Term 1 2013

11

Mar

My Highlight - Andrew P Print E-mail

My name is Andrew P. and yesterday I was student leader with Mary S. It was an interesting responsibility; I had to keep the whole community under control. It is not as easy as it sounds, I kind of feel sorry for all of the teachers here now.

Student leader was a fun experience but it wasn’t the highlight of my time at Snowy River Campus, my highlight was expo. Expo to most people is the biggest pain in the neck. I guess I’m not like most people. Expo in my eyes was a time for me to really step up and do absolutely everything that I could do to help my team. I grew a lot on expo, I didn’t think that I would actually be able to hike 14k in the space of 48 hours. I never thought that I would be able to spend a night in a tent and I never thought that I would ever be able to take on as much responsibility as I took on expo.

My Highlight - Expo!

The new people, the new friends, the new atmosphere is something that I will never forget. I never want to leave this place and at the moment I’m trying not to think about the end of the journey but in the back of my head I know it is creeping up on me and I can safely say for sure that the last day of this term will be the saddest day of my life so far.

Andrew - Kew HS

 

10

Mar

2B Goes on Expo Print E-mail
2b on first expo

On Wednesday the 20th February, Mullauna and Oberon (2B) went on our first expo!

We were driven to Yeerung River Bridge, where we prepared to leave. We stretched, worked out where we were going, put our heavy packs on and set off. We walked about 1km through the bush before we hit the beach. The beach was a lot of hard work. For every step we took forward, it felt like two backwards. We stopped for lunch and a well needed rest. We ate our sand filled lunch and set off for the home stretch. We made it to the marker and we all worked together to get the packs up the sand bank. We hiked about 1km up, over and under logs and trees (leftover from a storm earlier in the year) and we made it to Dock Inlet and our campsite! We set up the tents and Amelia and Georgia discovered that they brought extra tent pegs; but no tent pole! They ended up tying the tent to surrounding trees! We then all went for a swim in Dock Inlet. The water was really warm and the swim was exactly what we all really needed. We cooked our dinner with the trangias before washing up, doing reflection and heading to bed. Sadly, we didn’t get to see any stars or the sunset as it was cloudy all day. The boys all did a fantastic job of scaring all of us; several times.

After a night of not so good sleep, we got up at 6am, had breakfast and packed our packs again ready for the journey back. The trip back was easier than the trip up because we weren’t on sand. We walked along a power line track and made it back to our pick up spot. The second hike was 8km long. When we knew we were near the end of the track we all embraced the moment and walked the final part together! As we were preparing to get in the buses to go back to the campsite, one of the teachers saw a red bellied black snake and so we all had a look at the third poisonous snake in the world! In total we hiked 17km with heavy packs on. We were all really proud of ourselves and we all worked really well as a team and we can’t wait for our next expo!

By Rebecca - Mullauna College

 

09

Mar

2A's Bush Experience Print E-mail

Hi my name is Abbey l am from Timboon P-12 School and I went on my first expo last week.

A Long Hot Walk

We left at 7:30 in the morning to start our long journey to Dock Inlet. We were first dropped off at a bridge and then after about a 1km of walking up a few steep hills we made it to the beach. From the hot sandy beach we then had to walk a further 6kms. It was a very long hot walk. As we walked along the beach there where many sing alongs and fun games played. It was the only thing that would keep you away for the pain of the 12kg packs that we had to carry filled with your food, water, a tent, a sleeping bag, your sleeping mat and your clothes. When we finally made it to the track that would lead us to our campsite we had to climb over and under fallen trees. After a long walk to the campsite at Dock Inlet we then had lunch and set up our tents. The boys took forever to set up their tents so the girls got to go swimming in the lake. When the boys finally joined us we got to have hand standing competitions and play games. After the swim we had a bush cooking lesson.

2A's Bush Experience

After a great night sleep in our tents and a bit of rain we were ready to go for the second day. We had to walk another 7kms! But this time on dirt tracks. Every time you went up one hill you could see the next hill. When we got to the top of one hill you could see the sea and how far we had walked which was a great feeling. We were so happy when we walk around the corner to see the bus and we all ran…. well tried to. We had a great two days of bush/beach walking and were proud of our efforts and the skills that we had learnt. I have made so many friends here and they were very supportive on expo. After we all got into the bus we drove down to Yeerung River for a swim and some lunch.

 

08

Mar

Formal Lunch Print E-mail

On The 23rd of February The Cooking Committee held a formal lunch for the whole community to share.

Formal LunchOur entree was sausage rolls, our main was Cannelloni with Italian Salad on the side and finally our desert was Tiger’s Vanilla Birthday cake with strawberry and whip cream on the side. We spent weeks planning meals, decorations and music. A week planning for outfits for girls and 2 minutes for the guys. We started off with a slide show, as the lunch progressed we ended up playing pass the parcel and busting some moves on the dance floor no matter how ridiculous it got, everyone was having a good time. I had the Best Time!!!!!!!!!!!!

People Dancing
Always Laughing
Ridiculous Conversations
Time went so fast
Yummy Food

Amelia, 2B

View the photo gallery
 

08

Mar

Real Highlights Print E-mail

Real Highlights by RobertHello my name is Robert Lindsay M (Lindsay is a guys and a girl’s name).

The school at Snowy River is one of the best things to ever happen to me in this life. I have made so many new friends here and the staff are all really nice and each have something individual to bring to the table. I am really enjoying the responsibilities placed upon me it brings a real sense of independence. My favourite thing so far has been doing theatre sports with Darren Mccubbin, it was heaps of fun and he got us to do a number of sports one of them was a Speed Dating game where 1 person had to guess who the people up on stage were acting as from 3 questions. I was Cleopatra and I had heaps of fun.

Another real highlight was Deb Gray she is the most inspirational woman I think I will ever meet, she has such an amazing view on life. Deb has no arms and very short legs yet she still manages everyday life just like those of us fortunate enough to have arms. There is one word that she wants changed if nothing else and that word is Disability. Deb says that it should be changed to Difability meaning not disabilities but different abilities. This school has been awesome and it’s only half way gone.

Robert - Timboon P-12 School

 

02

Mar

Restless to be a Leader Print E-mail

Yesterday I was student leader with Andrew on the third rest day of the term. It was a really great chance for everyone to just relax and rest after a long hard week, with some people completing Expo, photography and working on CLP’s and LLP’s. Through the day some people stayed on campus and caught up on some work and got to know everyone better. While others enjoyed a fishing trip in the morning and tennis later in the afternoon.

But I’m sure a standout in everyone’s day was the formal lunch that the cooking committee organised, it was very successful and everyone dressed up. The guys looked suave with the girls looking stunning! The three course meal that was served by Rob and Shaun was delicious and got us ready for the most anticipated event of the day. TIGER’S BIRTHDAY CAKE!!! After the lunch we voted on watching Honey (ft. Jessica Alba) which was followed by a community game of tug of war that Andrew and I organised.

For night class 1B held a Snowy’s Got Talent night. There were some very interesting and greats acts. I performed a song with Mu Thein Chri which was nerve-racking but was definitely a boost in my confidence levels. Being student leader also improved my confidence and my goal in being better at public speaking. I can’t wait to be student leader again!!

 

27

Feb

Think and Learn, a Date Overseas, Local Projects and Towers Print E-mail

We have been here for 18 days already. It has flown by and we have both made so many new friends that we will definitely keep in touch with when we leave.

Today Bonnie and I were student leaders for the first time here at Snowy River Campus. Bonnie and I are both in 1B together and both had Thinking and Learning 2 and Intro to Local Learning Project (LLP) with 1A. For thinking and learning we learnt revision on what we remember about the different quadrants about the brain and how we can improve on our quadrants that we avoid. As core 1 altogether we did a question game called Zooley which was really fun. First of all we received the questionnaire by ourselves and had no idea what to do. We were clueless and only had 2 minutes to complete 21 questions. Straight after that we got 4 people in a group that were dominant in the four different quadrants and worked on Zooley together. It was so much easier in a group than as individuals. One group which was Nick, Cameron and Ben got all 21 questions correct.

1:00 today was a great privilege for Bonnie, Tiger, Nick, Sarah and I to talk to Jasper which is in Canada. It is a school similar to ours but only goes for several days. Also there were students from Finland and Canada there. We talked about what Snowy River School of Leadership is about what activities, duties, weather, what leadership is about and what we can bring back from Snowy back home. It was a great experience as there hasn’t been many times that Snowy has talked to an overseas county.

The afternoon session today was LLP. The local project is teaching several students from a primary school and all the community here. We have 20 minutes to teach them about a topic that we choose in a team of 3 or 4 people. The LLP is next Wednesday that goes for the whole entire day. My topic is on bush tucker and we are going to have a funny role play with information about damper and then teach the primary students how to cook damper. Lastly, we will do a great quiz and see how well the students have been listening. Bonnie’s topic is on seals and whales. Their structure is going to be on a PowerPoint and then they will do some fun games like pin the tail on the whale and a fun, exciting quiz for everyone.

Bonnie and I were in charge of the paper tower activity last night. It was so fun. Core 1 was doing this crazy, fun activity.  There were four groups. Colac, East Doncaster, Kew and Bellarine. Colac and Kew had the best tower designs but there was a big debate with who actually won! Holly got a bit aggressive but it was so much fun!! Everyone laughed their heads off.

Bonnie and I had an amazing day being student leader and we can’t wait to do it again later in the term!!!

Lauren - East Doncaster and Bonnie - Colac

 

24

Feb

Scott and Katie Get Thinking Print E-mail

Today Scott and I were Student Leaders for the day.

It was quite interesting being up the front and seeing the campus from a different perspective although 2A were on Expo 1 so it was a bit quieter than usual. 2B had Expo Prep, 1A and 1B had Thinking and Learning 1 and CLP 1.

I am in 1A and Scott is in 1B. We learnt about which quadrant of the brain we use to do most of our thinking. My dominant quadrant was green and Scott’s was red. Red is emotional and supporting people and green is being organised and liking things neat. We enjoyed comparing which colour we were with the rest of the class and finding out about ourselves.

While 2B were still busily packing their bags for Expo, we had our afternoon class which was CLP 1. We went off in our school groups and worked on our CLP’s. My school, Bellarine Secondary College did quite a bit of brainstorming while having a laugh at the same time. Scott’s school team, Colac Secondary College achieved most of their master plan which is to raise awareness of being blind and talking about guide dogs. Bellarine’s CLP is to visit the sick kids in the Children’s Ward in the Geelong hospital and put smiles on their faces.

In night class core 1 (1A and 1B) had Phone Calls where you have to call a number of a Snowy River teacher of whom we didn’t know. We had to find out a bit about Snowy and they surveyed us on how we went with asking questions and the teachers were Mr Brown and Mrs Herbert.

Overall we had a good day and enjoyed Phone Calls and being a Student Leader was fun because we got to talk to the Gnurad Gundidj Campus Student Leaders for today too. We did a video conference with them which was very fun.

Student Leaders - Scott and Katie Get Thinking

Scott and Katie

 

24

Feb

A 6 Word Story Print E-mail

Snorkelling
Underwater
Cool water
Very relaxing.

2nd Rest Day - Jamaine --

(2nd Rest Day - by Jamaine Oberon HS)

 

24

Feb

A Post About Valentine's Day Print E-mail

Thankfully, Valentine’s Day wasn’t too bad, just the occasional mention of it here and there. So despite some of the hype about the day we create to show affection to those special people in our lives, I had to spend the day being introduced to Individual Learning Plans (ILPs) and planning out what exactly my team wanted from our Community Learning Project (CLP). It did mean I spent the whole day cooped up in indoor classes, my current state (I, in the past two weeks, have injured my knees in separate events) meant that I wasn’t missing out on much, just a chance to play, to shoot a few basketball hoops, since table tennis is still possible. It wasn’t too bad, as we got plenty of planning done for our CLP and started the first bits of work, and I had my ILP completed by the end of that. But even then, it’s still quite a bore to be cooped up inside pretty much the whole time. I didn’t sign up for this, being injured for the majority of my time here! Thankfully, my injuries will heal in less than a week, so it shouldn’t be an issue for me for too much longer.

That was about it for my first day as Student Leader. I learnt what was expected of me and I hope that I fulfil the role next time I get the opportunity, as I did first time!

Daniel - Mullauna College

 

23

Feb

An account of our first Rest Day Print E-mail
First Rest Day - Fishing

Today it was our first Rest Day and Georgia and I were student leaders for the day.

Rest days are a good chance to take the day of and do what you want to do, some of us spent the day on campus, others went to the beach and others went fishing. I went fishing at the Marlo pier in the morning, we spent the day casting out the lines and catching a bountiful amount of seaweed. Even though we caught no fish we still saw a seal and it was a good chance to spend the day with friends and cast a line, sit back and enjoy the day.

I look forward to the next rest days we have so we can get the opportunity to do other things, so far we’ve had ideas about going snorkelling, mountain biking, walking and just hanging out here at SRC but what we do really decides on what we feel like because any idea we want to do we have to forward the idea ourselves.

First Rest Day

Tiger - Kew SC and Georgia - Oberon HS

 
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School For Student Leadership

School for Student Leadership is a Victorian Department of Education and Training (DET) initiative offering a unique residential education experience for year nine students. The curriculum focuses on personal development and team learning projects sourced from students' home regions. There are four campuses in iconic locations across Victoria. The Alpine School Campus is located at Dinner Plain in the Victorian Alps. Snowy River Campus is near the mouth of the Snowy River at Marlo in east Gippsland. The third site is adjacent to Mount Noorat near Camperdown in Victoria’s Western District, and is called Gnurad-Gundidj. After consultation with the local aboriginal community, this name represents both the indigenous name of the local area and an interpretation of the statement "belonging to this place". Our fourth and newest campus, currently known as the Don Valley Campus is located at Don Valley, Yarra Ranges.
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Our school community acknowledges the Gunaikurnai and Monero-Ngarigo people as the traditional custodians of the land upon which our school campus is built. We pay our respects to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, their Elders past and present, and especially whose children attend our school.