Refugee Walk

During a recent Pastoral session, the Year 9 students participated in a ‘walk-a-thon’ which was then linked to the BRIDGES program and became a walk for refugees. The students were challenged as to how far they walked and where, as a refugee, that would place them on their journey. It was delightful to see the enthusiasm of the students as they completed lap after lap of the ‘track’, enjoying the sunshine of the autumn day and enjoying the company of their friends as they walked.

Elective Highlight – The Shape of Things to Come

From networking our critical path, to pinpointing activities of what could be projects of the future, Shape of Things to Come is an elective which takes problem solving to reality. So far this semester, we’ve been introduced to networks and combinations of vertices representing the number of activities to achieve a task, making us consider how much time we can afford to crash. We’ve also discovered how to cut networks to give us the maximum flow of a project and have tried our best to figure out a task’s maximum capacity. All of this crafts the skills of project management, which can be implemented in any path of our futures. I’ve really enjoyed what Shape of Things to Come has taught me.

Rhiannan Marie-Jeanne
Year 9

The final area of study required the students to design a home for a client. We may have some future architects from this class.

Semester Examinations

The examinations for Semester 1 finished last week. To quote a student after the English exam, when asked how she found the exam, she said, “I wish I had not built it up to be something bigger”. The day before the exams commenced was a well-attended BRIDGES day, as the day was given over to exam preparation and a pizza lunch. The students’ attitude and application throughout this day were exemplary. The two exam supervisors, independently, told me once the English exam was underway how impressed they were with the students. I have promoted all year with the students that it is their behaviour and their actions which will define them – not any assessment result. The students continue to impress me!

I encourage all students to review their exams, look at what they did not know on that day, what the mistake was they made on that day, but do not see the mark only. The process of completing the exams is important at this stage. Learning from them is important and reviewing study techniques leading up to the exams is important. The result is one result for the semester.

Safe on Social

As well as preparing for the examinations, the students attended a session on cyber-safety provided by Safe on Social. Among other matters, students were encouraged to check their privacy settings on popular social media apps and to do so regularly. Students were encouraged to do an audit of their parents’ privacy settings as well.

It has been a busy semester and we still have one week to go. I take this opportunity to wish every student a happy and relaxing holiday.

Jane Cowan
Level Leader: Year 9