What’s Happening at Middle School
Week 8
- Sun, 28 Aug – Tues, 30 Aug – Yr 9 GEOS – The Prom Camp 1 (Wilsons Prom National Park)
- Tues, 30 Aug – 2023 Gordon VET course enrolment open for 2023 Year 10 students
- Wed, 31 Aug – Sun, 4 Sept – Senior Music Tour
- Wed, 31 Aug – Fri, 2 Sept – Yr 9 GEOS – The Prom Camp 2 (Wilsons Prom National Park)
- Thurs, 1 Sept – Deakin District Basketball (Yr5&6)
- Thurs, 1 Sept – Highton and Bellarine Concert bands Performance
- Thurs, 1 Sept – Wellbeing Parent Evening and Cyber Safe Schools Program Launch
- Sat, 3 Sept – Senior Wind Symphony Performance -Melbourne University Wind Band Day
Week 9
- Mon, 5 Sept – Yr 9 Geography Field Trip
- Mon, 5 Sept – Year 8 Medieval Day 8BGH
- Tues, 6 Sept – Yr 9 Geography Field Trip
- Tues, 6 Sept – Geelong North Division Athletic Championships
- Thurs, 8 Sept – Netball Vic. ‘All Schools’ Final Round – Junior Boys Only
- Thurs, 8 Sept – Learning Conferences
Reserve Your Place!
Wellbeing Evening and Cyber Safe Schools Program Launch
We enjoyed a fantastic night with the parents, families, students and staff attending the first Digital Wellbeing Evening held at our Senior School Campus last night, Thursday 1st September. If you have not yet taken the opportunity to reserve your place at the second and final of our two nights, please save the date and reserve your place now! We would love to see you there. We encourage you to take a few minutes to view the video below to find out more about this important event. The evening will be presented at our Bellarine Campus next Thursday 8th September starting at 7pm. We expect to run for about 45 minutes, finishing with time for questions and a cuppa together.
We ask all Parents and Families to share their attending intentions with us via our online RSVP Response Form. Please access the form by clicking the image or link below.
https://forms.office.com/r/QwN6TXBE41
Brendan Vanderkley
Welcome to Book Week!
The theme this year is Dreaming with eyes open. The Middle School library was transformed into a delightful and dreamy space where students enjoyed a number of dreamy activities. The week was peppered with art and craft activities: knitting, crocheting, and making bookmarks.
We hosted our first Human Library in the fiction room. Students ‘borrowed’ out teachers to hear their unique stories. Mr Barton shared stories about East Timor, Mrs Dapiran reminisced about her days as a student at Middle School. Students could not believe that Mrs Creati actually lived at Middle School once upon a time!! Mrs Hurrell bought in her friend, Teddy to share some stories of the canine variety. We gave away FREE books and enjoyed a special screening of Peter Pan in both the library and the chapel. Year 5 and 6 students strutted their book stuff around the courtyard with music and laughter. Unfortunately, the teachers ‘missed’ the parade and were nowhere to be seen!! However, some wonderful characters did turn up to share in the celebrations!
Competitions, such as, Guess the Reader, Book Trivia, and a Reading and Competition, were very popular. The winner of the writing competition was Sebastian De Matre, The Dream We Lost. With Arabella Grills, James Trott and Kiera Minett receiving Honorable Mentions. This year we had a variety of lovely prizes, such as Dymocks vouchers, canteen vouchers, badges, and some sweets, however the most popular prizes were the books written and donated by our very own Nelson family. Book Week, a glorious way to celebrate all things books!
“Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.” – Margaret Fuller
We read to know we are not alone. – C.S. Lewis
Jaki Groves
If a Picture Paints a Thousand Words…
A press release by Y7 Media Team Journalists – Olivia, Toby Standen, Jagan and Toby Stavenuiter
This term in Year 7 Media, we have been creating photo stories using different camera angles and using our creativity. We did research about different ways to take photos which helped us in our final work.
Our task was to tell a story using a limited number of photos, which we would take using various photo angles that we had previously learnt about in class.
A challenge we faced in this was thinking of what to do the story about and trying to use different angles to capture different parts of the story- like extreme close ups being good for showing emotions and wide angle to show settings. You must think about how your story will work and how you will capture it.
Toby Standen, 7Y, was asked what the most challenging part of his photo story was, and he replied, “The hardest thing for me was the shot below, because the dog would not get in the right position, and get a really good Dutch angle, which is an angle to increase drama, movement and excitement.”
Toby Stavenuiter 7H said, it helps me appreciate the process of photo storytelling that can help me realise, ‘Oh this scene is useless’ or ‘we need something here’ and other general story-telling techniques when using images.
“Overall, we enjoyed this unit and we are excited for the next unit,” concluded Olivia Hobbs 7R
If a picture paints a thousand words, then that must be why all our Y7 Media stories, with their group of well-framed images, told such excellent stories! Well done Y7 Media Class.
Andrew Groves
What’s the Big Issue?
Ask our Year 8s! They can tell you all about pay inequality in sports, the pollution problem in our oceans, diabetes, the prevalence of sporting injuries, homelessness.
This term is about how news is created and presented, and then consumed; and how audiences are informed and manipulated. Students think about their role in the news cycle. And, importantly, how to be critical consumers and not believe everything they see.
They have researched an area that they care about or are interested in, and created colourful, clear informative infographics. See some examples here from Emily and Jordan (8B) In this task, Year 8s have decided on research questions; their lessons with the Librarians learning how to identify reliable sources, means that their information is factual and clear.
Current issues in our world and our closer community is a feature of this unit also. Anyone who thinks that teenagers are not politically engaged and interested in their wider world should spend some time in a Year 8 English class! In regular “The News According to…” presentations, students have brought to light an item that they think we should be informed about. To date, we have been informed about: Monkey Pox, The Apple deal with BOE, The death of Olivia Newton John, the Climate Clock, the raiding of Donald Trump’s villa and the January 6 riots, and space junk from a Space-X vehicle that landed on a farm in Western Australia! All of these presentations generate discussion and debate – a feature of English class. Learning about the world of podcasts will now lead Year 8s to make their own podcast, drawing on their research, and including opinions and ideas from “experts”.
Jackie Corless
Reflections From a Veteran
War is something that is still very much in the media on a daily basis and we may often wonder how come it still happens but do we consider what was the impact of the war?
Year 9 students in History discover the changing face of war on their journey from World War l into World War ll, the Vietnam War to complete their exploration at modern day war. As part of their learning, the students investigate about the life of a service person and are encouraged to follow the pathway of a relative if possible. Over the years this has led to students becoming the family historian and uncovering facts that their parents were unaware of.
This week saw a new opportunity for our Highton Year 9 students as they were immersed in the realty of one of our community, Mervyn Robert Irvine – Major (Retired), known as Bob. Bob is the grandparent of Xavier Kay and he served in the Vietnam War. It was amazing to hear the perspective of a young 20-year-old going off to war, who saw it as an adventure much like our veterans from the first world war and just like them, Bob discovered that being part of war is tough going at the best of times. There is no glory in war, in fact what is seen by our service people can be horrifying.
We are thankful that Bob was able to speak openly about some of his experiences and he was as honest as he could be for the age of the audience. He shared that he did not always make good choices when at war but on returning to Australia, he highlighted that the motivation for the next 20 years that followed in the army was to make sure he trained others to make better informed decisions. When asked about a proud moment, he thought for quite a while and said he was not proud of any moment of his time at war but was proud to have served for Australia. It certainly was food for thought for our students.
We appreciate the time that Bob took with us and thank Fiona, Xavier’s mum, for offering to bring her dad to share his story. So wonderful to see history alive!
Ingrid Staggard
Angela Tutty
Team Fire Nation Takes on the State
Last weekend Ethan Towle and Xavier Hanson of Team Fire Nation, traveled to compete in the Robocup Melbourne Regional Rescue competition. Facing teams from across greater Melbourne and regional Victoria, the boys faced incredibly tough competition. Fresh off a victory at our home regional event two months ago, Ethan and Xavier fought hard and placed a very respectable 5th out of 29 teams. This placement is the highest in Middle School history at such an event. Team Fire Nation now has their sights set on the Victorian State Championships coming up next month.
Systems Engineering across all year levels continues to impress with year 7, 8, and 9 students all pushing the bar higher within their respective curriculums. Year 7 students are working towards total completion of their rescue robotics challenges while engineering some of the most advanced builds seen at Middle School. Year 8 students are working hard and moving into the testing phases with their automated, infrared detecting soccer builds. The first high performance 3-wheelers are being tested and refined, a first for middle school and testimony to the incredible effort and energy invested. Year 9 students are trialing “Battle Bots.” This new curriculum pushes the students to not only build a very capable robotic design, but to also fabricate and program their own remotes as well. This demanding curriculum is proving to be quite fun, while requiring a large investment from the students who have the course for a single term. It is a pleasure to work alongside such engaged students within a curriculum framework designed to expose students to the technologies shaping not only the present, but future as well.
Danon O’Kelly
Term 3 Learning Conferences
Our Term 3 Learning Conferences will be held on Thursday 8th of September from 4:00 – 9:00pm. These conferences will again be conducted as video calls via Teams.
Bookings for these conferences will:
Open: Tuesday August 30 at 9.00am
Close: Tuesday September 6 at 5:00pm
Instructions as to how to make bookings will be emailed to families prior to the opening date.
Our teaching staff really look forward to this occasion as a valuable opportunity to develop relationships with our school families while discussing their students learning and progress. We encourage students to join their parents in the calls so that they can share reflections of their own learning, while also benefiting from the collaborative and supportive focus provided through this time and space.
We request that parents and guardians who schedule conference bookings, ensure that they have a quiet and respectful area available in which they can connect to the video call. Please note that teachers will not be able to participate in calls with family members who are driving a vehicle or in an inappropriate setting.
If you have any questions about these conferences, please do not hesitate to contact your child’s Homeroom Teacher or Heidi Wilkinson by phone or email. We look forward to speaking with you online soon.
Kerrie Dapiran, Deputy Head of Campus
Science Week Competition Results
It was wonderful to have so many entries from across all of our campuses in our CCG Science Week Competitions. Students from Prep to Year 10 took the opportunity to get creative colouring, drawing, writing and taking photographs based on the theme of glass. We congratulate all students who took part and hope they both enjoyed themselves and learnt a little bit more about science along the way. Students who were awarded 1st place in the 5-12 Photography and Creative Writing categories are listed below, as well as a selection of their wonderful entries.
Photography
10-12 Oscar Clark
7-9 Jarrah Mahoney
5-6 Sam Jenkins
Creative Writing (see links below)
7-9 Sebastian DeMarte
5-6 Elodie Mahoney
1st Place 5-6 Creative Writing
1st place 7-9 Creative Writing
Camp Australia Staff Recruitment
Camp Australia, the nationally recognised leader in Outside School Hours Care, is seeking new team members - please click on the link to the poster below:
Important VET Information for Subject Selection 2023
Vocational Education Training (VET) is offered as a subject in Year 10, 11 and 12 at CCG Senior Campus. Students travel off campus to either The Gordon or a government or catholic school (non-Gordon) who offer the courses one afternoon a week. Year 10 students study VET as well as VCE Unit 1 Industry and Enterprise over the whole year which includes a week of work experience. VET is mandatory for students studying the new VCE Vocational Major (VM) and optional for VCE students. More information can be found in the subject selection booklets and on the Senior School Hub – VET for 2023 on SEQTA.
VET Course Information, Application Processes and Dates for 2023
- SELECT VET AS A CCG SUBJECT.
- Create a Unique Student Identifier at https://www.usi.gov.au/
- Choose your VET course from either The Gordon or Non Gordon
- APPLY FOR YOUR VET COURSE.
Non-Gordon Courses (Government and Catholic School Offerings)
Course information and application form can be found on the Senior School Hub. It will also be emailed to all Year 9 students and parents.
A hard copy application form is to be completed and returned to the CCG Senior Campus student office.
APPLICATIONS OPEN AUGUST 2nd FOR ALL STUDENTS
Second year students need to complete the application form to reapply for 2023.
Gordon Courses
COURSE INFORMATION AND ONLINE APPLICATION LINKS CAN BE FOUND ON Senior School Hub – VET for 2023 on SEQTA or by visiting https://www.thegordon.edu.au/sitedocs/publications/vet-delivered-to-secondary-students-guide.aspx
APPLICATIONS OPEN AUGUST 16 – VCE, VCE VM & VPC STUDENTS only
APPLICATIONS OPEN AUGUST 30 – YEAR 10 STUDENTS
Second year students do not need to reapply.
General Information
Early applications are highly recommended to secure a place. Most VET course run over 2 years. VET typically runs on Wednesday afternoons for 1st Year students and Monday afternoons for 2nd year students.
Year 10 VET students’ study VCE Unit 1 Industry & Enterprise for 3 periods a week and attend VET for 2 periods a week. They do a work placement in the first week of the holidays at the end of term 2.
CCG provides transport to VET – students make their own way home. VET courses incur an additional fee that is course dependent. CCG offers a subsidy.
For any queries about VET please contact me at Senior Campus or at k.fearnsides@ccg.vic.edu.au
THE GORDON VET STUDENTS
2nd Year Gordon students do not need to reapply. Please notify the student office if you plan to withdraw for 2023.
NON GORDON RTO’s, Belmont High, BSC, MFSC & Covenant College
2nd Year students must reapply, application forms available from the Student Office or on the Senior Hub.
Kerryn Fearnsides
Scholarship Applications for 2024 Entry now Open!
Each year we offer Academic Excellence Scholarships for entry at Year 5 (Middle School-Highton, Bellarine and Surf Coast campuses); Year 7 (Middle School-Highton and Bellarine); and Year 10 (Senior School-Waurn Ponds).
These scholarships have been designed primarily to encourage and support new and current students who wish to attend Christian College and who demonstrate high levels of academic excellence.
We are now seeking scholarship applications for entry at any of those year levels in 2024.
For more information, and to apply, please see our website. Use the hotlink from our homepage or click here
Applications close on Thursday September 29. The examination date is Saturday October 8.
Golf Tournament
The Foundation Golf Tournament is set for Thursday, 27 October 2022. Join us at 13th Beach Golf Links from 8:00am for a shotgun start. Tickets are $190 each ($150 for members) or $750 for a group of four. RSVPs close on Thursday, 6 October 2022 at 5:00pm.
Funds raised from this event will be allocated to our Foundation Scholarship Fund, supporting current students who are in need of financial assistance.
Book online at: The Foundation Golf Tournament
A MYTERN Thought for This Week
There may be times when cars veer into your lane without warning. The more you have practised taking control in difficult situations, the more instinctively you'll be able to grab your steering wheel - respond and react - and maintain your control. 😊
Discover more about MYTERN here
