What’s Happening at Bellarine

Week 4

• Monday 23 October               Junior School Assembly
• Wednesday 25 October          Prep Discovery Learning
• Wednesday 25 October          Year 5 Camp (Sovereign Hill) depart
• Thursday 26 October             2024 Prep Orientation Session 1
• Friday 27 October                  Year 5 Camp (Sovereign Hill) return

Week 5

• Tuesday 31 October               Boys Transformation Open House
• Wednesday 1 November        Boys Transformation concludes
• Wednesday 1 November        Girls Back Creeks Rural concludes
• Thursday 2 November            Boys Back Creeks Rural 8 commences
• Thursday 2 November            Girls Transformation Program commences
• Thursday 2 November            2024 Prep Orientation Session 2
• Friday 3 November                Yr 9 Girls Intersection Excursion (Melbourne)

Buddies

The Prep classroom focus this week has seen the students delving into Australian animals and their habitats.  The Year 4 buddies were excited to join in the fun. During their buddies session students worked together to create an Australian animal. Some students created ceramic echidnas whilst others brought a frill neck lizard to life using paper, crayons, and patty pans. We all enjoyed seeing the frill neck lizard strut its stuff in a very cute National Geographic clip, which had  both staff and students laughing out loud. So, if you could do with a laugh this week, have a look at the video below.

Fun With Capacity

This week Year 1s have been learning about capacity. We spent time in the classroom learning about what capacity is and comparing containers using informal measuring methods such as cubes. On Tuesday, we made the most of the sunshine and took our curious minds outside to explore capacity with water. Working in pairs, students had to estimate how many plastic cups each container would hold and then, using great teamwork skills, checked to see if they were accurate. We all had a lot of fun testing our ideas and our estimates got closer with each attempt. We all managed to stay surprisingly dry in the process too!

Still Life Paper Sculptures

Year 1 students have been inspired by Henri Matisse paper cut outs and Margaret Ollie’s still life paintings for their own paper sculptures. They have learnt to create a three-dimensional paper vase supported by tabs, design flowers that have delicate petals and leaves, and form a patterned three-dimensional table. Colour blending and patterning techniques have been applied to embellish their still life designs.

I am sure you will agree that the effect is stunning.

Japanese Learning Expo

On Tuesday October 17, the Year 3 students presented their Japanese Learning Expo. Family, friends, students, and teachers visited the expo to experience the following activities presented:

• A card quiz about Japanese houses
• Writing fruit words
• A fruit story recital
• Making an origami house

The visitors left many positive comments about the students’ efforts on a feedback sheet. A selection of the comments is below:

“Very good pronunciation of the fruit story.”

“Well done. I enjoyed seeing your confidence.”

“Really good at teaching how to make a house.”

“Excellent job!! Great to see what you have been learning.”

The Year 3 students would like to thank all the visitors for coming to encourage them and celebrate their learning of Japanese so far this year.

Remember Those Wonderful Wise Owls…?

They have emerged as beautifully sculptured birds sitting in new homes.

It was exciting for the Year 4 Art students to embellish their birds with colour and detail to create interesting, textured patterns on the clay surface. They have also been artistically designing and modelling special nests for their owl sculptures. Nests were woven from sticks and leaves sourced from the school grounds and everyone felt full of admiration and quickly acknowledged how amazing birds are to build such beautiful structures for their nests.

Tying, weaving and decorating their nests for these cute owls was fun, very rewarding and full of problem-solving moments.

Year 5 Gold Rush Extravaganza

Year 5 students at the Bellarine campus have been learning about the Victorian Gold Rush and Eureka Rebellion. We explored the importance of these events in the history of Victoria and the impact they had on the way we live today.

We have created some fantastic gold-inspired poetry and have been studying poetic devices. We had a poetry reading competition and our Year 5 finalist poems were Tom the Bushranger (Xavier Underwood), Gold Gold Gold (Ellie Cox), Gold! (Harriet Clarey-Newnham) and Gold, gold and more (Hayden Ellis). 

To help students get in the Gold Rush spirit our term’s Maths Project is ‘Gold Rush Academy’. Where students must earn their mining licence by completing challenges in their project book that relate to financial maths and spatial problems that the miners may have faced. Once they have earned their licence they are sent to the ‘Bellarine Diggings’ (GaGa Pits) to dig for gold. One miner, Violet Ellis, struck it rich. Once a gold nugget was found, students then used balance scales to weigh their find and calculate the current gold value. Violet’s nugget weighed in at over 1.4kg earning her a whopping $133,083.

Next week the Year 5 students are off on their camp to Log Cabin Lodge and Sovereign Hill as the peak experience for our Gold Rush unit.

Great Things for Strings

It has been a splendid and sonorous week for our Bellarine Junior String Players. Following the success of their performance at the Annual Music Evening, children from the three Junior campuses joined forces again on Tuesday to perform at the Geelong Music and Movement Festival under the direction of Martin De Marte. The audience at the Geelong Arts Centre was enthralled with the group’s beautiful sound. Our musicians enjoyed the backstage experience, as well as hearing the other performances.

Wednesday morning also brought much excitement; the Junior Strings ensemble almost doubled in number with a host of fabulous new players. We warmly welcome our newer musicians! 

Jeanette Carnie, Rebecca Bertoncello, Martin de Marte and Stephanie Lawrence

Designing New Futures

The Year 6s are currently busily making products in both Textiles and Technology for the upcoming December Market Day. In Technology, students are making many items using all the tools available to them in the Tech Room including the laser cutter and 3D printers. Attached are photos of students in the Textiles room. I am incredibly proud of our Year 6 students – in just a short time, they have become confident sewers with a determination to do their best.

Global Academic Challenge Certificate Presentation

During our assemblies on Monday, we presented our 2023 Global Academic Challenge participants with certificates, celebrating their significant achievements this year.

The Global Academic Challenge is an academic challenge developed by ACER (Australian Council for Educational Research) and delivered online through OARS (Online Assessment and Reporting System) on SEQTA. The Challenge runs over three days, with each challenge taking roughly 60 minutes to complete. The Challenge is based on internationally endorsed frameworks and assesses complex, higher-order thinking skills in Mathematics, Reading and Science at Years 4, 6 and 8.

Several of our students from these year levels participated in either one, two or even all three of the challenges. The results were very pleasing, with many being awarded Credits, Distinctions or High Distinctions.

I want to congratulate the students on their efforts, and I look forward to our students participating again in 2024.

Supporting the Type One Diabetes Foundation

At the Middle School Assembly this week we were thrilled to host a special guest from the Type 1 Foundation, Mrs Ange Liston-McCaughley. She was able to talk with our students about the impacts of a Type One Diabetes diagnosis on both the person diagnosed, and their families. As well as talking through the symptoms and how the exact cause of Type One Diabetes is still not yet known, she gave a moving account of how Type One Diabetes has impacted her own family. Our Project Care representative, Anabella Hicks, along with Maisie Kelly, were key organisers of the day and the special events that were run to raise funds to support this great cause. We are very proud to announce that a total raised was $1,275.00. I would like to thank all of our families for your generosity with this appeal.

Tournament of Minds – Certificate Presentation

During our Middle School assembly on Monday, we presented both of our 2023 Tournament of Minds teams with certificates, celebrating their significant achievements this year.

Tournament of Minds is a problem-solving program for teams of seven students from either primary or secondary years. TOM is an opportunity for students with a passion for learning and problem-solving to demonstrate their creative skills and talents.

As previously mentioned in The Vine at the end of Term 3, both our Bellarine TOM teams won their respective categories (The Arts and STEM) at the Regional Finals at Deakin University, resulting in both competing in the State Finals at La Trobe University, Bundoora.

“The Irregulars” (The Arts) – Oscar Keddie, Layla Maddock, Thomas Merlo, Pippa Paterson, Abharna Sanjeev, Jack Taylor and Hugh Whitaker – acquitted themselves extremely well to finish in fourth place! “The Bird Builders” (STEM) – Sophie Bodger, Jade Dalton, Owen De’Araugo, Emily Muhlnickel, George Pittwood, Oliver Suzarte and Xavier Underwood – were awarded honours, finishing in second place!

I want to again congratulate the students, not only on their wonderful results, but also for all of the hard work they have put into TOM this year. I would like to thank all the students, parents, and staff once again for all their efforts and support.

Year 9 Back Creek Farm

Our Year 9 girls from Bellarine Campus are currently staying at Back Creek Farm and are enjoying learning about life on the land. Each day students work together to help operate the farm. They have been involved in several different work duties such as milking the cows, feeding the calves and collecting the chicken eggs. Our girls have learnt about the different processes involved in getting food from the paddock to our supermarket shelves. Students have displayed great responsibility, strong teamwork skills and are excelling in their new environment. Well done!

VET Information

Students who have applied for a VET course for 2024 should now know if they have been offered a position or have been put on to a waitlist. Students who have been waitlisted will be put into one of their reserved CCG subjects until a position becomes available.

Students and parents should regularly check emails as the training organisations will be in touch directly with course specific information this term. The Gordon will be inviting new first year students and parents to an information session and tour at the City Campus on November 22 from 5.30 – 6.45pm and at East Campus on November 27 from 5.30 – 6.45pm.

The training organisations prefer that all VET correspondence comes through the school. If you have any questions or require any further information, please do not hesitate to contact me, [email protected] or Cathy Brew [email protected] in the student office.

College Production 2024 – Update

As published in The Vine at the end of Term 3, the College will be staging Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella (Broadway Version) at the Geelong Arts Centre from May 2 – 4, 2004.

Audition Registration

All students from Years 5 – 11 (in 2023) across the College will receive an email early next week, with information and a link to an online registration form. Auditions will commence across the College on designated days from Sunday October 22. To register for an audition, students must complete the online form on/by Friday October 13.

There will be an information session held at each campus for students to have an opportunity to ask questions and learn more about the show. These will be held at:

Highton MS Campus Chapel                   Monday October 9 12.40

Senior Campus Music Department         Tuesday October 10 1.20pm

Bellarine Campus Auditorium                Tuesday October 10 at Lunchtime

Surf Coast Campus – Ms Notini will visit the Year 5 classroom next week.

Foundation Golf Day 2023

Following the success of last year’s inaugural event, we are delighted to announce the Christian College Foundation Golf Day tournament for 2023.

Save the date: Thursday November 9.

We are seeking prizes for this event – if you own a local business and are interested in creating partnership opportunities with Christian College, please contact Fiona Provan on 0400 477 467, or email [email protected]