Celebrating a Special Bond

The world has always been about relationships and this is something we pride ourselves on here at Christian College. The relationship we have forged with the people of East Timor, in particular those in Viqueque, is long-standing, and one we hope will continue long into the future.

This week, students have gained an understanding of this special bond we have through three specific devotions, teaching them about: the Timorese culture; their fight for independence; and Christian College’s work in Viqueque.

Middle School students have greatly contributed, donating generous amount of money to so we can buy “Bricks for Buikarin” a local Viqueque school supported by Christian College in East Timor.

Students also participated in a flag-raising ceremony, symbolising East Timor’s rise to be an independent country. Local hand-woven fabric called Tais were tied around the flagpole symbolising our continued friendship. Our Year 8 Project Care Representatives ran this ceremony.

Many of our College’s Project Care Representatives have contributed greatly to the celebration this week, running devotions described above.

On behalf of the Christian College East Timor Committee, I would like to thank the community for your support in giving to our friends in East Timor. Stay tuned for some updates on how much we raised. Every cent raised will be sent to the Buikarin school to be used for the construction of the classroom.

Obrigada (Thank you)

Thank You for our Mums

This week, the Preps had their first experience presenting at the Junior School Assembly. With Mothers’ Day last weekend, the Preps were eager to share reasons they love their mums. Many explained how their mums make their lunches full of yummy snacks, take them to fun places and tuck them in at night. It was heartwarming to see each child’s mum in the audience be moved by the kind words their child said about them.

The following prayer, read beautifully at the assembly by Callum, sums up what all of us are thankful for.

“Thank you for all the mums in the world. Thank you for the nannas, the aunts and the dads who are also a mum. Thank you for the friends and the carers who take on a mum role.
Thank you for blessing me with my mum. I thank you that she gave me life and that she shows me love every day. She taught me how to love and helps me feel safe. She taught me that it is okay to cry and that I should always tell the truth.
We ask you to bless all the mothers here today. Help our mothers to feel precious in your eyes today and know how much we love them. Give our mothers strength, courage, patience and peace.”

Million Paws Walk

On Thursday my human and I visited the Bellarine Campus to support the Library’s ‘RSPCA 1 Million Paws Walk’. I spent a lovely day with Junior School students from Prep, Year 1 and Year 2 as well as my Librarian friends Mrs Marian, Mrs Stephenson and Jenny.

When the students arrived, I made sure that my human read my favourite picture book, “Hedgehog the Wonder Dog” by Dannika Patterson and Ross Morgan. This book tells the story of Hedgehog, who has the same job that I have – ‘Wonder Dog’!! Wonder Dogs, like Hedgehog and I, are dogs who go to work in schools, hospitals, prisons, nursing homes and many other places as assistance or support animals. We make sure the people we interact with experience love, comfort, care and support to make everything they do and the way they feel better. Simple really – life is better with Wonder Dogs!

After our picture book I patrolled the library checking in with children as they coloured in a beautiful colouring sheet of me. Never have I had so many talented artists want to draw and colour me in, they made me look very beautiful and wonder-full in their drawings. When our colouring was finished, we listened to another story called “A Human For Kingsley” by Gabriel Evans. I liked this book and am glad that Kingsley found the right human for him in the end, all dogs need the right human for them.

Before I went back to Senior School I went for a walk around the basketball courts with a whole parade of my friends, students from many different classes came with me to have a walk. On our walk they told me all about their dogs at home and where they like to walk. Even though I was wearing my best raincoat I didn’t want the children to get wet, so when it started to rain, we had our last pats and hugs before saying goodbye to one another. 

I’m looking forward to bringing my human back to Bellarine with me so that we can visit the Library and all my friends again very soon. Until then, keep wagging your tails everyone!! 

Year 1 Library Visit

This term in Integrated Studies the Year 1 students are learning all about ‘Change’, with the start of this unit focusing on how they have changed since birth. We then go onto look at how buildings, toys and transport have changed as well as the way in which we live.  To further extend their understanding, we visited the recently opened Boronggook Drysdale Library.

Whilst there the children received a tour of the library and learnt about all the exciting additional activities that they offer such as story time, holiday clubs and even a new after school Lego club which got the children very excited! We were also lucky enough to have a story time with Grace who read the children a book about how things change throughout the year.

The children loved relaxing on the new beanbags in the children’s area to enjoy this story. We all enjoyed some free time exploring and reading some of the 15,000 brand new books that have been introduced to the library!

Finally, we finished off with a question time about how the new library has changed and improved from the old one. The children all really enjoyed our visit and were very enthusiastic about taking grown-ups back for another visit soon!

House Cross Country

The sun was shining for our 2023 House Cross Country event. It was great to be able to run this event as a whole campus again and it was fabulous to see a sea of colour across the course.

The change of format this year gave the students the choice to run in a Championship race, the Fun Run, or both.

The Championship race didn’t disappoint, with some exceptional runners showing off their high level of endurance and talent. Congratulations to Keegan Johnson who was the fastest male completing the 2km in a time of 7:26. It was awesome to see Olivia Clark of Year 7 take out the fastest female with a time of 8:40.

Lunchtime Concert

This week we enjoyed a wonderful Lunchtime Concert featuring students playing a variety of instruments and styles. With students from both Junior and Middle Schools, we were entertained by these hard-working musicians featured here in our photos.

Kathryn and Charlotte, Grayson, Aakarsh, Mikayla and Raf, Mia and Abharna, Nora and Anabella.

We look forward to our next concert in Week 6.

 Face Painting on a Live Canvas 

What an amazing Art Festival the Year 5s at Bellarine shared with Year 5s at the Surf Coast campus. Students painted each other’s faces and their own hands to highlight their concerns of an important environmental or social issue.

After studying Lui Bolin, a Chinese artist, who paints himself into different backgrounds to draw attention to issues, the Year 5 students were inspired to use their own art ideas to spread their messages too. A huge thank you to Mr Trevaskis for all his work towards this day, which included him making an instructional video on the techniques of face painting.

Sharing this experience with students at Surf Coast campus was a great way to further strengthen friendships, explore different skills required to paint on faces and hands and observe many imaginative approaches to topical issues facing our communities.

The photographs below clearly capture students’ creativity.

Reciprocal Reading in Year 6     

This term the Year 6 students are reading the novel ‘Detention’. This book dives into topics about refugees, migration, and differences in social class. To support these topics and to create rich discussions, our students are using reciprocal reading to support their comprehension of this novel.

Students are supported to read, talk, and think their way through the text in small, collaborative groups. The discussions are scaffolded to examine the novel by focusing on four comprehension strategies: predicting, clarifying, questioning, and summarising. Understanding of the text is equally structured through discussion between all group members. A group member leads conversations for each of the strategies, so that all students are given the opportunity to apply and enhance their predicting, clarifying, questioning, and summarising skills.

Year 6 Musos tap Along to the Tune

In Year 6 Music this term we are exploring music of different cultures, including where our own families are from. We have had fun exploring our connections to our families and learning about the traditional and popular music of different places.

We are also continuing to build on our note reading and aural training skills through our tasks and exercises. The Year 6 students jumped enthusiastically into the Boom Whacker activity in class, learning how to play pitched scales and some fun pop songs before moving on to learn some of the melodies we are studying in our cultural studies.

We are excited to continue to unpack the music of our cultures as we move through the term.

Gyozas

The Year 8 Food Studies class is currently preparing for the International Food Challenge in June. Each week students make a dish traditional to a country.  Last week they practised the art of making gyozas traditionally from China and worked on perfecting pleating techniques. The pork gyozas were so delicious and lots of fun to make!

Canteen Update

Camp Australia

GISSA Track and Field Championships

Our College Track and Field team recently competed at the GISSA Championships, with some excellent individual and team performances across the day. With our team captains, Isabella Jordan, and Aaron Hansen, along with our senior students leading the way, all team members competed very well in their various field and track events.

Our younger students embraced this opportunity to compete against the other GISSA schools, posting some fantastic results, which culminated in winning both the girls and boys 13yr 4 x 100m relays. We acknowledge our male 4 x 100m relay teams, who nearly performed a ‘clean sweep’ of these races, with the 16yr boys finishing second in a very close race across the line.  

The following students are to be congratulated on breaking GISSA records on the day: Suzannah Mavromihalis 16yr 1500m 4:52.27; Jacob McKie Open 1500m 4:16.03; Jack Berry 15yr Discus 37.26m; and Indianna O’Neill 13Yr Triple Jump 10.65m.

In the overall point allocation, the College finished a very close second to Kardinia IC. However, with an eye to the future our Junior Boys (13,14 and 15yr  age groups) won their section on the day. We congratulate all team members for their fantastic performances on the day, and thank our team managers/coaches, Mr Kelly O’Neill, Mr Callen Wade and Mr Drew Oliver for their efforts with this team.   

GISSA Swim Team

Our College was well represented at the recent Victorian School Association Swimming Competition held at MSAC. Swimming Victoria invites each of the School Sporting Associations to enter a team into this swim meet that attracts some of the best school age swimmers in the State. Nicole Briscoe, Jacob McKie, Kylan Nelson, Meg Conheady, Brooke Briscoe, Jagger Small, Olivia Clark, and Chelsea Ronning were part of the 32 member Geelong Independent Schools Sporting Association (GISSA) swim team that competed on the night. 

The GISSA team finished a creditable twelfth on the night, with some excellent individual and relay performances. All our College swimmers performed very well, enjoying this opportunity in both their individual and relay swims to swim against the best. Nicole Briscoe finished second in her 50m backstroke, along with three other top 8 results. Chelsea, and Brooke enjoyed top 8 results in several their events as well. 

We congratulate and thank these students for their fantastic swimming performances as part of this GISSA team. 

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]

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