Term 1 Week 10

Many of you who read these articles on a regular basis would be aware that our whole-of-College focus this year is the concept of Engagement. Wherever possible, we have been encouraging our students, staff and families to consider engagement as the notion of new or renewed possibilities being created through connection or reconnection.

With the understanding that engagement can potentially increase opportunity, release strategy, and deliver fruitfulness, it has been suggested that we, as members of the CCG community, shift our individual and collective gaze toward people or areas of life with which we might possibly choose to engage or re-engage in 2022.

This being the final week of Term 1, and the lead-in to the Easter School Holidays, it felt entirely appropriate and timely to offer a thought in relation to the idea of engaging or re-engaging with Easter.

Easter

Despite the difficulties of our current global situation, it remains important for us to remember, acknowledge, celebrate and engage with Easter. Why?

Because Easter is the most special, and the most sacred, festival, event and moment on the Christian calendar. And even for those for whom Christianity is not a chosen pathway, Easter cannot be ignored. Several billion of our world’s 7.9 billion inhabitants will be stopping to recognise Easter in one format or another this year; and, more specifically, in excess of 1 billion people around the globe, who identify as Christians and live lives in accordance with Christian belief and teachings, will do more than simply eat an Easter egg – they will actively participate in a personal and community recognition of Easter.

In our society, the celebration of the birth of Christ occurs at Christmas, but it is Easter that is recognised as the most pivotal date for Christianity, because it is the moment, Biblically-speaking, at which there is a definitive acknowledgement of the role played by Christ in the establishment of the possibility of an ongoing and direct relationship with God Himself. It is big. It is important. It is real.

Jesus Christ, His life, death and resurrection, are at the core of Easter.

Every year people will discuss and debate “the Jesus question” which is a tremendously important conversation, and, as they do, it becomes more and more clear how important He, and therefore Easter, is to our society, to our culture, and to our past, present and future. Even the very calendar we live by has been set in accordance with the dates of His life.

One Solitary Life

If thinking about the life of Jesus has not previously been a focus, perhaps the following piece of writing might be of interest. It is entitled “One Solitary Life”.

“He was born in an obscure village, a child of peasant parents. He grew up in a different yet equally small and obscure village where He worked in a carpenter’s shop until aged 30.  Then for three years He was an itinerant preacher.  He never wrote a book.  He never held an office.  He never had a family.  He never owned a house.  He didn’t go to university.  He didn’t visit a big city.  He never travelled more than 200 miles from His birthplace.  He did none of the things one usually associates with greatness.  He had no credentials.  He was only 33 when the tide of public opinion turned against Him.  His friends ran away.  He was turned over to His enemies and went through the mockery of a false trial. He was nailed to a wooden cross between two thieves.  While He was bleeding to death His executioners gambled for His clothing – His only property.  After He died He was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend. Twenty centuries have come and gone and yet today He is still the central figure of the human race – our daily calendar is based upon the date of His birth, many of our global political and judicial systems are based upon His teachings, and more than half of the western world’s schools, universities and hospitals have been established by people operating in His Name. All the armies that have ever marched, all the navies that have ever sailed, all the parliaments that have ever sat, all the Kings and Queens that have ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of humanity as much as that one solitary life.”

So here we are, approaching Easter 2022, realising that Easter matters; that Jesus matters. And if we are going to be really honest with ourselves, we would have to say that it is not a nice, or easy, or convenient story. In fact, Easter doesn’t fit easily and smoothly into our nicely packaged lifestyle, but it does challenge us to think about what is really happening in our heads and our hearts.

An Easter Response

As you reflect on Easter and what it means to you, there are several ways you could choose to respond, including, but not limited to;

• Making time to simply sit quietly and think
• Writing down some of your thoughts
• Sharing your thinking with others
• Engaging with a local Easter Church Service
• Perhaps this written prayer, below, might help you

Lord God,

As we approach Easter this year please provide us with the confidence to know that You are here with us, every day, filling us with Faith, Hope, and Love.  Thank you for Your love, which enfolds us in Your arms. In Your gentleness, please guide us. In Your power, please strengthen us. In Your humility, please direct us away from selfish thinking.

Where there is fruitfulness, bring shared celebration; where there is sadness, bring joy; where there is fatigue, bring refreshment; where there is division, bring unity, and where there is despair, please bring a renewed sense of hope.
Let this Easter be a time when Your light and Your love flood into our lives and provide us with healing, freedom and hope. We want to be people who are full of love, acceptance and forgiveness as we give ourselves to serving You, serving one another, and serving our broader community.

We ask please that You grant us Your peace; the peace that passes all understanding; the peace that needs to be shared.
In the Name of The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit we pray, Amen.

Bless you.

It has been such a joy to observe the students engaged in their learning and connected with peers as we have completed a full 10 weeks of Term 1. We know the past period of time has been incredibly challenging for all, however, it has been wonderful that we have seen the consistent return of many of the rich learning experiences, including camps and excursions that enrich the ‘school experience’ of our young people. We have also been able to welcome back on site our families as COVIDSafe restrictions have eased, and I sincerely thank families and friends that were able to join with us in the House Athletics Carnival this week, and our House Swimming Carnival at Kardinia Pool. We look forward to the opportunities we have planned to further connect with you in Term 2. 

Today, we stopped and paused as students and staff in respective Junior and Middle School Easter Services heard the ‘good news’ of the Gospel. God’s amazing plan to restore us into relationship with him through the love and hope Our Lord has offered us through the sacrifice of His son, Jesus.  

Various students lead us through the Easter story and Tim King, a friend of the Bellarine Campus and well-known Pastor, who works across churches in the Bellarine and Geelong areas, shared a message of the opportunity we have to be in relationship with God and the power that a life in Christ can have for each one of us.  

Our Junior School Choir, prepared by Mrs Lawrence and lead by Ms Huber blessed us with a beautiful version of our College Hymn “Seek Ye First”. Sisters Abharna and Abhinaya Sanjeev were amazing in their strings duo playing “Theme from Ice Castles”, well done girls! I hope you enjoy a snippet of the wonderful blessing this was to all of us.  

I wish all of our families a blessed Easter and a wonderful holiday break. We look forward to continuing our incredible learning journey together as a community throughout Term 2. 

Over the past few weeks our Prep students have been introduced to a number of different picture story books with a common theme of friendship, kindness, and celebrating differences. Their favourites being ‘Under the love umbrella’ by Davina Bell and ‘Love makes a family’ by Sophie Beer. After reading both books with the classes they were excited to share their opinions and thoughts about the storyline and were able to make real life connections. From listing who they would have under their love umbrella to how they define what love is to them. It was heart-warming to see our youngest keen to share openly with their peers.

Here are a few examples of what love is to some of our Prep students.

Love is…playing with your friends. Ted Prep S

Love is…always helping others. Eva Prep S

Love is…giving flowers when people are sick. Maiella       Prep D

Love is…going for a bike ride. Clancy Prep D

In Prep we have been learning a different word each week to support our knowledge of letters and sounds through the SMART Spelling program. This week’s focus word was ‘bed’! The Preps were the envy of Junior school as they ditched their uniform for their PJs and brought along their favourite teddy to share in the fun of pyjama day!

With the help of their teddies, the Preps enjoyed many activities together throughout the day such as a ’10 in the bed’ craft, ‘bed’ themed maths rotations and many more. The crowd favourite was a surprise movie where they could sit back, relax and enjoy each other’s company after a busy first term of school.

Today the Preps did Ninja training which is called ‘Official Ninja Business’ (ONB). They had to search the classroom and the playground for the missing hiragana letters aあ, saさ, oお and koこ. Once they had found the missing letters, the trainee Ninjas practised the ancient art of using chalk to write aあ, saさ, oお and koこ on the outside concrete and blackboards.

Good luck trainee Ninjas with your chalk writing over the holidays!

There was a real buzz around the Bellarine campus on Tuesday at the Year 3- 9 Athletics carnival. It was great to see students actively involved in a fun and engaging program, encouraging each other, displaying excellent sportsmanship, and representing their house with pride.

The day saw all four houses battle it out for the trophy, but in the end, it was Penman that took out the 2022 championship followed by Burrows, Flynn, and Taylor. Well done to all Year 9 house captains for their leadership and organisation on the day.

Year 8 Jasmine King was the fastest girl on campus with a time of 13.81 seconds. Year 8 Guy Williams took out the fastest on campus with a time of 12.08 seconds.

There were also 18 new records that were broken on Tuesday. This is an amazing achievement and displays the caliber of students that we currently have at the Bellarine campus. Congratulations to the following students on becoming new record holders.

Year 9- Suzanna Mavromihalis- 800m and Discus

Year 9 Molly Hoe- 100m

Year 9 Asta Kapitelli- High jump

Year 8- Jasmine King- 100m, Discus, 800m and high jump

Year 8- Guys Williams- 100m, long jump and high jump

Year 7- Abhinaya Sanjeev- Shot put and high jump

Year 7- Charlie Sambucco- 100m and high jump

Year 6- Zoe Sambucco- 100m and shot put

Year 5- Jessica Berra- Shot put

A massive congratulations also goes to the year level champions on their efforts throughout the day.

Year 4- Patrick Clark and Harriet Clarey-Newnham

Year 5- Harry Judge and Jessica Berra

Year 6- Cooper Bell and Zoe Sambucco

Year 7- Charlie Sambucco and Abhinaya Sanjeev

Year 8- Keegan Johnson and Jasmine King

Year 9- Oliver Burgess and Suzanna Mavromihalis

Thanks to all our parents and college community who came out to support students. We appreciate the hard work of all our teachers and support staff for helping make this a fantastic day.

We look forward to running our Prep- Year 2 carnival early in Term 2.

GATEways I.G.N.I.T.E. Program:

On Wednesday 6th April a small number of students from the Bellarine Campus, the Junior Campus Belmont, the Middle School Highton Campus and the Surf Coast Campus participated in an Ignite program delivered by specialist educators from the GATEways organisation. GATEways is an independent, non-funded organisation established in 1994 to provide opportunities for highly able and gifted children.

The I.G.N.I.T.E. program consisted of two half day workshops in mathematics and science enrichment.  The students in Year 3 engaged in one set of workshops and the Year 4 to 6 students in another two workshops.

Throughout the day the students were exposed to concepts, theories and processes which captured and held their interest, thinking, creativity and problem-solving skills.  The students wrestled with advanced knowledge and skills. They met and formed new friendships with likeminded students. They worked on task, tirelessly, and exhaustively all day long. Without a doubt, the students experienced a day they will never forget and will build on in their future educational journey.

As the year progresses, we will continue to offer other opportunities for engagement both within the school day or after hours, where highly able and gifted students will be able to extend personal and collaborative areas of passion, gifting and talent.

In the meantime, a huge vote of thanks is extended to Meg and Jesse, from GATEways for their brilliant delivery and superb work with our community of learners.

Maths Help Clinic (Year 5-9):

Every Friday lunchtime (between 1:30pm-1:55pm) in the library, Mr. Pat Sculley is running a weekly Maths Help Clinic for the Year 5-9 students. The purpose is to provide support for those students who have Maths related homework questions or would like to extend themselves. Students can come along for 2 minutes or stay for 25 minutes, it’s purely up to them. If you have any further questions, please email Mr. Sculley.

Chess Club:

Mr. Adam Reidy and Mr. Liam Monagle run Chess Club during the 2^nd half of lunchtime (1:30pm – 2:10pm) every Monday and Thursday in the library. Chess Club is open to all students from Prep-9, from beginners interested in learning how to play chess, through to more advanced players seeking a challenge. Reidy Sensei and Mr. Monagle will be there ready to either teach you the basics or facilitate your progression as a chess player (you may even be able to teach them a few moves)! The library has new chess sets ready for you to play with. All are welcome, hopefully many of you come along and join in the fun!

The Bebras Australia Computational Thinking Challenge was on again this year with over 27,400 students taking part. This competition was all online, run by the CSIRO and is aligned with the Australian Curriculum. The Computational Thinking challenge is available to students from Years 3-12 in an individual and collaborative problem-solving environment.

I would like to recognise the incredible effort the following students made to complete the individual challenge alongside their current studies.  Hugh Whitaker (Year 5) achieved a Merit! This is a wonderful effort by all students who participated!

Terima kasih, Bapak dan Ibu Hall  – Thank you, Mr. and Ms. Hall 

Recently, CCG Indonesian Language program received a generous donation from Fiona and Greg Hall, a class set of Indonesian traditional musical instruments called Angklung. Fiona has been a music teacher for 15 years, mainly at Mooroolbark East Primary School. Her interest in Indonesian culture started when she travelled to Indonesia as a year 12 student. Since then, the love of Indonesia has developed and cultivated within her. As Fiona is retiring this year, she searched for a new home for these preloved sets of Angklung. CCG was incredibly grateful to receive and make use of them, knowing that they will provide significant enrichment and benefit to the learning and experiences of CCG students, not only here at our Bellarine Campus but also across our Highton and Senior Campuses. We sincerely thank Fiona and Greg for their generosity.  

The Angklung is a musical instrument from the Sundanese (ethnic group in West Java) in Indonesia. It is made of various bamboo tubes attached to a bamboo frame. A master craftsperson carefully carves the tubes to produce specific notes when the bamboo frame is shaken or tapped. This musical instrument has been played by the Sundanese for centuries and has been part of the cultural identity of Sundanese communities. Usually, Angklung is played during the rice planting and harvesting ceremonies. By nature, Angklung is played as an orchestra. Thus, it requires cooperation and coordination and is believed to promote the values of teamwork, mutual respect, and social harmony.  

Last week, students of year 9 Indonesian were given the opportunity to play for their very first time. Although they felt hesitant at the start of the lesson, they soon became familiar and comfortable playing the instrument, and they played harmoniously as a class. They practised by playing the song, Twinkle twinkle little star, Happy birthday, and Row row row your boat. Watch their practice in the following video:  

This week, both Year 5 classes performed the Dreamtime stories they have been developing this term. Whilst we weren’t able to have an audience outside of our class this time, we are hoping to share videos of the performances with some of the younger years early next term.

The Year 7s, meantime, have been ‘clowning around’ – literally. For this task, students worked collaboratively to develop a clowning performance using slapstick comedy – think Mr. Bean. We had mishaps at a dancing class, a reality cooking show with a disgruntled contestant and a beach day that went very wrong.

The Year 7s also had the opportunity this week to go to a live show at the Geelong Arts Centre – Emil and the Detectives – a well-known and much-loved story. The last two years have been very challenging for performance and Arts education, so we are very excited to be taking Christian College drama students to see live theatre again.

Speaking of live shows being back on stage, rehearsals for the College production of Shrek the Musical are nearing their final weeks. It will be performed in the W.R Gibson Music Performance Centre at Senior campus on the dates and times below:

Thursday 12th May – Preview 12.30pm
Thursday 12th May – Opening Night 7.00pm

Friday 13th May – Matinee 12.30pm
Friday 13th May – Evening 7.00pm

Saturday 14th May – Matinee 12.30pm
Saturday 14th May – Evening 5.30pm

Ticket Price: Adult $35 Student/Child $25

Tickets can be purchased through the Music Administration office – phone 5241 1577 from Monday 4^th April-Friday 8^th April in school hours, then from the commencement of Term 2, Wednesday 27th April.

This term, students were given the opportunity to interview a person they thought might have an interesting story to tell – ordinary people, extraordinary lives.

Students’ first steps included developing questions to ask their interviewee to find out more about the significant time in their life and how this had impacted them.

Learning was displayed through either a feature article or a short graphic novel.

Students followed a drafting process and applied feedback given by their peers and teacher as they moved toward their final submissions.

As well as developing their writing skills, it was pleasing to hear students talk about the additional learning they took away from this, learning about a time, place or event from a family member or friend that they might otherwise have never known about. We trust those who were interviewed also enjoyed the process of sharing their interesting story with our young people.

A selection of student learning from the three homerooms can be found below.

On Monday, 19 girls from Years 5 & 6 headed to Belmont Common to participate in the Girls Football Day. We were one of 16 schools that participated from the Geelong region.

All girls showed a high level of teamwork and sportsmanship throughout the day, and it was fantastic to see the girls develop their skill and understanding of football as the day progressed.

The girls won one game out of three in their first pool, finishing second by percentage. They went on to win two of their three final games.

The girls should be proud of their efforts and continue to take opportunities to try new sports and continue building on their skills.

As we see the importance of building an intercultural understanding for our young people, in Indonesian class last week, students of year eight Indonesian had the opportunity to interact virtually with their peers from Budi Utama Middle School from Yogyakarta (A region in central Java in Indonesia).

This has also been a fantastic platform for year eight students to showcase their ability in speaking Indonesian. The conversation was divided into the first half speaking entirely in Indonesian and the second half in English, providing the students from Budi Utama MS to practice their English. During this session, students introduced themselves such as their name, age, where they are from, where they go to school, and their interests, as well as talked about their school life, such as the program they study at school, school starting and ending time, and the school uniform.

There are many “aha” moments when interacting with students from Budi Utama; they start school earlier, at 7 am and have various uniforms that they wear daily. Among those differences, they find it interesting how there are a lot of similarities, such as the subjects learned at school. This experience has been a moment for students of year 8 in CCG to gain intercultural experience and identify and describe what they have learned about themselves and other different cultural groups.

The Year 1 students have been learning all about ‘Minibeasts’ this Term, working very hard to complete their own research project about a minibeast of their choice. Throughout this project the children have been learning many important research skills. They have learnt how to locate information using contents pages and subheadings, how to use dot points to take notes and then to use their notes to write sentences which flow in a logical order.  It was a challenging project, but the children worked enthusiastically and tirelessly, as they were determined to finish their books. With great pride, the Year 1 children read their finished books to the Year 2 and Prep students. They were also very excited to take their amazing books home to read to the whole family!

Parents will be aware from recent Vine articles throughout this term that we are excited about our new Cyber Safe Schools Program that the College is introducing in partnership with Linewize by Family Zone this year.

Over this term we have been putting in place some new tools at school that will help support and protect students in the digital space while at school and enable teachers and pastoral staff to be empowered to support our students’ wellbeing more effectively going forward. This process has now been completed.

The final step is the installation of Family Zone’s Connect app on College laptops for students in Years 4-12, which we are now ready to begin.

This will pave the way for us to be prepared early next term to share more about this exciting new program, including some parent tools. These tools have the potential to empower parents to guide and support their child’s wellbeing, safety, and development of positive behaviours relating to technology in the home.

The introduction of the Connect app on College devices, alongside our existing malware protection app Forticlient, means students are able to be well protected when using their College device.

For parent reference, more information is provided below on both apps installed on all College laptops that are part of our Student 1:1 Device Program to help protect students.

The Connect App by Family Zone
The Connect app will help ensure that students remain protected and engaged in learning during school hours, even if they disconnect from our safe College Wi-Fi network. This app will be inactive and dormant for school purposes outside of school hours.
This app is an important component of the technology behind our new Cyber Safe Schools Program in partnership with Linewize by Family Zone.

The Connect app is also central to the tools we’ll soon be making available to all parents to support them with managing the College laptop and other devices in the home if they wish.

We’ll soon begin installing the Connect app onto student laptops via a remote process, which should be completed by start of Week 3 in Term 2.

Forticlient Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)

This software helps to protect students and their laptop from malicious software and sites both at school and at home. The Forticlient software is already installed on all student laptops.
Forticlient EDR is an extra layer of protection for student laptops from malware, viruses, and other risky content, on top of Microsoft’s own built-in Windows Security features.

We take our duty of care seriously for ensuring the wellbeing and protection of students and for helping them to build positive digital behaviours while at school. We also want to work with parents and support them with their important role in this at home.

It is for this reason that the two apps above are required to be present on all students’ College laptops going forward. It is part of our Digital Learning and Device Policy Agreement that this software remains on all student laptops and is not tampered with or removed.

We look forward excitedly to soon sharing more details of our Cyber Safe Schools Program early in Term 2. In the meantime, please take some time these holidays to explore our parents’ Online Safety Hub

Each of the Christian College campuses will open their doors during May for prospective parents and others to visit, tour and ask questions – with no booking needed. We encourage all members of our College community to help spread the word about our open days, and our invitation to book a tour anytime to any friends, neighbours, colleagues – anyone you know who may be looking at Early Learning and/or schooling options for their children.

This year, each of our campuses will open its doors on the following dates at the times indicated.

Junior School-Belmont: May 3 – 9:30am to 11am

Middle School-Highton: May 3 – 11am – 12pm

Surf Coast Campus: May 5 – 9:30am – 11:30am

Bellarine Campus: May 10 – 9:30am – 12:00pm

Senior School-Waurn Ponds: May 3, 5, 10 12:00pm – 1:00pm

We also invite anyone who is interested in visiting any of our campuses, but can’t make the above days/times to book a tour online at a time that suits, meet with campus leaders and have their questions answered. Every day is Open Day!

The last trading day for Term 1 is Friday 8^th April 4, 2022. The Uniform Shop will then be closed from Monday 11^th April 4, 2022 – Monday 18^th April 4, 2022.( Easter Monday)

The shop re-opens on Tuesday April 19 with hours as follows for the second week of holidays.

Tuesday 19^th April , 2022        9.00am-5.00pm

Wednesday 20^th April 2022      9.00am -5.00pm

Thursday 21^st April , 2022       9.00am -5.00pm

Friday 22^nd April , 2022            9.00am -5.00pm

CLOSED Monday 25^th April 4, 2022 ( Anzac Day)

Tuesday 26^th April , 2022        9.00am- 5.00pm

Wednesday 27^thApril, 2022   9.00am- 5.00pm

Thursday 28^th April, 2022       9.00am-5.00pm

Friday 29^th April, 2022             9.00am-5.00pm

Normal trading hours resume Monday 2^nd May 2022.

The Victorian State Government runs a program called the Camps, Sports and Excursions Fund (CSEF). As the name suggests, the fund is designed to assist families meet costs associated with school camps, sport and excursions and requires families to apply in each year they have a child who is eligible. Families who have an eligible child will receive $125 per year for a primary aged student and $225 per year for a secondary aged student.

If you hold a valid means-tested concession card or are a temporary foster parent, you may be eligible for CSEF. Please complete a 2022 Camps, Sports and Excursions Fund (CSEF) Application Form and return to your campus administration office by the end of Term 1 please.

Please read the attached letter for further information

We all know that only one person can drive at a time, yet many of us believe that there are people and circumstances steering our emotions in the opposite direction of where we want to go.

 Grab your steering wheel now and know that only one person directs you down those emotional roads….and that is you.

 What an awesome power that is 👍😊

Discover more about MYTERN here