Year 9 News – 22 February 2024

18/02/2024

The Year 9s continue to impress staff with their application in class and engagement in learning activities. The improvements in uniform, including socks and hats, are obvious. We encourage all students to be positive role models, moving to class punctually and behaving well in the yard. Students are looking forward to the upcoming Swimming Carnival. In early March we will also be attending a session presented by the Pat Cronin Foundation, addressing social violence and encouraging students to be a part of the solution.

SUBJECT NEWS

Leadership in Sport: Our Year 9 Leadership in Sport students played host to North Melbourne Football Club players on Tuesday 13 February. Nick Larkey, Charlie Lazzaro, Miller Bergman, Josh Goater, Finbar Malley and Brayden George participated in the morning.

Students asked the players about their junior development, their journey to play in the AFL, setbacks along the way and how players at the club show leadership on and off the field.

Nick Larkey has recently been announced as part of the club’s leadership team and was able to talk about the process, which the students found very interesting. We are grateful for the opportunity to meet these superstars and we look forward to seeing North Melbourne’s journey in 2024 as they look to climb the AFL ladder. (Mr Bryce Curnow)

English: Year 9 students are currently exploring expression of emotion through creative writing. Through a series of writing folio tasks, students experiment with form and process, whilst building a vocabulary to help them convey emotion through their writing.

Humanities: Students are learning about the Industrial Revolution and the making of the modern world – a period of rapid change in the way people lived, worked and thought. The first few weeks of Term 1 have seen students learn about the context and causes of the revolution, and the 18^th century emergence of factories, manufacturing and transport.

Religious Education: This year, Religious Education is a ‘stand-alone’ subject, allowing students to explore the spiritual dimension of themselves within the school community. Broadly speaking, Catholic Education “is centred on Christ who reveals both the face of God and the truth of the human condition in all cultures and faiths, including First Nations people of Australia.” (Catholic Education Sandhurst Limited, ‘Source of Life’ Religious Education Curriculum’). The Religious Education program plays a unique and significant role in the “work of holiness”, seeking truth in, and understanding of, our humanity.

The Year 9 Religious Education program in Term 1 focuses on the role of prayer as an inner urging to communicate with God and to develop students’ understanding that prayer can be a continuous rhythm of dialogue – listening and speaking – with God in times of joy, sorrow and thanksgiving. Students are exposed to forms of prayer that have engaged the world for thousands of years. Students learn some of the formal prayers of the Church and are allowed the freedom to express their own. They will have the opportunity to experience different forms of prayer such as lectio divina (divine reading of scripture), meditation and liturgical prayers, as well as investigating scriptural prayers such as the Psalms. The term’s work culminates in the creation of an anthology of prayers that can be used in their Student Advocate Group morning gatherings.

Mr Jack Timmins and Ms Jan Lake, Year Level Learning Leaders – Year 9