vcal community collaboration

Bright futures!

Will Carrolan

Year 11

Our Year 11 VCAL students recently applied for a VicHealth Bright Futures grant of $15,000 to put toward a community based project in 2017.

The cohort was advised that they have been successful in their application and we are decidely proud and excited to begin the project! This grant will provide opportunities for the 2017 Year 12 VCAL students to plan, implement and reflect on a project within our local area.

Currently, the VCAL students design their own coursework based around their interest areas. This year, the student-led curriculum includes the Integrated Sports Project, Try a Trade at Northern College of the Arts and Technology, Zombie Apocalypse and the annual Twilight Market.

The VCAL students and teachers are very excited to be collaborating with our Wellbeing Department in order to implement this student-led project. It is also an invaluable opportunity for the students to work in partnership with Merri Health and Moreland Council Youth Services, based at Oxygen.

Having access to this VicHealth grant provides significant opportunities for real-life application of our project. Alongside explicitly-taught employability skills, and establishing connections within our local community, this project ultimately increases the VCAL cohort’s employment prospects post-secondary school, as well as benefiting our Moreland community more broadly.

To find out more about the Bright Futures Challenge, click here and to investigate BSC VCAL Program opportunities, click here.

Caroline Hart

Student Wellbeing Coordinator

The VicHealth “Bright Futures” Grant which our current Year 11 VCAL class were awarded is designed to “promote community and young people’s resilience, social connection and wellbeing” .

It was really enjoyable to work with this class and VCAL Coordinator, Laura Elliott, brainstorming thoughts and ideas around what they felt were barriers to ‘resilience, social connection and wellbeing’ in their community (defined as broadly or specifically as they wished). I am so pleased that this collaboration between our school, Merri Health (Youth Health Promotion department) and Moreland Council offers this class the opportunity to bring one of their ideas to life next year, providing the students the opportunity to learn innumerable skills around time management, financial accountability etc, as well as potentially benefiting our Moreland community more broadly.

The Amazing Race!

Caroline Hart

Student Wellbeing Coordinator

Continuing the fabulous focus on collaboration, the Amazing Race conducted at the end of Term 3 was a cooperative project between the Peer Support team and Year 11 VCAL students.

A small but determined band of Year 10 Peer support students, supported by their two Year 11 Captains, Hayley and Oskar, along with the Year 11 VCAL class, not to mention all the Year 7 COGS teachers, Assistant Principal Alison Sanza and members of the wellbeing team (Jeremy Fiske and myself) ran an ‘Amazing Race’ for the entire Year 7 cohort.

Year 7 students worked in teams and were awarded stars when they demonstrated the school values (Persistence, Respect, Achievement, Responsibility, Excellence and especially Teamwork) during the series of activities they needed to complete. There were three categories in which the teams could win:

team with the most stars
class with the most stars (each class was divided into 4 teams) and
first entire class across the line

The competition was taken seriously by all, with the senior students taking numerous roles including admirably facilitating groups of Year 7 students, assisting them through their activities and awarding the stars. Some senior students took on the roles of official photographers while others assisted with directions, instructions and ‘crowd control’. The Year 7 students worked very enthusiastically in their small groups. You could feel the energy in the air as they navigated their courses!

The Arts of Peace team ultimately achieved two wins - First Class across the Line, and Class with the most Combined Stars, while one of Media teams (consisting of Nicholas Duncan, Nicholas Punaro, Aidan Buot, Atticus Frost, George Isaac and Chris Eleftheriadis) won the prestigious ‘Team with most Stars’.

Congratulations to all involved – it was a great morning!