RSPCA Million Paws Walk

We all love our pets! They can be our best friend! So, in support of the RSPCA Million Paws Walk we have organised the following:

• Students and staff have the opportunity to join Chaplain Mia and her dog, Monty, for a walk around the oval on Thursday May 18 at 1.30pm. Students are encouraged to walk with a photo of their pet (sorry, no real pets allowed).
• Students can send in photos of them reading with their pet to [email protected] so we can make a display in the Library.
• A ‘match the staff member with their dog challenge’ will take place in the Library.

Students are encouraged to join in the fun and support the RSPCA Million Paws Walk.

Bellarine Library Staff

Preps Take Over the Fire Station

This term, the Preps are studying all things ‘Transport’ as part of their Integrated Studies unit. This week, they were lucky enough to take a trip to the Ocean Grove Fire Station. They learnt important skills about fire safety and were able to practise this by remembering the chants “Crawl down low, go, go, go,” and “Stop, drop, cover, roll”. Firefighter Barker showed the children just how quickly he could get into his uniform and the students were amazed at how his uniform began to glow in the dark! The Preps loved participating in all the fun activities but their favourite part was being able to have a go at using the fire hose!

We would like to say a big thank you to Becky and the rest of the Fire Brigade at the Ocean Grove Fire Station.

Making Robots Dance

During Investigations the Year 3s have been learning how to program robots and Spheros to move and perform functions using Mindstorm Iconic Programming. These NXT robots and Spheros follow the directions, speed and distance, using commands sent from the computer, or iPad, to the performance arena. Each group has tried and tested their series of movements many times, refining and improving on each occasion, to enable our Indigenous Dreamtime Story to unfold in a logical manner. Once the routine has been established, the development of costumes and backdrops for our performance will begin, which comes later in the process. Everyone loves their time exploring but none of it would be possible without the extensive knowledge and perseverance of Mr Viegas, who has opened his Technology Wing to enable us to refine and extend the skills that we were introduced to last year, under his guidance.

Happy Mothers’ Day

All students in our Junior School have this week been working hard to express their love and thanks for their mothers by making them a gift. We hope that our dear mums feel loved and appreciated come Sunday and enjoy some special time with their families.

Junior School Teachers

A Mothers’ Day Prayer 

Dear Heavenly Father,

We thank you for Mothers, for Step Mothers, for Foster and Adoptive Mothers, for Grandmothers and Special Women Guardians.

We thank you for creating each of these mums with a unique combination of gifts and talents.

We thank you for the sacrifice of self each mum gives for her children.

We thank you for the gift of time mums give for their kids, whether it’s stay-at-home mums, working mums, and mums who have some combination of the two.

We thank you for the flexibility of mums, for their tirelessness, their perseverance, and their devotion.  We pray you give each mum strength and allow her to see the great significance that you place on motherhood.

We pray that each mother rejects perfectionism and instead embraces the goodness of the gospel and the fact that they are just right for their children.

Most of all, Lord, on this day in which we honour mothers, may we love and cherish the special women who have borne us, who have nurtured us, and who have prayed for our well-being.

May our hearts overflow with gratitude to you, who formed and knitted each of us in a mother’s womb.

Amen.

Year 6 Letter Writing     

Year 6 has had a fun start to their Letter Writing unit in English. On Wednesday, 6S received letters from students in the United States. My sister is a third-grade teacher at a Christian elementary school in Killeen, Texas. Her students wrote a letter to the students in 6S. Everyone had big smiles on their faces as they opened their personally addressed letters. There was a small glitch however, the Australian students were unable to read the American cursive handwriting, so I had to translate most of the letters! It became a teachable moment of the importance of handwriting and legibility. Some questions the American students asked included, ‘Are there really a lot of spiders there? Does it snow in Australia? Do you have giraffes? Do you celebrate different holidays?’ We are now in a busy rush to correspond to our Texan friends, as they start their Summer holidays on May 26.

Bellarine North Rotary Club Writing Competition

Middle School students had the privilege of listening to Andrew Jeffrey and Alexandra Dakin from Bellarine North Rotary Club speak during the Middle School Assembly. They spoke about a creative writing competition their organisation puts on, encouraging our Year 5 and Year 6 students to enter in 2024. In addition to sharing about the writing competition, they awarded the winner of the 2023 Bellarine North Rotary Club Creative Writing Competition. The award went to Sammy Johnston from 6S. He wrote a creative piece about dinosaurs; well done Sammy!

Eden’s a Classy Clay Shooter!

I am thrilled to share the remarkable success of one of our talented students, Eden Simmons (7S), who recently participated in a regional clay shooting competition at Laang Sporting Clay Association. Eden’s outstanding performance in the Junior section resulted in him coming second, missing out on first place by only one shot, despite some very fierce competition. As a result of Eden’s success, Christian College will receive an invitation to this yearly event going forward. Mr Watson presented Eden with a school plaque at our recent Middle School assembly. Congratulations Eden!

Makanan Indonesia (Indonesian Food)

MFDC Visit and Intertidal Reef Investigations

It has been a busy two weeks with students engaged in great discussions with marine scientists on a visit to the Marine and Freshwater Discovery Centre (MFDC) and an intertidal rocky reef exploration around the rocky platforms at the entrance to Port Phillip Heads. These hands-on practical experiences are designed to further the students’ grasp on the word adaptation. Alongside these fieldwork experiences students are currently researching and completing an inquiry task on a particular marine invertebrate that they would likely see in these environments. These rich learning experiences allow students to apply their learning to real life moments where species are identified and observed in their natural habitats.

Years 4-6 District Cross Country

On Thursday May 4, a selected group of Year 4, 5 and 6 students headed off to Eastern Park to participate in the District Cross Country. All students represented the college well, giving their best effort and achieving some excellent results. This was the first time a lot of the students had completed the loop at Eastern Gardens and did a great job of navigating the inclines throughout the course.

We had a number of students finish in the top 10 this year with the top 8 going through to the next stage. A special mention to Harry Judge who finished in ninth place and Jade Dalton who finished in tenth place, just missing out on qualifying. Congratulations to the following students who finished in the top 8 and will now progress to the Division Cross Country on Tuesday May 23.

Patrick Clark- 11 boys- First place

Lexie Strachan- 11 girls- Second place

Harvey Stefanovski- 9/10 boys- Second place

Ellie Cox- 11 girls- Fourth place

Will Guise- 11 boys- Fifth place

Tayte McKenzie- 12/13 girls- Sixth place

We wish these students all the best and will follow their progress with interest.

Canteen Update

Camp Australia

ChatGPT, Generative AI and Young People

Information and guidance for parents

Parents may be aware of the news and hype around recent developments in generative AI (artificial intelligence), especially the digital tool ChatGPT that launched in November last year. ChatGPT reached a million users in five days, and by January of this year had 13 million daily users.

By typing in a specific prompt, a person can ask ChatGPT to produce a written response and it will create it in seconds. It can produce emails, poems, song lyrics, speeches, reviews, recipes, stories, social media posts, working program code, and academic essays and reports. It can analyse text and code, and offer advice on improvements, corrections, and alternative approaches for just about any written text.

ChatGPT facilitates a chat-based conversation between the person and the AI chatbot that produces the output, allowing for questions, refinements, and iterations on the original output until the resultant text suits the intentions of the user.

Vocation Education and Training (VET) Tasters

Year 9 and 10 Preparation for Vocational Education and Training (VET) in 2024

Senior School students can choose to study a VET course off-campus as a subject in Year 10, 11 and 12. These courses are usually undertaken over two years giving students a TAFE certificate qualification on leaving school in addition to their VCE. They providestudents with an opportunity to gain industry training assisting them with career pathways. The Gordon is offering some free VET tasters for interested students.

Registrations are now open for Taste of TAFE sessions.

This brilliant two-day program will give Year 9 and 10 students an insight into the incredible careers TAFE can deliver. They run from 9.30 am – 2.30 pm and students can choose to do one or both days. Taste of TAFE is a fun and engaging program that will see students get hands-on with all program areas at their East Geelong and Geelong City campuses. 

Tuesday July 18 2023 Taste of TAFE at East Geelong Campus
Tuesday July 25 2023 Taste of TAFE at Geelong City Campus

Registration forms and information about the tasters on offer can be collected from the student office or Year 9 Coordinator. Forms must be completed and returned to the student office no later than May 24. Early application is advisable. 

For more information about studying VET at Senior School please contact Kerryn Fearnsides via [email protected]

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

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.