Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs

This extraordinary exhibition of ancient artefacts is on at the Melbourne museum in Carlton and would be a great family outing for th Year 7 students studying Ancient Civilisations. Discovered by Howard Carter in 1922, it took a decade to bring out and record all the treasures found in King Tut’s tomb. This is a rare opportunity to see the exhibits outside of Egypt and those with an interest in history and ancient worlds would enjoy this event. For more information go to www.kingtutmelbourne.com.au

End of Term 1

Well, we made it through our first term and many successful projects have been handed in and now decorate all areas of our school. Well done everyone. For those Year 7s still working on their Ancient Civilisations materials, keep it up over the holidays and we’ll be back before you know it to enjoy our Agora Day.

For all year levels there is a change of term unit topic next term. Year 9′s will be studying the world from the perspective of ‘My Place’ and will be investigating a local coastal region and undertaking a field study. Year 8′s are moving on to look at Entrepreneurship and Economics and will learn about basic economic and financial matters. Their project will be to develop a creative and innovative way to provide for their future. After Agora Day, Year 7′s will explore their local community and participate in a community activity. This year there will be an opportunity to work with the Arts Domain to produce something beautiful for the school.

For the start of Term 2 the year level wikis are operational and some students will have already received their invitation to join the appropriate site. You can access the relevant wiki by clicking on the links to the left. The wikis operate as an online  classroom and are a place for students to collaborate online, access copies of handouts and other information. Wikis are ‘closed’ which means you must be a member to participate. To become a member, submit a request to join and wait for the approval (may take a day or two during the holidays). The closed site enables students to operate in a safer online environment and feel free to participate as though they were at school. [Note: text talk is discouraged and students are requested to use their first name and grade as their wiki name so teachers know who is posting to the site. Please be safe and don't use full names or give out personal information, even on a closed wiki site.]

All students are reminded that it’s winter uniform from the first day back, so brush up on your tie-tying skills!

 

Year 9 Shrine of Remembrance Excursion

Just a quick reminder to everyone in Year 9 to get their permission forms and payments in for the Shrine excursion on Thursday. You will also need to remember to bring in your iPod or other audio device on Tuesday so we can work out how to load everything for our tour.

9H & 9G: Don’t let the excitement of an excursion prevent you from completing the tasks you have due at the end of the week. Whether you have an independent research project, the National Identity booklet, the Sports and War booklet or the textbook chapters, please make sure you are ready to hand your work in on time. You should also have been answering the online homework questions each week.

…and a last reminder: the Soldier’s Slang questions need to be handed in too. You can build that work into your other project or do it as an additional task once you’ve finished.

Year 8 Medieval Day

The notices went home today and so you should all be starting to think about your costume for Medieval Day. Dress up like knights, kings, queens, serfs and peasants. It will be a fun day of activities and presentations, all of which are linked to the assessment criteria for our unit of study.

It is a normal school day in that you are expected to attend and those who are unable to take part in the festivities will have an alternative learning activity offered for the day.

“Get ye to the cloth-maker, peasants – and dress ye well,  for the Queen will be judging the best outfit on the day!”

Welcome to a new school year!

Great to have you all back for a fresh start in 2011. A special welcome to all the new Year 7 students – we hope you will enjoy yourselves as you start secondary college. Best wishes for a successful year for all returning students and we hope you all enjoy the challenges coming your way.

We should also acknowledge all the new staff joining the school. It will be an exciting time as we move forward with our personalised learning strategies and develop many more interesting teaching and learning processes.

To those parents new to the blogging and online education experience, feel free to ask any questions about how we are doing things and please regularly visit this site to see what your children will be studying this year.

Alternative Timetable Week

Hi everyone,

I hope you made the most of your personal learning time today – I set plenty of tasks to keep you going.

Just a reminder of what is due and when:

Year 7 Humanities: Complete your Needs and Wants page; finish the PMI on Microfinance and start thinking about your microfinance case study. Try exploring the One Hen site (link on the left) for information to get you started.

Year 7 English: You should have finished your VBTS mini-tasks and started on a slogan and an image for your poster. Start to think about preparing a personal response to the book. Some of you who don’t normally use the class wiki should think about posting your thoughts about the book to a discussion board – it’s a great way to get started and get feedback from your peers.

Year 8 Humanities: Think about the issues faced by Asian workers working for multinational corporations. Get a book of the readings from the classroom and study the articles. Do some online research to extend your thinking.

Year 8 English: For the Free Range Learners, you have your plan and you should be working to complete your chosen task by the due date (Mon 22 November). Those of you doing the other tasks, they are listed on the English page (link on the right).

I can be emailed for anyone who needs help or you can find me in the PAC all week this week.

Happy Cup Week!

Issues for Yr8 Humanities

Workers in China poisoned while making iPhones

Click this link to read an article from ABC news on the issues Chinese workers have had during their work making iPhones. It links to our history study of work practices in rapidly expanding economies.

Also of interest: Dirty Secrets airs tonight on Foreign Correspondent at 8PM on ABC 1. An in-depth look at the pollution caused by the economic boom in China.

Week 3

Year 8 English students should have watched the movie by now. The next thing to do is prepare your film review and complete the graphic organiser given out in class (and posted on the wiki). For those of you doing ‘Free Range Learning’ you need to revise your time planning and get it approved before you move on to working on your chosen task. The rest of you can look at what is coming up on the curriculum plan (on the wiki) and prepare yourselves for those upcoming lessons.

Year 8 Humanities should be expecting some hard-core history in the next couple of weeks. We’ll be doing close reading of news articles that talk about exploited workers in Asia and examining the historical context and the economic implications for us. Ponder this question: if the person who made you new iPod was only paid half of what they should have been, would you still buy products from that company?

Year 7 English: keep on working on those mini-tasks that show your understanding of the novel. Those of you who have completed everything early can form a study group and we can come up with some extention activities – perhaps you could form a writing group?

Year 7 Humanities: We are exploring ways of combating poverty by doing a case study of microfinance. As part of that we will continue with the international trading game to supplement your understanding of how an economy works on a global scale and then we will look at particular case studies showing how microfinance can help. You can take a look at the One Hen website (link on the side) to get some background information.

Drumming Circle

Somewhere in Narre Warren on Friday night you’ll hear the sound of drums a-thud-thud-thudding. A local ‘drum fanatic’, Peta Minter, has formed a drum circle. This iw where enthusiastic drummers and wannabe drummers get together and celebrate the joy of rhythm. The group is open to anyone of any age – if you’re into drumming, or just want to give it a try, phone 0413 597 279 for details.

Coming up this week…

An exciting week ahead for Year 7 with an incursion on Tuesday, so no regular classes in Session 3 that day. (I know how much you love that!)

Year 8, you will be presenting your PowerPoints on the Asian country you chose to precis for us all. So I’m looking forward to that.

Remember to keep up with the lates from the Games and stay up-to-date with current affairs – read the paper, go online or watch the news.