Our Year 9 Program is very special and is about ensuring engagement and opportunity for learners entering this unique Year Level.
After signalling the need for change during 2013, our 2014 School Improvement Team spent almost half a year researching and designing the look of the new Year 9 Learning Program, basing their design on the work on the best of the Learning Centres at Year 7 and 8, and the work of many inspiring programs run across metropolitan schools in Melbourne.
English and Mathematics continue to be given core focus in the program with seven periods per cycle for each subject. This ensures that all students are expected to meet our high expectations of academic achievement in their subjects. The Year 9 academic program prepares students for the full Senior School program the following year.
One of the very special aspects of the Year 9 Program is the RAID program. RAID takes its name from the college’s values – Respect, Achievement, Innovation & Diversity. Held every week, the sessions are given over to a range of intense, positive, diverse and engaging activities, events and projects.
Building on the work of the CAVE (Community and Values Education) Program in Year 8, RAID includes:
- City Experience Days – everything from work exploration, to city-based events, ACMI, Museum, Victorian Library, Historic Walks and Corporate Activities
- Industry and enterprise opportunities for individuals and small groups – social change, community service, small business
- Community Projects – examples include working with local early childhood and kindergartens, sports workshops and local coaching at primary schools, involvement with aged care groups, the Macedon Ranges Shire Council and other community organisations
- Designing and building community projects
- Camps, excursions and guest speakers
- Workshops, lectures
- Outdoor and Environmental Studies and Projects
- Exposure to VCE and VET studies and courses.
- Sports and performing arts opportunities
Many of the sessions are spent off-campus, learning in the community. Students are asked to develop adult-like responsibilities through relevant, authentic and intense experiences.
Operating many of our unique experiences on a single day, means that we lessen the disruption to other core teaching and learning.
The Learning Program has its own Learning Program Leader. This senior member of staff is an important point of contact for families, in much the same way as Learning Centre Leaders provide a critical home-school link.
Our RAID program is staffed by the Year 9 Form Group Teachers and the Year 9 Learning Program Leader.
A group of Year 9 teachers work closely with the Year 9 Learning Program.
For the remainder of the curriculum Humanities, Science and Health/PE are semester based with a compulsory/ fundamental/general program in each subject provided for ONE semester, and an elective type program provided for the second semester.
At the end of the academic year, the college issues a Year 9 Certificate based on achievement of defined skills and outcomes (linked to student digital portfolio) to students successfully completing their Year 9.
Student Digital portfolio presentations are made to teachers and parents at least twice a year.
* The Year 9 Learning Program is not a “Learning Centre” – students work across a range of subjects across the entire school in a similar fashion to the senior school.
