Term 4 2009

04

Dec

Last Night Print E-mail

Tonight is our last night at SRC. Emotions are running high as we enter the last stretch of our journey.  Sadness mixed with excitement fills the air, and everyone is in a rush to prepare for their departure.


Looking back on the nine weeks it is hard to imagine who we are now, and who we were then. Once shy and dependant, we have now blossomed into confident, self-serving young adults. Taking with us our memories and friends, we will continue our journey through life head-first. We will look back on this experience and smile, knowing how hard we tried and how we have grown.


We wish our fellow students all the best for the challenges they will face. We know that from seeing how they have tackled them here, they will succeed. If not, they will rise from defeat better and stronger people. We will miss you all, and can’t wait to se you again.

 

02

Dec

1A Raft Building Print E-mail

1A's beach landingYarr me hearties, I have a tale to tell of 12 lads and lasses wielded with cutlasses and bottles of rum setting off raft building on December 2nd. They departed the SRC and set off to their pirate training grounds down at Corringle Slips, enthused to search for the buried treasure hidden somewhere unknown to them.

 They unloaded their trailer loaded with the essential raft building equipment which they would use to cross the deadly body of water in their hopes of finding that treasure. After a rather long moment of planning, construction finally begun with the young pirates beginning to tie the barrels and logs together in attempt to make their seaworthy vessel, this was not an easy task  for the brave and daring pirates.

 

Read more about Macaulay's adventure
 

01

Dec

2A Raft Building Print E-mail

2A being piratesToday is the second last full day here at SRC.  2A set off to raft building in the party bus dressed up as pirates.  Once we arrived, we unloaded the trailer full of empty plastic barrels and wooden logs.   We discussed some ideas on how to build our raft and we had to fit eleven people onto it. 

We decided to use six big barrels and six wooden poles to make our raft.  There where many different ideas on how to make it, but we all decided on how we thought it would work best. 

Read more about 2a's raft building
 

29

Nov

Duck Production Print E-mail

Today Emily and I were student leaders. We ran a class called ‘Duck Production.’  This was where we had to manage our own business; making and selling top quality origami ducks! We also had to buy resources and paying fees. During the lesson we were in charge of predicting economic crises. This is where we communicated with the brokers and they would increase or decrease the buying prices.


One of our best crises was when Bird Flu hit and we had to destroy half of their makings! But our absolute favorite economic crisis was the Tsunami. This is where we walked out of the kitchen, armed with spray bottles, water bottles and sauce bottles filled with water. We saturated every table, including all the ducks and paper (and most of the students and the floor!) Whilst doing this the students defended their products by pouring their drink bottles on Carly drenching her or tackling Emily! At the end of the day everybody said they had fun and enjoyed the learning experience.

 

25

Nov

Core 1 Caving Print E-mail

SRC students ready to go cavingToday Core One travelled to Buchan to go caving. It was an early day. We had to leave at 8 am rather then the normal 9 am. The drive in was long and some of us (or maybe just me) started to get restless but after about an hour we got to our destination. We split into two groups and headed off to go caving.

 

 

 

Read more about Thea's caving experience
 

24

Nov

Barry Heard Print E-mail

In the library with Barry Heard's bookToday we got a visit from Barry Heard, a famous Australian and award winning writer. Two of his books, ‘Well Done, Those Men’ and ‘The View from Connors Hill,’ are personal memoirs of the bloody battlefields in the Vietnam War and his life before being sent to Vietnam. Barry talked of his time in the war, when at the age of 20; his birth date was pulled out in a lottery draw and he had to serve the Australian Army for two years.  His accounts were horrific, but very touching.

 

 

 

 

 

Read more about the Barry Heard presentation
 

23

Nov

Caving Print E-mail

Carly having an awesome time cavingToday 2A and 2B went caving. When we got to Buchan we split off into our expo groups. Half went to Wilson’s Cave and the other half did the Royal Cave.

I’m in 2B and we visited the Royal Cave first. We had a guide show us around for about an hour. It was really interesting in there because it has been around for so long. Heaps of decorations have formed inside which makes it look really pretty. After our tour was over we met up with 2A, had a BBQ lunch and had fun playing on the playground for a bit!

After lunch 2A went to the Royal Cave and 2B went to Wilson’s Cave. We got dressed up in our CFA overalls and the guides gave us helmets with head lights. We had to enter the cave through a tiny hole in the ground. Most of the time we were on our hands and knees or army crawling! There were only a few times when we were able to stand up. There were a few parts of the cave that were really hard to slide in because they were so tiny, but those parts were the most fun! By the end of caving we were absolutely covered in mud! We all had so much fun and wish we could do it again! Caving has definitely been one of my highlights whilst being at SRC.

 

15

Nov

1A Expo Two Print E-mail

1A at the top of Mt RaymondOn Tuesday 10 November, we left for our second and last expo. We got dropped off near the top of Mount Raymond and it was extremely hot. We hiked to the top where we saw an amazing view of Marlo. We then made our way down through the bush to Lake Curlip where our canoes were waiting for us. Then we paddled to our campsite and set up camp amongst the cows in the paddock.

 

 

Read more about Hannah's expo adventure
 

09

Nov

Parent Visiting Weekend Print E-mail

Steph and friendsWhoa! What a weekend this has been.

Saturday the 7 November was they day many different emotions. Many of the SRC students were anxious, excited, worried, scared, happy and oh so much more as the time ticked away. The day started as usual with breakfast and the morning briefing at 9:00am. Then the parents started to arrive and the emotions came pouring out. As we said goodbye to our friends for the weekend, the number of students left was getting smaller and smaller 44, 43, 42… 10, 9 by this time it was 10:20am. Twenty minutes after the pick-up time, the final 8 were starting to get worried. At 10:25am another car showed up, it was my family. I was so happy! I couldn’t wait to spend time with my family, yet I felt bad for leaving my friends behind to play the waiting game.

Read more about parent visiting weekend
 

08

Nov

Parent Visiting Weekend Print E-mail

Barnacles at East CapeThis weekend was parent visiting weekend. We all got to see our parents for the first time in five weeks. We were all picked up by our parents and taken away for the weekend.  I was really excited about seeing my parents after not seeing them face to face for so long.

Everyone was really happy to see their families and I think everyone had a great weekend. Most of us went to Lakes Entrance and we saw a lot of people from the campus. Some of us were at the same hotel or going to the same restaurant. I went down to some shops and got some new shoes and stocked up on some Aeroguard.  I also went to the beach and had a look in the Pete’s shop who is one of our surf instructors. We went swimming and had some nice quiet time with my family. I called some of my friends as well to see how they were doing and what news was like back home.

Read more about parent visiting weekend
 

04

Nov

LLP Day Print E-mail

LLP DayToday SRC students presented our LLPs to Orbost and Marlo Primary School students. LLP stands for Local Learning Project. It is a smaller version of a CLP.

SRC students are required to complete a topic from the local area and present it to primary school students. In the morning when the students arrived, we played some games with the whole community and name games in our smaller groups before presenting our topics.

Read more about LLP Day
 

02

Nov

Sports Day Print E-mail

Sports Day participants

Today was the beginning of the fifth week for SRC students and what a better way to start it off with a sports round robin.

Today was meant to be SRC’s rest day, but we decided as a community to organise a day where we could all get out and have some fun. The group of 44 SRC students headed down to Cann River by coach to interact with students from Cann River P-12 College and Mallacoota P-12 College. We played a series of sports including netball, soccer, basketball and Volleyball. Even though the weather was hot everyone still gave it their best and in the end had a great time. It was great to see everyone offering to help serve and prepare lunch. It was also a good  chance for SRC, Mallacoota and Cann River to get to know each other and share stories with past students that came to SRC in term 4 2008. Thank you to everyone that helped organise today, especially the sports committee because we all had a great time making new friends out in the sun.

 

01

Nov

Photography with David Tatnall Print E-mail

West CapeHere at SRC we have been very lucky. For the past few days David Tatnall, a very renowned photographer, has taken time to share a fraction of his extensive knowledge with us all.

David Tatnall has been a professional photographer for over 30 years and has been commissioned to take photographs all over the world for different organizations and companies. In our first photography class he shared his passion for work with us, by showing a number of photos he had taken throughout the years and explaining what makes a good photo. After that class everyone was inspired and raring to get out and take some great shots. We were given the opportunity over the following days. In our expo groups we had classes with David. He firstly he showed us all how to use the settings on a SLR camera such as the aperture, the shutter speed and the zoom. All this was very new to most of us, as we are not used to using film cameras, we are used to our automatic digital cameras.


To get some great shots we travelled a short distance to West Cape. The shores of West Cape were covered with interesting rock formations which made a great location for our newly discovered photography fetish. We were split into groups and given one roll of film and from then on, it was up to us to decide what we wanted to capture. We were spoilt for choice, with the magical blue sky, the sun shining off the rippled ocean, the rock pools and the amazing rock formations. I loved using film cameras as it really makes you think about what you want to take a photo of, instead of just snapping away and deleting anything you don’t like. We were very privileged to have such an experienced and enthusiastic teacher to help us and give us tips. I can’t wait to see our results when they get back from being developed!

 

28

Oct

2B Expo One Print E-mail

2B on their way to Dock Inlet

On Sunday the 25th October, 2B set out on their first expo. It started off as a pretty good day and the weather was holding up for us, so we set out for Dock Inlet. We decided to go via the beach the first day, then bush the second.

 

 

 

 

Read more about 2B's Expo experience.
 

27

Oct

2A's Adventure to Dock Inlet Print E-mail

Dock Inlet at Sunset

We all woke up early before our alarms, as we were so excited for our first expedition to Dock Inlet. We had just spent the previous day preparing for our first expedition. 

2A decided in the morning to take the first route along the beach so we would have a tail wind on the way their and the walk back wouldn’t be as strenuous. It was an easy walk for everyone as we where all very strong and committed to completing our team and personal goals. We created our own acronym to remind us of our well thought out goals P.H.E.R.P- Positivity, Helpfulness, Encouragement, Respect and Patience.

Read more about 2A's Expo experience.
 

23

Oct

1B Surfing Print E-mail

Darcy and Tory catching some waves

This is Darcy and Tory. Today we had surfing at East Cape. The waves were not huge, but they were good for beginner like us. It was our second surf lesson of the term. In our lesson we learnt how to stand up. Everyone managed to get up at some stage and had heaps of fun. This time we only had one instructor, so it was a bit harder to learn things.

We saw Mr. Bourke, Mr. Porter and Miss Moore all down the beach riding the waves too. The water was rather cold, but we got use to it thanks to our wet suits. When we surf we have to wear helmets, lucky we did because I ran over Tory when I was surfing in and he was paddling out. We had a short break for morning tea which was a beautiful slice. Then we went back out to ride some more waves. Eventually the lesson was over, even though we didn’t want it to end. We would like to thank Mr. Pfanner and Mr. Conroy for taking us out.


After surfing we had our CLP class. Yarrawonga’s CLP is going great. We have got all the measurements for their veggie patch and have named it too. It is called ‘The Patch’.

Bright SC is organizing a triathlon to be held in town and is already looking for sponsors and people to help out.

 

 

22

Oct

Rest Day Print E-mail

Steph enjoying rest day

Hey Steph here. Today has been a rest day. Some people went on bike rides earlier this morning whilst others took the chance to catch up on cleaning, emails and just being lazy.

I spent the day relaxing with a few friends, emailing friends and family and even had a HD link up with my home school, Wanganui Park SC. The HD link up was to find out information about some things for our CLP, so we used this to our advantage and asked for some student opinions. Our home school liaison teacher said sure, which meant everyone out of our Wanganui group chose one person (friend) to come into the HD link up. We all chose one of our closest friends, which even brought tears to some of our eyes seeing our friend’s faces for the first time in nearly 3 weeks. We also got to see a few of our teachers, which was so cool. At first we started asking a few questions about our CLP and then they asked us about our life here. Everyone back home had no idea of what type of life we are living here at SRC so they had many questions and we had many answers. My favorite part was the hellos and the worst part was the goodbyes, but aren’t they always?

Anyway other than our HD link up with Wanganui many of the others have been outside playing ball games, watching the movie called John Tucker Must Die, reading books, writing letters and even a couple of the girls baked cupcakes for afternoon tea. A few people have been working on their CLP’s and even their passports.
 
Our time here at SRC is going so fast. In less then 3 weeks it is Parent Visiting Weekend and then less then 4 weeks after that its time to go home.  Time surely does fly when your having fun. Good bye. Keep watching this space for more updates from others.

 

21

Oct

1A Expo Print E-mail

1A about to set off on their first expo

On 19 October 1A departed on our very first expo here at SRC. Some people were excited for this challenge whilst others were nervous and apprehensive about it, but by the end everybody had enjoyed the experience. The expo was a lot more difficult than what we had expected. It was far more difficult than the simple walk in the bush we had done during expo skills.

On our first day of expo we were all happy and cheery as we started to walk the bush track down to the beach. The beach was the most difficult part of our expo in my opinion because for those who have not experienced it, sand can be rather tricky to walk in. With each step we took our feet would sink into the sand , ultimately slowing us down and having to carry heavy packs didn’t help much either. We were all relieved when it was lunch time because it meant that we could take a long break and go for a swim.  I don’t think I have ever ran so fast from something when I realized that there were leeches in the very water we were swimming in after Ellie picked some sea weed for Mr. Pfanner to eat. 

Read more about Macaulay's Expo experience.
 

16

Oct

2B Surfing Print E-mail

2B Ready for the Waves

Today 2B went surfing for the first time since arriving here at SRC. We were all excited, some because they had never been surfing before and others because they hadn’t been surfing in a while.

It was a pretty cold looking afternoon, but we all so badly wanted to get out to the waves!  When we got down to East Cape we were introduced to our instructors for the next four lessons, Phil and Paul. We got on our wetsuits and hit the beach.

When we got to the beach we were each given a surfboard and we decided to take a group photo. Then we got taught how we needed to lay on the board to catch waves.

Read about Anita's Surfing experience.
 

14

Oct

1B Bridge Building Print E-mail

1B Bridge Building

It’s Jenna and Emily here, we are in 1B and today we did bridge building.

Bridge building is when are required to build a bridge out of a certain amount of materials such as wooden polls and ropes. Then you have to put it in the water without anyone touching the water. Everyone  has to then walk across it and reach into a canoe and pick out an object and climb back to land.

Before we started to build we got taught how to tie different kinds of knots and how to construct a tripod. Our group had some pretty weird and brilliant ideas, which sort of failed but was really fun to try. We made a few mistakes along the way, but learnt how and why we went wrong in the reflection.

Since being here at Snowy River Campus everyone is forming close friendships, which we think have been formed for life.

 

13

Oct

The Extreme Team Print E-mail

Jess and Macaulay

Today was the beginning of our second week at SRC. We have already achieved so much in this short amount of time and everyone is settling in really well. Making new friends in the first couple of days was really easy as everyone was so nice and easy to get along with, now we are all like one big family.

The activities at SRC are all really fun and enjoyable but the best part about it is that everyone joins in and makes each activity a challenge. For example 2B has already completed bridge building, which everyone pitched in and helped with (considering it was pouring down with rain). Throughout all of the rain, wind and shine it was great that we remained positive, focused and continued to work as a team.

Read about Jess's SRC experience.
 

12

Oct

2B Bridge Building Print E-mail

2B Bridge BuildingWe have just spent our first week at the Snowy River Campus. It has gone so fast already and everyone is enjoying the activities and classes that have been run, as well as everything else we have had the chance to experience here.

Throughout the week we have taken part in many activities that are designed to develop and improve our leadership skills and teamwork abilities. Our first major teamwork day was when we went in groups to participate in a bridge building task. We were given many wooden poles, rope and taught how to tie various different knots. Our goal was to build a bridge that would get our whole team of students across to a canoe to retrieve some ‘treasure.’ We then had to be able to get back across to the shore. All of this had to be done without any of us touching or falling into the water.

Read about Katelyn's Bridge Buidling
 


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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.