflection - First 5 weeks of Year 11

by Sienna Colcott

And so it has commenced... the first 5 weeks of Year 11 - done and dusted. On behalf of the whole of Year 11, I think it’s safe to say that the transition made from a covid-filled Year 10 to a VERY hectic start to our first year of VCE/VCAL was absolutely overwhelming. I know for a fact that there have been many mornings where we struggle to get out of bed, cry in Mrs Luecke’s office over the amount of SACS we have, and pull all nighters because we haven’t studied for said SACS (not to scare you Year 7’s!) However, in the end, we made it through these first 5 weeks back at school, and now we have Retreat to look forward to! While I am pretty disappointed that we couldn’t go to Canberra this year, I’m still feeling ecstatic to get away for 3 days to Beechworth. But before I get into my thoughts and feelings for pre-camp, here are my thoughts over what’s happened over the last 2 weeks.

First off, we have the Opening Mass! I know to some the Opening Mass isn’t too significant in comparison to other events however, to me, the first mass honestly meant a lot. Considering we spent the whole of last year without having face to face masses, I thought that spending our first mass of 2021 in person rather than on a Google Meet would really unite us all once again after the tumultuous time endured last year. The drama performance was a breath of fresh air, and I mean, c'mon… we had soft drinks this time! Who can go wrong with a good can of coke? It was so nice seeing everyone together again, and things, for once, finally seemed normal.

However, that joy quickly got pushed aside in favour of determination to get our upcoming SACS done. Now for those who don’t know, a SAC is basically like a normal assignment, essay, test etc… but it is assessed  under our overall VCE coursework - so pretty serious stuff. It is much different when you're in VCE, you can NOT get all your work done the night before it’s due. You have to spend lots of time focused on revising what you’ve learnt, and really devote time to studying. For most girls, this term was their first time ever having a proper SAC, and boy were we nervous… especially for our first English one. 

Our first English SAC was done after school hours, and went on from 3:30 - 5:00. During this time I could feel the anxiety in the room that everyone held in wanting to do well. Thankfully, when we finished, there was a collective relief in knowing we conquered our first after-school English SAC, and we now have our Retreat to look forward to! To prepare for our Retreat, we first got our groups and rooms organised with our friends at the Old Priory House. Some rooms are as big as 40 - whilst others are as small as 3. Keeping in mind that we have never been on a Retreat before, this experience will certainly be a new and fun one that I’m sure we will all cherish for years to come. After we’ve all packed (totally not done the night before camp), we’re off to Beechworth on a three and a half hour bus ride on a beautiful 6:30am Wednesday morning! While it most definitely won’t be fun waking up at 5:00am to get ready, I’m looking forward to spending time with my friends and participating in different activities. Until next time........