School For Student Leadership – Alpine Campus News

School For Student Leadership – Alpine Campus

Viewbank College is very excited to have 6 of our Year 9 students undertaking the School for Student Leadership Program throughout Term 1. Georgia Scrutton, Danielle Krongold, Jack Snowdon, Piper Couldrey, Liam Brewerton and Rhys Warrillow journeyed to the Alpine Campus (in Dinner Plain, Victoria) to undertake a program focusing on personal growth, independence and leadership. With limited communication to their family and friends at home (sorry kids, no mobile phones!), they were two weeks into their adventure when Stage 4 restrictions forced their return home. We wish them a safe journey back to the Alpine Campus this weekend to complete their program. 

Danielle Krongold has provided us with a journal of her experiences so far and Rhys Warrillow is captured in the images enjoying his time at the School for Student Leadership!

Week One:

The first day at School for Student Leadership (SSL) was enjoyable. There were 43 students all together and four activity groups with two schools in each. All groups are named after mountains, there are Hotham, Feathertop, Tabletop, and Loch. Our group name is Hotham, and we are partnered up with Numurkah Secondary College. Our activities on the first day were all teamwork games. During the week we continued to learn about leadership. One task was to find two or three of our strengths and one or two of our weaknesses/skills you wished you had. 

We also joined classes with Feathertop for respectful relationships class. In this class, we learned the acronym CARE which stands for C-Care, A- Accept (acceptance) R- Resonate, and E for Energetic. We also talked about what is important in a relationship, many of the ideas we all thought of were similar. 

At the end of the week, our group went Mountain Bike Riding. The ride wasn’t too long or difficult, as it was just a short ride to see where everyone is at and to learn some of the skills needed. While on the ride we learned some positions, which were helpful when going up and down hills. 

Week 2

During Week 2, we split up into their schools for the Community Learning Project (CLP.) The students from Viewbank got together and we discussed and planned our CLP. CLP is one of the major tasks while at SSL. 

We also took a TAFE food handling course. This was very interesting as we all learned so much. We learned about the temperature bacteria is most commonly found in (“DANGER ZONE”) as well as learning about how to handle food and general food safety.

A couple of days ago we watched “inside out” so our Emotional Management class was related to the movie. This was partnered with a class where we learned about resilience. 

On Friday, when we woke up everything was as per usual. We were all doing our activities, and Hotham and Feathertop Groups were working on our interviews with our teachers. Then we got interrupted and were told to meet in the dining room. Once everyone was seated the teachers broke the news to us, that Victoria was going back into lockdown. Most of us thought we would have a day or two to wrap things up and start to pack up our gear, the most shocking part was the bus was already on its way and we had to be all packed up within two hours. Many of the students were crying as we didn’t want to leave. Once the bus came and we were all ready to go we said thank you to the staff and got onto the bus.