VCE Examinations

As the VCE exams are underway for 2023, I would like to congratulate all students who studied Units 3&4 Foundation Mathematics, General Mathematics and Mathematical Methods this year. Maths can often be challenging for students and it is always great to see students elect Mathematics as a part of their VCE certificate. Although some students may wonder when they will ever have to find the area between two curves ever again, remember that it’s not always the content we are learning but a whole range of skills in critical and creative thinking, collaboration and self-regulation. Well done to you all and the best of luck for your exams and beyond.

‘Amazing Race’ Mathematics Challenge with St Bede’s

Speaking of challenges, on Wednesday the Year 10 Advanced Mathematics for 2024 participated in a variety of challenging tasks with the Year 9 Advanced Mathematics class from St Bede’s College. I congratulate all students who participated, including the five Year 8 students who stood up and took on the challenge. I look forward to hosting more in the future.

Karen McMullen
Learning Leader: Mathematics

Student Reflection

On 25 November, the Advanced Math class for Year 10, 2024 had a fun time participating in the Amazing Race Maths Challenge with students from St. Bede’s College. Even though it was indoors due to the weather, we still had so much fun! We formed pairs with students from our school, then joined pairs from St. Bede’s and had an hour to complete different activities. It was challenging, but we all managed to finish at least one task. It was interesting to see how boys and girls approach problem-solving differently, and together we were able to work amazingly! The teachers were great in making Maths enjoyable for everyone and I hope to be part of another challenge like this in the future to further develop my communication and teamwork skills.

Jayda V
Year 9

Year 8 Maths Measurement Assignment

Over the past two weeks the Year 8 students created a poster on 3D shapes because they were studying the topic of Measurement. This included measuring volume and the surface area. Students were given the task of creating a fun and colourful poster exhibiting three 3D pull shapes. They had to make a Cube, Triangular prism or Rectangular prism concluding with a shape of choice. All shapes, when the string was pulled through the holes on the 2D shape net, revealed the amazing 3D shape. As well as displaying the formulas of the total surface area and the total volume for the shapes, this task was a fun and creative task. It took my peers and I out of our comfort zones and we used our imaginations. Some of my peers came up with the most amazing ideas that displayed not only the correct formulas, but presented some amazing designs. This task was very fun as colouring and designing the poster was done towards the end of the assignment, which acted as reward for all the hard work on the calculations of the three shapes! This assignment proved to be a big but fun challenge.

Allie O
Year 8