The weeks are flying by already as COVID-normal schooling settles into place. The students are getting back into routine and besides the sea masks hiding our young people’s faces, life is back to a familiar rhythm in Middle School.

While the students are focussing on finishing the year positively and farewelling 2020, it is transition time for all new students excitedly looking forward to starting their journey at the College. Over the past three weeks, we have met all new students entering in Year 5 and 7 next year in small groups on Zoom after school. We’ve seen lots of nervous – but excited – faces on the screen listening and hearing from staff and current students about our school. It has been great to hear from our current students who have enthusiastically told them about the many opportunities and their own positive experiences of their Middle School journey. We now look forward to meeting them all face to face in December for our orientation program.

Our current students will be starting to think about their own transition into the next year level and, like all other changes, they are encouraged to look at the exciting pathway ahead and the opportunities that await them. In the meantime, lets enjoy our time together again for the remainder of 2020.

Ros Shipp
Head of Middle School

2020 presents us with the opportunity to look at education with a new lens. I encourage the Braemar community to embrace this chance to take risks with learning and push the boundaries of what we can achieve together in the time we have left this year.

Student voice is a term being used more and more in the education setting. This acknowledges that students have unique perspectives on learning, teaching, and schooling, and how essential it is that they actively shape their own education. Students are the potential not the problem.

The Quaglia Institute of Voice and Aspirations defines the three components of student voice as: sharing thoughts and ideas in an environment underpinned by trust and respect; offering realistic suggestions for the good of the whole; and accepting responsibility for not only what you say but what needs to be done.

Encouraging students to be curious, positive, interested, and passionate will extend to their academic motivation as they progress in their education. Providing students with the opportunity to be active in their learning will increase their participation and ability to be successful in reaching their personal goals. These goals may be subject specific – developing a better understanding of concepts or relevant skills needed within the subject area – or may be a broader reflection on learning habits, balance, and learning routines. This will have a positive flow on affect on the years ahead and facilitate positive outcomes later in life.

“The hallmark of successful people is that they are always stretching themselves to learn new things.” — Dr Carol Dweck. 

How will you amplify your voice this term?

Acting Dean of Research and Pedagogy 
Ms Emily McMahon

While we haven’t been involved in any sport over the last seven months, there has been plenty to watch on TV and social media.

The Braemar Sport calendar typically comes to an end over the next two weeks. It has been unfortunate that we haven’t been able to compete as a school this year but take some inspiration in what is happening on a national and international stage.

History is being made with the AFL Grand Final being played for the first time in QLD. And, both of the teams involved – the Richmond Tigers and Geelong Cats – are Victorian-based teams, not to mention the Melbourne Storm playing off against the Penrith Panthers in the NRL Grand Final; what a good season it has been for the Victorian teams. Not only have they had to overcome diversity and move their whole operation to QLD, they have had many interruptions and different setbacks along the way.

As students you can learn from this. Namely, how to deal with uncertainty and a disrupted routine as an athlete. One of the key areas of advice I keep hearing is that these athletes were willing to adapt and to continue with their routines no matter where they were. This can be a lesson for all of you. When things don’t seem to be going your way, keep the routine going and keep those goals you set at the start of the season at the front of your mind.

For those students living in regional areas who have returned to weekend sport, enjoy being back doing what you love. For those in metro, stay the course, hold on for a bit longer and take inspiration from any of the sporting competitions that you can watch. Go the Tigers and the Storm!

Matt Ellis
Director of Sport

While the year that is 2020 has seen a lot of things cancelled, it has been invigorating to re-group on campus in Term 4 and connect through activities and events. Two such events which have occurred over the past weeks in Middle School Encounter are our traditional Year 8 Medieval Day and the CBCA Book Week, both providing students with experiences that enhance our curriculum.

Year 8 Medieval Day was held on the Mount Macedon Campus where students attended in their Medieval finery, morphed into the roles befit of their Medieval personas and enjoyed making history come alive. Students had the opportunity to participate in a range of activities over the course of the day, where kings were exiled, peasants thrown into dungeons, archers competed, all under the guise of Medieval ‘fun’. It was wonderful to witness the classroom core knowledge being transferred and referenced throughout the day and see an enthusiasm for history that students will store as one of their Braemar memories.

The second activity to unite students on campus was the celebration of the CBCA Book Week. With the theme of ‘Curious Creatures, Wild Minds’, it was an opportunity to be reminded of the benefit, privilege, and most importantly the pleasure to be had from reading. Students were able to enter competitions, be ‘visited’ by children’s author Brenda Gurr, attend a Reader’s Theatre workshop and relax by the ‘sea’ in a reading space at lunchtime. Books abounded, creativity flowed, and imaginations ran wild!

Both Middle School events reminded us of the importance of coming together (in a COVID-safe way) to celebrate and enjoy activities that support learning. If schools are a microcosm of society, then our Braemar students have shown us that we will return to a new normal and be able to curate and nurture our humanness with faith and hope, and a little fun along the way!

IL – Encounter
Ms Sharon Hitti