Annual Music Evening – A Whole School Community in Song!

Congratulations to the nearly 450 students from across the Christian College Campuses from Prep to Year 12 who performed on the Costa Hall stage last night in the Christian College Geelong Annual Music Evening.

It was a fantastic night of celebration, culminating in a very colourful finale! The Hall was filled with over 800 family, friends and College staff, enjoying the outstanding musicianship and skills of the choirs, bands and string orchestras.

We cannot measure the positive impact of such a significant experience for our students and community …. however we can be confident that it runs deep and lifelong. We are so blessed to have highly skilled, generous, caring and invested music staff. Teachers who establish wonderful relationships with their charges, which in turn provide the impetus for students to grow in their confidence to ‘take a risk’ to perform! These relationships also make it possible for us to foster and nurture the students in their musicianship and character growth, putting them in good stead for things to come.

Congratulations and thank you to the College staff from across the campuses who supported the event in so many ways. Thanks also to the music families and friends who attended, and for their ongoing investment in their students’ music lessons, camps, tours,  instruments, attending rehearsals, and encouragement of regular home practise! These elements all work together to result in the tremendous program we witnessed last night!

Congratulations also to the graduating Year 12 musicians,  we would like to acknowledge and thank them for years of commitment and musicianship, it has been a privilege to have seen them ‘grow up’ in the program. We send them on their way with hope, that they will continue to enjoy music in their lives, and to play, sing and give joy to others their musical gifts.

Thank you for the Music Mr Smith! 

Last night we were blessed as a College to celebrate the wonderful talents of our P-Year 12 students at our Annual Music Evening at Costa Hall. The finale of the evening was the announcement of Mr Kevin Smith’s retirement at the conclusion of the 2023 academic year together with the celebration of Mr Smith through the singing of ‘Thank-you for the Music’ arranged for the wind symphony by Year 11 student Felix Kelly.  

Over 450 students on stage along with members of the audience had the opportunity to sing wholeheartedly to show their appreciation of this wonderful man. Mr Smith has made a significant contribution to the College and music program over the last 30 years and has been the life of Junior School Music. He has been at the forefront of establishing the Junior School program and indeed before his time at Junior School travelled the State of Victoria far and wide bringing music to many students in rural and regional Victoria. Kevin has always brought with him an infectious joy and energy, and there were many students on stage, and many generations of people who have learned music in his classroom. There will be official farewells for Kevin at Presentation Evening but Music Evening was a wonderful opportunity to say thank you for the music Mr Smith, from the bottom of our hearts.  

From the Chaplain   

Amongst the thrill of the giant swing, challenge of archery and the excitement of spending time in a cabin filled with friends, Year 4 camp was a wonderful time of new experiences and adventures.   

During camp, the students also eagerly engaged with an activity during one of the night sessions. With the lights off, shoes off and Lego scattered on the floor, they stood still and wondered what their plan of attack would be to cross to the other side. It was suddenly quite scary to take steps forward…how often can life feel like that!   

Thankfully, a torch came to one of the student’s rescue. Though the Lego remained scattered on the floor, there was a sense of comfort as they had something to guide their path that would stay with them on their journey. If they kept that light to themselves, everyone else around them remained in darkness, but as others gathered around the torch and took on the challenge together, the light was shared.   

We spoke about the importance of light in our world – torches to see, lighthouse towers to keep boats on the right path and a tiny, small candle that is stronger than the pitch dark. Light is powerful!  

What’s on at Junior School

Week 3   
Monday October 16 – Year 4 Transition Session 2 (Refer to Year 4 Transition EdSmart)   
Tuesday October 17 – Geelong Schools’ Music Festival, Junior Choir and Strings Refer to EdSmart)   
Wednesday October 18 – Year 4 Sideshow Alley (EdSmart to follow)   
Thursday October 19 – Year 3 Fizzics Incursion (Refer to EdSmart)  
Friday October 20 – Geelong Show Day, Student Free Day  

Week 4  
Tuesday October 24 – 2024 Prep Transition Session 1 – Sausage Sizzle 5:30pm – 6:30pm  
Wednesday October 25 – Prep Discovery Learning Session  
Thursday October 26 – Grandparents’ Day  
Friday October 27 – Assembly; Prep R Class Item  

Week 5   
Tuesday October 31 – Year 4 Readiness for Middle School Parent session, 4:15pm, Middle School – Highton Chapel  
Thursday November 2 – Emergency Lockdown and Evacuation Drills  

Week 6  
Tuesday November 7 – College Orientation Day, Prep through to Year 4  
Wednesday November 8 – Discovery Learning  
Friday November 9 – Remembrance Day Service  
Friday November 9 – Assembly, Prep B Item  

Staying Safe in the Sun!  

As the days start to become sunnier and warmer it is important that your young ones are SunSmart! Children must wear their College hats during recess, lunch and any outdoor activities.  

From Week 3, children who are seen not wearing hats during these times will have to play in the shelter. College hats can be purchased from the Uniform Shop.  

The Power of Maths! 

To begin our Term 4 studies in Mathematics, the students in Year 2 have been consolidating and extending their understanding of multiplication and division, which children need to master to work with fractions, money and real life problems.  

There are many different methods and strategies that we use to help the children with this topic and practical exploration continues to be essential for establishing strong foundations, particularly for children in Year 2. Students have used manipulatives, such as counters, to make equal groups, to share, and to find how many. For example, students might be asked to make groups of a certain number of objects, or to share a set of objects equally among a given number of people. This helps children to see the connection between repeated addition and multiplication, and between repeated subtraction and division.  

The students have also been practising their skip counting patterns and have been immersed in activities to help them memorise the basic facts of the 2, 3, 4, 5, and 10-times tables, including chants, games and flashcards.  

Problem-solving is an essential component of all Mathematics topics. Students are shown how to draw pictures or diagrams, to explain their reasoning and methods when solving multiplication and division worded problems, and to use doubling or halving strategies when appropriate.  

Finally, our students are given opportunities to use digital technologies such as online games, apps, or websites to reinforce their skills and to improve their fluency and accuracy. Such activities always prove to be very popular with our cohort!  

Farming and Viking Experts in Year 3!  

This week in Year 3 as part of our Integrated Studies unit we have been looking at different soil samples. Having looked at the different features of soil, the students were asked to identify or predict the different soil types using colour, texture and different organic matter or contents of the soil sample. As a class we managed to identify and record the different soil types as loam, clay, and sand. We went on to talk about which of these soils is most fertile and best for growing crops if you are on farming land.  

We have also been learning all about The Vikings in our core knowledge unit on and one of this week’s activities was deciphering ancient Viking runes and writing our names using runes. We discovered that many of our current alphabet letters share similarities with Viking runes and some of our current consonants were not represented. Some students were able to design their own rune for the missing consonants and others made the connection to Egyptian hieroglyphics we learned a little about earlier in the year. 

This unit has also led to some fascinating conversations about the lives of Viking children and the jobs they were asked to do from a very young age and whether Viking children had it easier than children do today.  

Prep PE 

Our Prep students recently participated in a fun-filled hockey clinic run by Hockey Victoria. We were blessed to have hockey coach Claire visit the Junior Campus to teach the Preps some new skills. The Prep students have been learning about ‘striking sports’ so it was very exciting to share their skills with a professional hockey coach.   

The Preps had so much fun practising dribbling, striking and trapping. They enjoyed using real hockey balls and wooden sticks. Fun fact: Did you know there are no left-handed hockey sticks, even in professional hockey?! All players have to play with right-handed sticks!  

This proved to be quite a challenge for our left-handed Preps! Some more challenges the Preps enjoyed were maintaining control of the ball, dribbling around cones and protecting their ball from a defense. It has been wonderful to hear that since this incursion, some Prep students have gone on to participate in Come and Try sessions run by Hockey Victoria.   

Scholastic Book Club News

Issue 7 Scholastic Book Club has been distributed to students and orders should be placed online by Monday, 16-10-2023.

Our payment method is via LOOP either through the mobile app or the desktop site which can be found here.

Please do not send cash as we are unable to process cash payments.

Thank you for your assistance and ongoing support of Book Club.

20 Years of Friendship Celebrated! 

An international guest, our first ever coordinator of Uma Maun Allin, past committee members and chairpersons, and many other guests who have had the wonderful community of Viqueque touch their hearts, gathered at the RW Gibson Music Performance Centre last Friday night to celebrate 20 years of friendship between Christian College Geelong and our closest international neighbour East Timor. It was a wonderful night of music performed by our current coordinator in Viqueque Samuel da Costa, and dancing. Congratulations to Andy Phillips and Darryl, Debbie, Jordan and Maddie Riddle who were honoured for their outstanding contribution, friendship and relationship with the people of East Timor. Here’s to another great 20 years. 

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]