JRC News

Authors At Frankston High School 2023

Ellie Marney is coming Term 3!

Ellie Marney is a bestselling and multi-award-winning crime author who goes above and beyond in pursuit of just the right details for her brand of YA crime thrillers and she will be visiting Frankston High School next term!

All Ellie’s books are available for loan from the library. Come in and have a browse! 

‘The Killing Code’ takes place in 1940s America and follows code-breaking girls as they seek to solve a murder.

Here Ellie answers some questions about her book ‘The Killing Code’:

• Can you tell us what The Killing Code is about? THE KILLING CODE is set in 1943, when four code girls working at a secret cryptanalysis facility called Arlington Hall must join forces to break the code pattern of a serial killer who is murdering government girls in wartime Washington DC. Basically, the book is a murder mystery with code girls, and gorgeous fashion, and the glitter and tension of the United States capital during World War II!
• Can you tell us a bit about the code girls the story centres around? Who were they and why was their work important? Well, my girls – secretive Kit, glamorous Moya, tenacious Violet, and bubbly Dottie – are all fiction, but they were based on reports I read about real code girls during the war. Did you know that seventy percent of the codebreaking workforce was female? It’s true! And many of them were very young – at the UK facility, Bletchley Park, the average age of the girls was nineteen. But people have estimated that through their extraordinary efforts, they brought the war to a close more than two years faster than it would have finished otherwise, and consequently saved more than millions of lives.
• Murder mysteries are your speciality, but what drew you setting one during World War II in America and the girls in Arlington Hall? I was first enthralled by the idea of code girls after watching a TV series called ‘The Bletchley Circle’, and then I dived into reading about Bletchley Park…which led me, in a roundabout way, to researching Allied codebreaking efforts in the US. And when I read that Arlington Hall was a real place – that it was, in fact, a finishing school for young ladies before being bought by the US Army as a codebreaking facility – I knew that I’d found my entry point to the story! Every code girl was sworn to secrecy about their work during the war; many of them took the secret of their codebreaking efforts to their graves. 
•  What are you hoping young modern readers will take away from this historical novel? I’m hoping they’ll see the similarities between their own lives and the lives of wartime code girls. Yes, there are differences, of course – but I really hope to give readers a sense of solidarity with the girls, and hope readers feel strongly that depth of female friendship which powers the book.  And I hope they like the love story, too!

What do teenagers like to read? ….Books they have chosen themselves!

Scholastic’s ‘Kids and family reading report’ found one constant result over their 13 years of gathering data. 

When kids get to choose, they read.

The Australian Scholastic ‘Kids and family reading report’ found the following:

• 92% of 15 to 17-year-olds and 90% of 12 to 14-year-olds most enjoyed books they'd chosen for themselves. They are also much more likely to finish reading them.
• Around 70% of teens would read more if they could find more books they liked.

12 to 17-year-olds want to read books that (in order of priority): 

• will make them laugh (54%)
• let them use their imagination (47%)
• have a mystery or problem to solve (42%) 
• have characters they wish they could be like (38%)
• tell a made-up story (fiction) (36%)
• teach them something new (35%)
• let them forget about real life for a while (35%)
• tell a true story (non-fiction) (32%)
• are a little scary (28%)
• are about things they experience in their life (24%)
• have characters who are in love (18%)
• have a character that looks like them (14%).

So why not visit the JRC and choose yourself some of our books!

Our SmartSuite Digital Toolbox now contains some tools... 

ENGAGE, EXPLORE, EXPLAIN, ELABORATE, EVALUATE: 5E Model for Creating Online Lessons 

(Morris, K. (2021)

We will be continuing to add more tools, with brief explanations and web links for you to investigate, as well as “how-to” videos on JRC resources – so much to check out! Please let us know if there is anything you’d like to see added.

Did you know: 

ClickView for teachers has curriculum mapping within its content options (helps save time and provides clarification for lesson planning). There will be a specific how to use ClickView video soon – stay posted 😉

Library Activities

WOW Wednesday

Our remote library service, Words on Wheels is back in the Senior School Presentation Space every Wednesday from 12.00pm–1.00pm with Ms Hast. You will find copies of VCE texts for borrowing, help with study skills and referencing or mindfulness activities.

Ms. Hast is also available in the JRC Friday lunchtimes. You can also make contact through Compass or directly at thast@fhs.vic.edu.au