House Cross Country Championships 2023

The House Cross Country Championships for Year 3 – 9 will be held on the Bellarine campus on Monday May 15 (Week 4).

Participation: The College believes participation in House competition is an integral part of the College and the school sport program. At most the Cross Country involves 30 minutes of moderate exercise. If your child is ill or injured, please ensure that a note explaining the details of the illness or injury and what participation is allowed is handed to their Homeroom Teacher before the event.

This year the program is broken into two events. The championship events for students who would like to foster their competitive nature, challenge themselves, earn additional house points as well as be eligible for individual age championship awards.

The fun run events are for students who would like to earn house points for their house while being active and having fun with their peers.

Year 4 Camp at Sunnystones

On April 26 the first day of term, the Year 4 students went to the Sunnystones Camp at Merrimu just outside of Bacchus Marsh. They began their three-day adventure in Merrimu with a hike through the Long Forest Conservation Reserve into camp. During the walk they learnt about the vegetation that surrounded them and the rocks they were walking on. It is a great first activity to get students excited about being in the outdoors.

During the camp students participated in a wide variety of activities that assisted students to develop a rich understanding of, and respect for, the bush environment. Activities included bush hut building, geocaching, survival games as well as canoeing, bush cooking and archery.

The students displayed great curiosity and resilience in the bush setting. They learnt a lot about the geology of the area, the animals that inhabit the area and their habitats.

We returned to Bellarine Campus brimming with excitement, knowledge and a deeper understanding of our very own Australian bush environment.  

Deakin District Winter Carnival

On Thursday April 27, the Year 5 and 6 students from Bellarine Campus, and the Year 5 students from Surf Coast Campus, came together again to participate in the Deakin District Winter Carnival competing in either football, netball, soccer or volleystars.

We were lucky that the weather cleared, and we were able to enjoy another great day out. It was wonderful to see the students not only develop their skills throughout the day but also continue to build relationships with one another. All teams enjoyed the competitive environment, displaying good effort, enthusiasm, teamwork, and sportsmanship on the day.

Students will now participate in a round robin tournament in their selected sports. This will take place each Thursday afternoon in our sport time. The round robin will start in week 3 and run for the 4 weeks playing each of the different schools in our division. Students are reminded to bring any necessary equipment on these dates.

5/6 Sport Schedule- Term 2

Week 3- May 11- Away vs Grovedale West

Week 4- May 18- Home vs Montpellier

Week 5- No sport

Week 6- June 1- Home vs Kardinia

Week 7- June 8- Away vs Geelong College

Thank you again to the staff for coaching our teams on the day and for their continued care and guidance to all students on these days.

Year 7 Chapel

This week, Year 7 students participated in their first Chapel session of Term 2, listening to a message from Michelle Obama (recorded – not live!) about practising who we want to be and embracing our unique self – including our imperfections and differences. Every day we all have an opportunity to practise the behaviours, actions and attitudes we want to take into the future. Want to be more kind? Practise being kind today! Want to be more courageous? Put yourself in situations that require courage today! Want to be better at showing appreciation to your parents? Show mum and dad what they mean to you through your actions and words today! Please feel encouraged to ask your young person, ‘Who are you practising being, today!?”

Examining Conflict Through Literature

Year 9 students have made a great start in English in their study of Global Conflict through war literature. The immersion into the topic through examining a variety of war texts has students working in small book club groups. This has encouraged collaboration and deepened their understanding of the complex issues surrounding war. Students are developing critical reading and analytical skills, as well as empathy and an appreciation for different perspectives. The classes have shown thoughtful discussions and insightful responses to their learning. Students are looking forward to demonstrating their learning by crafting their own war literature in response to themes and ideas presented in their studies.

A Day on the Bay That was Meant to be!

There were grins from ear to ear as students disembarked the ‘Maureen M’ vessel following their three hour tour of the bay. They had been treated to crystal clear waters and blue skies after three previous cancellations of this excursion due to high wind and boat-related mechanical issues. It was as if this day was meant to be.

Our day began with a stunning snorkel skirting the outside of Pope’s Eye, an artificial reef structure originally intended to be a fortress guarding the entrance to the bay. Now, it is home to extensive beds of brown kelp and a huge variety of species including many colourful fish, sea stars, octopus, and cuttles. It is also an important breeding ground for Australasian Gannets which makes for a very healthy mini ecosystem at play with Gannet waste (Guano) sustaining species under the water. Our Pope’s stop was cut short with boat comms identifying the resident ‘Burranan’ dolphins busily feeding not far away and if we were to get a closer look, now was the time to go. And a close look we got! Students were treated to super active feeding and playing exhibitions from both aboard the boat and under the water. Our adventure continued with the all-male colony of Australian Fur Seals. Here the students tested their underwater acrobatic skills with the ‘puppies’ of the ocean.

It was a fantastic day out, exploring a variety of marine habitats, getting up close and personal with a diverse range of marine animals and extending our understanding of healthy marine ecosystems and the importance of this, particularly at a time when there are so many current and potential threats to our oceans. 

The Power of Iteration

In preparation for their own design process explorations, Year 9 VCD students are learning about the importance of iteration to refine their designs and creating exciting personal designer’s logos. Gaining some important sketching skills on paper, students have used the Crazy 8s idea-generating approach to get creative and experiment with logo designs based around their initials. Students consider the design elements and principles as tools to help them iterate their initial ideas, providing them with a formula for generating successful design iterations when they explore their own design process.

The Year 9s are also getting hands on experience with Adobe Illustrator and are excited to experiment with this powerful tool allowing them to achieve clean and eye-catching logos to use throughout their folios. Later in the term students will embark upon a design adventure of creating designs for a client of their choice in one of three design areas (Industrial, Environmental or Communication). This gives students the opportunity to focus on their personal passions in design, understand the roles of client and designer and grow their understanding of what type of presentation platforms exist for the areas of VCD they are most interested in.

I look forward to guiding students on this journey and helping them achieve their visions.

Picnic at Hanging Rock – Performances on Next Week!

Picnic at Hanging Rock is a captivating and mysterious story that explores the disappearance of four schoolgirls and their teacher during a picnic at a local geological formation in Victoria, Australia, on Valentine’s Day in 1900. The novel by Joan Lindsay, published in 1967, was adapted into a film by Peter Weir in 1975, which became a landmark of Australian cinema and culture. The story has inspired many interpretations and adaptations, including the performances brought to you by our Christian College Senior School students.

Excitement is now running high - next week's shows are on at Platform Arts in Geelong in Lt Malop St, with three evening shows from Thursday May 11 to Saturday May 13.  Tickets are only $30 and the cast and crew are looking forward to performing to full houses.  Please note that Picnic at Hanging Rock contains mature themes, parental discretion is advised re the age of audience members.

To purchase tickets please follow this link:

https://events.humanitix.com/ccg-picnic-at-hanging-rock

East Timor April Trip

After a 4-year absence due to COVID, on Saturday 8th April CCG staff members Graham Barton (Barto), Andy Phillips, Lee Stringer, Craig White, Michael Lewis and Michelle Anderson, along with Jill and Rod Mayes, Patrice Hall and Jocelyn McMillan, who all have a passion for East Timor (Timor-Leste), landed in Dili.  Our destination - the municipality of Viqueque which is about 180km from Dili and is a 6 hour drive on rough roads, going for kilometres at a time in second gear.

Prior to the pandemic, CCG students from years 11 – 12 were given the opportunity to visit Viqueque and some of the schools in the area and to participate in the kindergarten, IT and English language programs being run at Uma Maun Alin (Friendship House).

The Story of Buikarin

Buikarin is a small rural community half an hour away from our accommodation house in Viqueque. Within the community there is a kindergarten, that has 128 students enrolled, and consists of three teachers. One teacher is full time, one is on contract and the other is a volunteer. They only have one room to teach these 128 students. The area of that room is 6 metres by 8 metres. The teachers have 64 students at one time in this space. They have two sessions a day. Natercia is the head teacher and she's very passionate about her school. She founded this school with their own money and no support from the government.

On Friday May 19’s Project Care Day, we want to raise money to buy bricks for Buikarin so that we can give Natercia and her students and another teaching space. Natercia has already used her own money to put a roof over a “patch of dirt”and we would love to brick in this area for her so, as she says, “the kids don't run out onto the road when in class.”

One photo here shows 64 students in the classroom. Note the students are on either side of the room because Natercia puts a small wall down the middle to separate the two groups. Imagine the noise coming from this small space with 64 students. It would be very hard to listen, very hard to teach and very hard to learn. The next photo you can see is the roof that her and her husband had paid for themselves to create another teaching space. This is the space we would like to brick in and concrete the floor.

East Timor Poster

Drilling Down on Deep Thinking – REACH: Idea into Action

This week, Junior School-Belmont, Middle School-Highton, and Senior School-Waurn Ponds were honoured to receive a visit from Flossie Chua and David Perkins from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, along with Kieren Noonan and Nikki Maguire from Independent Schools Victoria. The purpose of their visit was to observe the implementation of the REACH: Idea into Action educational research program, which incorporates deep thinking routines to promote a more comprehensive understanding of subject matter both in and beyond the classroom.

Over the past few years, some Christian College teaching staff have collaborated with Harvard and ISV to develop these routines, and during their visit, the four guests were able to witness the tool in action among our Prep, Year 6, Year 9 Transformation, and Year 12 students. Teachers Beck Barry, Lori Ruplal, Julie Shutie, and Louis Gross are making a difference in their classrooms by piloting innovative teaching strategies that have the potential to improve the quality of learning for many others.

Although only a few teachers had the privilege of welcoming our special guests into their classrooms, we would also like to recognise the support provided by Angela Tutty, Georgie Brown, Anneliese Hurrell, Georgina Hodge, Sam Nichols, and Daniel Fanning in the research and development of this innovative teaching strategy.

Surfing Championships

Thursday 4th of May saw the culmination of the “Surfing Season” for 2023. Christian College surfers have been lucky to participate in 3 different surfing events this year. The final event was the Surfing Victoria Independent schools tag team event which took place in clean conditions at Jan Juc yesterday.

The tag team format provides a unique opportunity for surfers to represent our school and importantly surf as team where decisions made can impact others in the team. Each surfer is required to paddle out and catch two waves in under eight minutes, which is very challenging.  It was awesome to see our surfers from Years 8 through to Year 12 work together and support each other throughout the day.

We were expertly led by Taz Higgins in his last year at CCG who has been an integral part of the team every year since Year 7. Harvey Graham also stood up and led by example in his mature and calm approach to each heat. We thank both of these boys for their contributions over the years to the CCG surf team.

We welcomed new recruit Jai Bouvier (Year 10) this year who performed solidly across the day and was a fantastic addition to our team.

Qustodio Parent App New Feature

New Activity Timeline View

It is a pleasure to share with parents a newly added feature of the Qustodio Parent App, which all parents have access to as part of our Cyber Safe Schools Program and in partnership with Linewize by Family Zone.

Since our launch of this parent app in 2022, it has been wonderful to note the level of engagement by parents with this tool. I have enjoyed many interactions with a range of parents about how it is helping them support their young people in their digital journey at home.

One area where I have often received feedback from parents is that the information about their child’s digital activity on their school laptop is vague and not as detailed or useful as they would like, and not comparable to the activity reporting available for their child’s personal devices.

It is for this reason that I am delighted to share that parents can now access a new feature, Timeline, that provides more specific and detailed information about digital activity on the school device outside school times.

I encourage all parents to take a few moments and view this two minute video that provides an overview of the new feature and how it can be used to better support parents in guiding their young people at home.

• Parent Overview Video: Qustodio New Timeline Feature

Getting Started with the Qustodio Parent App

A reminder that parents can learn more about Qustodio, create and activate their parent account as part of our school program, and explore Frequently Asked Questions, via our school’s Online Safety Hub.

Science Talent Search at CCG 2023

Students at Christian College Geelong in Years 5-10 are invited to participate in the 2023 Science Talent Search (STS).

The Science Talent Search has three broad aims:

1. To stimulate an ongoing interest in the study of sciences by:
   • encouraging independent self-motivated project work amongst students of science.
   • giving students the opportunity to communicate their achievements to a wider audience.
   • providing recognition of effort and achievement in a scientific enterprise.
2. To promote the direct involvement of the students in the processes of science and its communication.
3. To give the public at large an opportunity to see the quality of work being achieved in science, by both primary and post primary students.

A MYTERN Thought for This Week

It’s easy to rush through a cup of tea or coffee and forget to stop and appreciate the moment. 

Take time out now to simply appreciate being able to breathe in fresh air. Take a long slow breath and feel it rejuvenate every cell. 

Make that your intention and watch your body smile from the inside 👍❤️

Discover more about MYTERN here