From the Head of Campus
I’ve often mentioned over this year how good it has been to get back to those pre-COVID activities that we’d sadly missed over the past two years. One such event is House Footy, a lunchtime carnival involving a set of round robin matches over two weeks, culminating in a final featuring the top two teams on the last Friday in August (our equivalent to that other big game on the last Saturday in September). The finalists gracing the bottom oval this year were the Burrows Bears and Penman Panthers and these two teams played out a riveting match earlier today. Off the field, Burrows House organised a sausage sizzle in support of the Cancer Council’s Daffodil Day Appeal to fund cancer research. And students were permitted to deviate slightly from the College uniform policy by adorning a splash of yellow. As with all House events this year, House Footy was as much about celebrating our thriving community as it was about the competition. Thank you and well done to all students who took part across the past fortnight, and a big congratulations to Penman House on their victory today.
Rick Geall, Head of Campus
2022 GAT
On Wednesday, September 7th all students undertaking a VCE Unit 3/4 subject, VCE VET 3/4 sequence, or Senior VCAL will be required to sit the GAT (General Achievement Test). The purpose of this test is to:
- Assess students against literacy and numeracy standards
- Check that VCE external assessments and school-based assessments have been accurately and fairly assessed
- Help calculate a Derived Examination Score if required.
This year, the GAT will be conducted in two parts with the vast majority of students being required to complete both Sections A and B. Only Senior VCAL students who are not doing a VCE VET 3/4 sequence are exempt from Section B.
Students are expected to be at school by 9:00 am to facilitate a smooth start at 9:30 am. Section A will be finished at 11:45 am and students will receive a 90-minute lunch break, during which graduation portraits will be taken (see below). Section B will start at 1:15 pm and finish at 3:00 pm. Students are to bring their own lunch as the canteen will not be open and they are not to leave the school grounds during the break. Our normal school bus timetable will operate, and students are required to attend in full school uniform.
The students have received a briefing where relevant information regarding the GAT was shared with them. Detailed information is also available on the Senior School Hub, where there is a dedicated GAT page providing information on room allocation, sample questions, and a link to the VCAA GAT webpage.
There is also a parent information brochure available via the VCAA GAT page, located at www.vcaa.vic.edu.au.
Graduation Portraits
Arthur Reed Photography will be on site on Wednesday 7th September [GAT day] to take students individual portraits in their graduation regalia. This will take place during the scheduled lunchbreak. Students will need to be in full school uniform, clean shaven, and meeting the uniform expectations as always.
We are conscious of the timing of these portraits, and whilst the photographer is confident that there is ample time in the lunchbreak, if it happens that not all photos get taken on this day an alternate day/timeslot will be arranged.
Please direct any questions regarding graduation portraits to Ms Dianne Martin at Senior School.
Dianne Martin, Deputy Head of Campus
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
Concert for Reconnections
Youth Arts Program at St Mary’s Basilica
Congratulations to these solo performers! – Chelsea Eldridge – Trumpet, Atharv Joshi and Christian Ranieri – Piano, Emily Treloar – Clarinet, Leo Treloar – Alto Saxophone, Kristen Wigg and Alice Quick – Voice, Caleb Venn – Tenor Saxophone, Adela Karol – Harpsichord, Maya Fuller – Oboe.
Ten students from the Christian College Music Investigation class appeared in a moving recital at St Mary’s Basilica yesterday afternoon. The Recital involved students performing works that were paired with art works on display, the art had been created by students from Sacred Heart College. The presentation was carefully curated by Regina Thomae in conjunction with Gillian Turner the ‘visual arts mentor’, and it provided our musicians with a unique experience, one which saw them performing in the beautiful acoustic of the basilica. The recital was attended by an inspired and obviously appreciative audience who also enjoyed connecting with our musicians, as well as performing, our students spoke to the audience as they presented their items, they provided insight about their music, their performance and what it means to them to perform.
Mrs Mantelli and Mrs Thomae congratulate these students on their work and presentation, both on the day and leading up to the event.
Fiona Gardner
Unit 4 Food Studies and Year 12 VCAL – Kitchen Garden Cook
Students in Unit 4 Food Studies have been addressing debates concerning Australian and global food systems, relating to issues on the environment, ethics, technologies, food access, food safety, and the use of agricultural resources. The students took the opportunity to use the fresh, organic, quality produce grown and harvested at senior school by our Year 12 VCAL students to produce a healthy fresh lunch for the two classes to enjoy. Affording the opportunity for the students to reflect on food production and the environment while they enjoyed cooking with the freshly grown Kale, Silverbeat, Lettuce, Broccoli, Parsley, Chives and Vietnamese mint.
This year the Year 12 VCAL students have completed a range of projects focussed on sustainability. One of these was the chemical free kitchen garden. Students set up raised garden beds and planted a variety of winter vegetables and herbs. Our carpentry team added timber surrounds to the beds and Jordan Richardson took on the task of supervising planting, making sure the beds were watered, weeding and harvesting the produce. It was wonderful to share the feast prepared by 12 Food Tech and to bring Food Tech and VCAL together in our new shared space.
Emma Workman
Duff Swanson
Dreaming With Eyes Open…
Each year since 1945 the Children’s Book Council of Australia has brought children and books together across Australia through CBCA Book Week. During this time libraries spend one glorious week celebrating books and Australian children’s authors and illustrators. The CBCA promotes literacy and diversity in Australian children’s books. The annual CBCA Book of the Year Awards affirms the quality of some of Australia’s most creative authors.
In the Senior School Library we focus on the Older Reader section with the authors coming from a variety of diverse backgrounds, there was a First Nations, Asian migrant and South African migrant author. The books had an overwhelming message of Empowerment with issues ranging from poverty, racism, poor education, violence and sexism.
This year each of our Year 10 Reading classes were given a presentation on the six shortlisted books, and at the end the students selected the book they believed would be the winner. The most popular books selected by the students Girls in Boys Cars and How to Repaint a Life, were awarded Honours by the CBCA judges. The winner in the Older Reader category was Tiger Girl by Rebecca Lim. This is a wonderful story about a girl navigating the complex space of her family and cultural heritage and her Australian identity. The story explores issues of depression and domestic violence but does so in a sensitive and interesting way.
Reading a book is really dreaming with your eyes open. Well-written stories will stimulate the imagination and allow the reader to dream themselves into the book. They can travel to other places and times and into imaginary worlds. A dream can act as a catalyst, a tool for change or be an inspiration. Reading about inspiring characters can encourage young people to take on challenges in their lives.
Students had great fun trying to guess who the reader was by looking at images which just revealed the person’s eyes and the book they were reading in our Guess Who? Competition.
Continuing the theme of dreaming with eyes open as part of our Book Week display, in the Library we have a wonderful selection of First Nation’s dreamtime stories promoting listening to country as the first storyteller. We ended the Book Week celebrations by hosting an afternoon tea for staff in the Library.
Susan Mapleson
A New York Experience for our Senior Stage Band
Last Saturday afternoon our Senior Stage Band travelled to Melbourne Polytechnic to perform in the Essentially Ellington Festival. The 16 performers in the band played a program of music featuring Blue Cellophane, Bluestone Alley and Sister Sadie. These charts, all from the jazz genre range from a Duke Ellington 1930s hit through to a recently Australian composed work. The Essentially Ellington Festival is run by ‘Jazz at the Lincoln Centre’ in New York and sees musicians from this institution travel the world to workshop and provide expert tuition for each group performing in the festival. Our students played beautifully and had the privilege of receiving encouragement and feedback from Vincent Gardner, a trombonist jazz icon and professional performer teacher from Jazz at the Lincoln Centre in New York. Mr David Gardner congratulates the band on their preparation and performance…and is looking forward to presenting them on stage at Federation Square next week.
Fiona Gardner
Wearable Art Returns!
The popular Wearable Art – Senior School’s House-based art/fashion spectacular returns for the first time since 2019 on the last day of Term 3, September 16. Wearable Art has been a much-loved annual event on the Senior School calendar as each house designs and creates expressive costumes inspired by their house colours and a self-chosen theme. This year for the first time we will also welcome Year 3 and 4 students from Surf Coast Campus who have also been busily creating their own costumes and will parade them in front of the audience on the day. We can't wait to see everyone's fantastic creations!
Jane Bailey
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
