News

Jemma Finning- National Football Champion.

Jemma Finning of 8D was selected to be part of the Under 15 Victorian Girls Football team. This was determined by a selection process that was held in Melbourne over numerous weeks and included many other girls from across the state.

After being selected, Jemma travelled with the team to the Gold Coast to play in the national championships beginning on July 31st.

In the first game played Victoria won easily against South Australia 80-1. The next Game was against New South Wales and Victoria again had a good win 78-14.

The third game was another thumping by Victoria winning 96-0 against the home team Queensland.

After winning all their games Jemma played in the Grand Final against Western Australia. The Victorian girls had yet another great win 68-28, proving them to be the national champions.

This was a fantastic effort for Jemma to be involved in such a strong determined team. Jemma not only made new friends but developed her skills.

This is a great achievement by Jemma and CSC is very proud of her achievements.

Mittagundi Camp Yr 9

Set in the valley behind Falls Creek and The Alpine National Park, is Mittagundi.  Mittagundi is a 400 acre working farm that is run by visiting secondary students under the guidance of a Director and 7 young leaders.  This year, all of our Year 9 students were invited to be part of Mittagundi for a week, living a pioneer lifestyle and go cross-country skiing at McNamara’s Hut in the Alpine National Park.  Our students took part in an Emotional Intelligence program; overcoming challenges, planning, learning and working as a team, while having heaps of fun.  Our project was to build a fence to protect the dairy cow and it’s calf from the house dam and we did an amazing job!  We arrived home tired but proud of all we had accomplished.

Legacy Public Speaking Competition

The 5th of August 2016, saw myself and three other Castlemaine Secondary students travel to Ararat where we participated in a 60-year-old competition, run by the Legacy organisation. Fourteen students from years 7-9 participated, from four different schools in or surrounding Ararat. After a warm welcome from the Legacy officials the day progressed in two sections of speeches: 5 minute prepared talks and a two-minute impromptu speech with five-minute preparation time. Each contestant’s prepared speech ranged from the topic of refugees to outdoor education and gave an insight into the speaker’s views and the world issues important to them. For the two-minute impromptu speech, students were given the topic, “I’m tired of constantly being asked what I want to be when I grow up”. Each participant interpreted this in a different way, some speaking of their dislike to being asked this, whilst others continued to talk of the stress involved with the work force to the suppression of women in the work place. All competitors spoke well and bought their own uniqueness to the event which, compiled with the beneficial experience of public speaking, lead to an overall success and enjoyment of the event by all of the students from CSC.

By Amy Ferguson (8B)

Katherine Ronke: Teacher Note

CSC has been involved with the legacy public speaking competition for several years as it is considered a valuable educational experience for all students who take part. This year we had roughly thirty-students across years 7,8,9 show an expression of interest with six eventually trying out. Legacy limits each school to only four competitors so three students from year 8, (Alva Kumlin, Amy Ferguson and Maddie Blake), and one from year 9 (Joshua Postill) were selected to participate. Each student chose their own topic which fell under an umbrella of interest areas suggested by Legacy. Alva chose to speak about ADHD, Amy about Organ Donation, Maddie about Educating Young People about the Legacy Foundation and Josh chose to discuss the Refugee Crisis. All students did a great deal of preparation leading up to the event including giving up their own time during lunches and after school. All students did an outstanding job and I felt very proud to have them representing Castlemaine Secondary College. Once the judges had aggregated the scores, they announced that while the results were extremely close a student from Marian College in Ararat had taken first position. However, CSC’s own Amy Ferguson was awarded runner-up. Given that there were only two awards given, this is a fantastic achievement.