All formal timetabled classes for students in Years 7, 8 and 9 concluded on Thursday 1 December. From Friday last week, students followed an alternative programme that allowed them to explore many curriculum and co-curricular areas that encourages students to be challenged to learn in creative and engaging ways that are not regularly able to be facilitated in the traditional timetable.
Our learning areas offered these experiences to our students and put much time and effort into developing and coordinating these activities and I am sincerely grateful for their support, leadership and creativity. Students actively engaged in real world problems that allowed them to investigate and respond to an authentic, engaging and complex question, problem or challenge. These activities are important for students to develop lifelong learning skills such as creative thinking, collaboration, problem solving and communication and discover the place of learning areas in their world.
Each year group had a central focus on a project-based learning task. Year 7s looked at solutions to Making the World A Better Place. Year 8s were Creating a Zine to educate and entertain their peers about a topic of personal interest. Year 9s worked in partnership with the City of Bayswater to create local community solutions during a Sustainable Symposium. In addition, students participated in daily activity sessions including basic First Aid training, cooking Christmas cheer, expressing Languages through art, Mathematical mind stretches, theatre sports, team games, HASS creative critical challenge and ‘Know Your World’, Aboriginal message sticks, coding and robotics, planning for the future, designing a video game character, a stewardship project, adulting and emotional regulation using art and perseverance when making mistakes. The Year 7s were entertained by their peers in the Year 7 Band Showcase and the Year 8s tested their knowledge of our College patron, Caroline Chisholm.
Our End of Year Programme is a fantastic way to culminate the 2022 academic year positively as they participated in these engaging, fun and enriching learning opportunities with our staff.
Mrs Nicole Huggins
Deputy Principal – Excellence
