Middle School Report

Message from the Director of Learning

- Mr. Tom Tahos

Year 9 and 10 students have been involved in various learning programs, in and outside their classroom. We are very proud of how they have conducted themselves at the various programs run by external providers, who offered some very positive feedback. Well done!!

As we approach the last few weeks of the year (before Headstart), I would like to take this opportunity to remind all Year 9 and 10 students about the following:

iRead Program - all students are expected to bring reading material that is school appropriate to their Period 4 classes (except Wednesday's iCreate). Students will be involved in silent reading for 15 minutes. Please bring in reading material that you are interested in.
Compass - keep checking Compass for upcoming events and news feeds as this is our main method of communication with our community.
School uniform - students should now be wearing their summer school uniform.
BYOD - please make sure that your electronic device is charged and that you bring it to class.
Care for your learning - this includes ensuring an attendance rate of at least 90%, being punctual to all classes and engaging with your learning by bringing all required equipment and completing class tasks. I would like to remind all students that if you are involved in extra- curricular activities and leadership roles, you must continue to keep up to date with your classwork.

Mr. Tom Tahos

Year 9\10 Chinese Excursion Day

星期二，我们中文班去了IMAX 看电影，也去了墨尔本大学做调查问卷，还一起吃了米线。电影里，大熊猫圆圆胖胖的，非常可爱。大熊猫是稀有动物，也是中国的国宝。电影告诉我们应该一起来保护大熊猫。

Last Tuesday, our Chinese class went to the IMAX theatre and visited the University of Melbourne and had rice noodles together. In the movie, the giant pandas were round, fat and very adorable. The endangered animals were also the national treasure of China. It showed that we must protect the giant pandas together.

Jason Sakolkraisorn, Cindy Liong, Emily Liong

当我们问的时候不少学生都说没时间让我们感到特别的尴尬。幸好在曾老师帮助下，我们终于完成了采访任务。所以坚持很重要。

Then we went to Melbourne University and aimed to complete our survey; asking what people think about China’s relationship with Australia, as well as the cultural differences between the two countries. However at the beginning, when we tried asking questions some university students turned us down and claimed they had no time, which was embarrassing. Thanks to Ms Zeng’s help, we successfully completed our survey task. Persistence was quite important.

Yiting Zhong, Louis Ng and Michelle Dang

采访结束后，我们去一个餐厅叫 “彩云南”吃饭。在这里，我们要用中文点菜。我们点了各种各样的米线还有炒饭和饮料，食物非常美味！中国古话说得好“饭桌看人品“。在饭桌上每个同学都展现了自己独一无二的品质，非常重视友谊，彼此分享彼此关心，这让我们每个人从这顿饭中互相学到了很多，比如优先服务他人和做真实的自己。

After the interviews, we ate at a restaurant called “Colourful Yunnan”. We all spoke Mandarin to order food. We had all sorts of rice noodles and fried rice and drinks. The food was delicious! As the old Chinese saying goes, “you can see a person’s character at a dining table”. Everyone displayed their unique characters at the table. We celebrated our friendship and upheld our school values, by sharing food and drinks and caring about each other. We all learnt a lot from each other through this lunch, such as serving others before ourselves and being true to ourselves.

Jessica Dang and Jenny Gu

总的来说，这一天真棒。我们玩得很开心。我们学到了数不胜数的知识，不仅仅是学术上的语言还包含了许多做人的道理。希望以后有更多的机会外出探索美丽的中文和墨尔本！

Generally speaking, this day was fantastic. We had a really fun time. We not only learnt the language better, but also how to cultivate our good character. Hopefully we will have more opportunities in the future to explore the beauty of Mandarin and this wonderful city—Melbourne!

Huiquan Wang and Tien Vu

In2Science Mentoring Partnership Program

On Monday, 15th of October, Ms Luong's Year 9 science class had the opportunity to learn and be taught by our In2Science mentor, Ellis Williams, who is passionate about aviation. Ellis demonstrated theory and practical activities to the students, after which they built and competed in a paper plane competition. The students were asked multiple questions regarding the purpose of plane parts and structures of a plane.

Westall Secondary College was lucky to host another 2 In2Science mentors this semester. Eric Dickson was based in our iCreate Stem elective, and Alexandra Tobin assisted in one of our Year 10 Maths classes.

We would like to thank our In2Science mentors for volunteering their time and helping our students. We wish them all the best of luck!

Ms. Loan Luong-Nguyen

Science Coordinator

History Week

15-19 October

Last week was History Week!

This is a time to think about why we study history and what effect history has on us, as people and as a country. The study of history enables us to examine the past and understand the patterns of change over time, the causes and effects of events from then and the impacts felt today. It is important to study history at school to enable us to have knowledge of our place in the modern world and the events that have shaped us.

Please take the time to have a look at the display celebrating history in the A-corridor (outside the A staffroom), set up by the Humanities teachers.

Socrates quote: “The unexamined life is not worth living”

Ms. Sue Stenning

Humanities Coordinator

Year 10 Maths Probability Workshop

Westall Secondary College had the opportunity for presenters from Connect Health come to our school to discuss the close relationship between probability and gambling. It was fantastic to see the students discussing and explaining the issues in today’s society in relation to probability.