Middle School Report

by Mr Michael Busscher,  Director of the Middle School 

Last week saw the Year 9 cohort move down to Melbourne for classes and all ran very smoothly. The Melbourne Experience is designed to promote important life skills, such as independence, initiative and responsibility, and provide a real world link to the Year 9 Curriculum.

The Melbourne Experience Objectives include:

·       Learn about different aspects of Melbourne

·       History, Culture, Arts, Sport, Design and Innovation

·       Learn how to use public transport

·       How to navigate around the Melbourne CBD

·       Develop teamwork and independence skills

·       Experience a range of activities across the CBD

·       Enhance the Humanities Investigation which is centered around Melbourne

This week we celebrated the 2022 Semester One Chris Nolan Awards. The following boys were recipients of this prestigious award and for this I offer my sincere congratulations.

Jacob	Bridges
Haymish	Busscher
Alexander	Clark
Cooper	Clifford
William	Flanagan
Reuben	Hackwill
Hugo	Johnston
Noah	Kerr
Oskar	Kimber
Aidan	McDougall
Lachlan	McPhan
Christian	Morrison
Zavier	Nunn
Henry	Reinehr
Lachlan	Riding
Luke	Severino
Kristopher	Stephens
Olin	Stevens
Cody	Torney
Lenny	Ward
Kayden	Williams
Paco	Wong

Next week we will begin the process of subject selection for Year 10 2023. All students will attend a briefing session on Tuesday. This will be followed up with an opportunity of parent/student meetings via MS Teams to discuss subject selections with a range of the teaching staff. On Wednesday we will conduct the SSMART ASSK and Morrisby Testing Day. The Morrisby Profile provides a detailed insight into abilities, personality, and preferences to help guide students to make the best possible subject decisions that will lead onto their future career aspirations. The Morrisby Profile builds on Morrisby Careers as it includes Aspirations, Aptitude and Personality Questionnaires. The Aptitudes in particular, bring an insight and objectivity to the decision-making process not available from questionnaires alone. Morrisby inspires the young person to take the best career journey for them.

Thursday and Friday will see a group of Year 9’s undertake the Social Innovators’ Program with Crazy Ideas College at the Ballarat Tech School. Students undertake the program in teams. As they follow the Social Innovator’s process, students discover new insights around issues they care about, generate crazy good ideas, prototype how these ideas can work in the community and develop compelling pitches that inspire action.

It seems an import time in the term when I remind boys that their journey into the Senior School is assisted by their subject results and classroom behaviour, as this information is used to assess their readiness to undertake VCE Units 1/2 in Year 10 and thus accelerate their schooling. Poor classroom behaviour is detriment 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 classrooms every day. When this formula is broken, teachers are thus required to stop teaching and then to correct the behaviour which ultimately stops the rest of the class members from continuing their learning. Calling out across a classroom, misuse of the laptop and loss of concentration levels are the most regular disruptions I am witnessing this week. Within the College Yard, I have been witnessing equally frustrating behaviours of late. Boys have been instructed not to eat in our corridors on the way out to both Recess and Lunchtimes, boys know the areas they are permitted in at these times and boys know that inappropriate behaviours are not acceptable, YET they seem to forget these expectations regularly. 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?

The business of Year 9 continues in vain.

Mr Michael Busscher

Director of Middle School