Middle School Report

by Mr Michael Busscher, Director of the Middle School

Online classroom attendance and classwork completion

It seems an import time in the Term when I remind boys and their families that their journey into the Senior School is assisted by their subject results and our online classroom attendance, as this information is used to assess our Year 9 students readiness to undertake VCE Units 1/2 in Year 10 and thus accelerate their schooling. Poor Remote and Flexible classroom attendance is detrimental to everything we need to achieve as our core business within the College. Quite simply; teachers need to teach and students need to learn via a myriad of experiences offered in each of our online classrooms every day. When this formula is broken, because a student fails to attend his online class or he ignores the classwork tasks that have been set for him to complete then in fact no learning is taking place!

Looking ahead, it is hoped that  all Year 9 students will attend their Term 4 Rite Journey experience at the Norval Camp facility in Halls Gap from Wednesday, November 4 to Friday, November 6. During the camp the boys will participate in a number of challenging physical experiences including hiking, rock climbing, abseiling, high ropes, canoeing and mountain biking which will be conducted by Norval staff and assisted by St Patrick’s College staff. Boys will have the opportunity of selecting their own level of challenge depending on their individual levels of interest and physical capability. In essence we will be running 16 different variations of activity level within the one camp, so you can see how complex this camp actually is. This element of individual choice will never have been experienced on a school camp ever before and it is one that helps solidify an individual students Rite Journey experience. To assist with the selection process all boys we be required to completed the Beep Test which provides some indication of a boys level of aerobic fitness.

Objectives of the camp:

• To conclude the boy’s Rite Journey experience.
• To promote healthy natural environments to our boys.
• To encourage an appreciation of the natural environment, and to educate our boys about caring for our National Parks.
• To encourage the benefits of team work and being a member of a community.
• To continue to develop leadership in our boys.
• To provide opportunities to build relationships between staff and students and students and students.
• To develop concepts of personal challenge and adventure in each boy’s life.

Let’s just hope that restrictions are able to be lifted and the camp is permitted to continue. 

I would like to pose just one further thought for this edition of the Crest: Just imagine what a teacher and their class could achieve if there were never any interruptions to the teaching and learning process?

As always, I look forward too many great teaching and learning days ahead, albeit remotely.

 Mr Michael Busscher

Director of Middle School