RVSSC welcomed me at the start of Term 2, and as the year draws to a close, I would like to take this opportunity to reflect on the year that was.

Sadly, we said farewell to Mrs Easdale and Ms Sipple, which was a huge loss for our faculty. With this loss, we welcomed Miss Champs and Ms Parish, whose contribution to our faculty has been invaluable, as are the contributions from all staff in our faculty. As a team, Ms Wellwood, Mr Sharma, Mrs Martins, Mrs Montel, Miss Champs and Ms Parish, have been working hard developing curriculum, and creating opportunities and experiences for our students. For this, I am both grateful and proud!

So, let’s look back on the year that was…

We have been feeding ourselves.

We have tested some ‘foods of the future’. Sampling cheese and bacon flavoured dehydrated mealworms and sour cream and chives flavoured dehydrated crickets. Our students studying Japanese have applied their reading skills to make sushi by following a recipe to make まきずし. We have taste tested an assortment of chocolate while considering the social implications of the cocoa trade. The 'Dark Intense 91%- Extra dark bittersweet chocolate' was not a winner!

We have been out and about.

Our Year 9 students ventured out to the Queensland Museum and enjoyed researching in the State Library. Our Year 7 Reader’s Cup team competed in the Qld Branch of the Children's Book Council of Australia’s 2021 Readers Cup Challenge at St Mary’s, Woodend, placing 12th overall.

We have been innovative in the classroom.

Our Year 9 Economics and Citizenship classes developed their enterprise skills building a spaghetti structure strong enough to hold their marshmallows – again with the food?  Some of our Year 7’s prepared Pharaoh’s for burial – risky business given that toilet paper was in short supply during April! We flipped classrooms, (not literally) using student-centred learning to empower students to own their learning, and remove the reliance on the teacher as the only source of knowledge. Our students used the interactive TV’s to practice their hiragana.

We have been creative.

After NAPLAN, Ms Mons Wolff’s year seven English Enrichment students mixed things up by collaborating in teams to create ‘Preposition Post-It Note Poems! We developed our note taking skills using visual notetaking, with some ‘horrifyingly’ excellent results.

 

We have thought about others.

Our College participated in the Write a Book in Day competition raising valuable money for the Kids Cancer Project while learning valuable skills about team work and time management, as well as practicing their narrative writing skills.

Our Japanese faculty launched the Inaugural Paper Cranes Project and our goal is to present our first cranes to a local charity or organisation in 2022. We established the English Homework Club which has grown each term – this term more than 120 students have attended during the assessment period!

WOW!! What a successful year it has been! I look forward to the challenges of 2022; welcoming our new Year 7 students and their families, and introducing six new subjects within our Year 10 Curriculum.

On behalf of the English, Humanities and Languages faculty, thank you for your support throughout the year. Have a safe and restful break – we look forward to working with you in the new year.

Jasmine Diesing