Year 9 Clean-Up Australia
On Wednesday 30 March our Year 9 students and other representatives from our Green Team spent the afternoon performing community service as part of a delayed Clean Up Australia Day. With our original day cancelled due to COVID, we were able to transfer it to be part of our Year 9 Challenge Program tying in with their community service element of the Duke of Edinburgh Program. In small groups, our students and staff circulated around different parts of Ringwood East, collecting a substantial amount of rubbish that had been left by others. Thank you to all students and staff who were involved.
NAPLAN Practice Year 7 & 9
On Thursday 31 March our Year 7 & 9 students participated in two Practice NAPLAN sessions, one for writing and the other an omnibus test which is a combination of reading, conventions of language and numeracy. The practice session is aimed at ensuring students are familiar with the format of the new NAPLAN, whilst also ensuring that their devices and our IT facilities are adequately set up. After a few minor hiccups with our new Year 7 laptops, we are now very pleased that our students are well equipped for NAPLAN later in Term 2. The week for NAPLAN this year is the week beginning Monday 09 May.
Debating
Our Year 9 – 12 debating teams are two rounds into their competition, and we have had some very good results. All teams have either had wins or have been very, very close in their respective matches. A big congratulations to Adrian Bisignano, Elisha Sze and Mia Qian who have all received “best speaker” awards so far this season.
Year 8 Camp
Our Year 8 students have returned from an amazing experience last week in the Grampians National Park in western Victoria. They were incredibly fortunate with the weather considering the risk faced at this time of year, with only showers occurring on the morning of Friday their last day. Staff were so impressed with their efforts and achievements throughout the week including their physical abilities, their commitment to trying new things and more importantly their support and care for each other during the week. Our camps program through the Middle Years is a sequential program that provides great learning experiences for our students in outdoor activities, whilst also helping to develop their sense of independence, commitment and responsibility. Following their Year 8 experience, our students are very well placed for the Year 9 Challenge Program that includes three week-long camps throughout the year. A huge thank you to Ms Emma Lowing and her team of staff who also commit and sacrifice an incredible amount to help provide this learning opportunity for our students.
NAPLAN
The week of NAPLAN has been completed across the country and I would like to express my gratitude to the students for the way in which they went about completing their different assessments. We regularly discuss with students that events like NAPLAN and other associated assessments provide them with the opportunity to practice particular skills that they are developing throughout their schooling journey, whilst also understanding that regardless of results, if they have applied themselves to the best of their ability then they can be holding their heads up high. This “best effort” approach is something we encourage them to apply to everything they do: on the sports field, in their homework, whilst on camp or on the stage. If they continue to approach each opportunity with the outlook of doing their best, this approach quickly becomes habitual to them and will go a long way to helping them achieve success later in school and beyond.
I would like thank Mrs Alison Bezaire, our Director of Studies, Mrs Jodi Rogers and our IT team who have worked tirelessly to ensure the smooth execution of the online NAPLAN again this year.
Year 9 House Showdown
As part of our Year 9 pastoral program, one of the exciting events we run is our House Showdown. This event is a combined gender event where students work in House groups to put together a dance/musical performance based on a particular theme. This year the theme is “the letter B, C and D” and as part of their production, students are also raising money for a particular charitable organisation with Beyond Blue being this year’s charity.
The activity culminates in a performance evening on Thursday 26 May where each House will compete on stage to see who will be judged the 2022 House Showdown winners. Parents and friends are invited to the event to help celebrate their efforts whilst also helping to raise money for Beyond Blue.
Senior Library
As the winter months approach and with it comes the colder days, longer and earlier darkness, a reminder to students and families that our Senior Library in our Resource Centre is a wonderful place for all secondary students to be going at any time. Students can attend before school, during classes or breaks and after school as well. Opening hours are from 7:30am Monday – Friday and closing time is 5:30pm Monday – Thursday, and 4:30pm on a Friday.
GEM Day – Year 7s, 8s & 9s
On Tuesday 24 May we have our first Middle School GEM Day for 2022. For this day each year level will be involved in a variety of activities around their pastoral program including The Man Cave for Year 7 & 8 boys, and the Butterfly Foundation for Year 7 & 8 girls, and activities around the Duke of Edinburgh and House Showdown for our Year 9s.
