From the Leader of Learning Wellbeing Year 8

Dear Year 8 Parents,

As we come to the end of another busy Term there is much to be grateful for in our Community. At St Andrews we strive to live with passion and purpose to see ourselves and others shine. The purpose of this article is to celebrate the many and varied student achievements completed in the Year 8 Wellbeing lessons throughout the Term.

In this Article, I have invited each of the Learning Advisors to write a reflection on how each Learning Group has progressed as a team over the last ten weeks. In our Well Being lessons we have focussed on the following Character Strengths;

Honesty: inspiring students to be their best possible self by speaking the truth but more broadly presenting themselves in a genuine way; being without pretense and taking responsibility for one’s actions and feelings.

Gratitude Week was a whole school event and the Student Representative Council members designed wonderful activities for students to be aware of and be thankful for all the good things that have happened in their lives. I encourage all students to keep completing their Gratitude Journal, which may not be possible every day but certainly each week.

Love of Learning - I do hope that your child has shown you their Learning Planner with their timetable and have developed effective home learning strategies to cope with the various tasks that are taught at school. If not, please send me an email and I will sit down at the beginning of Term 2 to design one for your child; following the pages 150 - 151 of the Learning Planner. 

Social Intelligence means being aware of the motives and feelings of others and oneself. It is so important to know what to do to fit into different social situations and knowing what makes other people tick. St Andrews encourages a wide variety of extra curricular activities for this very purpose. Also students are studying a variety of subjects in Stage 4 to give them a broad understanding of the world around them.

Perspective for students is being able to provide wise counsel to others; having ways of looking at the world that makes sense to oneself and others. This indeed happens in the subjects students are studying in class but I encourage all Year 8 to spend time with people in their Learning Group; that they do not know. It is important to be a part of a team as all students are in the same Learning Groups until the end of Year 12 in 2025.

 ( Let me tell you all - the time will just fly by! )

Teamwork is so important because we use our social connections to learn well with other students and teachers in teams. The success of teamwork includes students multiplying their creativity as the College provides many opportunities to share and appreciate new ideas, outlooks and celebrates students’ strengths. That is why our Newsletter is so great to read! 

Fairness in Week 8 of this Term centred around treating all people the same according to notions of justice and equality. Giving everyone a fair chance is one of the basic principles at St Andrews College.

Creativity gives students a sense of meaning and purpose in their lives. Students were given opportunities to think of novel and productive ways to conceptualise and do things which includes artistic achievement but was not limited to it. Below are examples of how the Learning Groups used their creativity to build teamwork, social intelligence, perspective and fairness in their Week 9 Wellbeing lesson. 

In the Junior Learning Centres there is a  Wellbeing Board that has excellent information on the Character Strength of the Week. I encourage all students to take the time to read it and think deeply about the information presented.

I wish all Year 8 Students a wonderful Easter with family and friends. The Staff at St Andrews look forward to another positive productive Term 2 - 2021!

8B11

B11 took part in a team building activity for Creativity Week to see who could make the tallest tower out of skewers and playdough.  All teams really applied themselves to the challenge and some interesting approaches were taken to achieve their goal.  Overall, the winning team on the day was the pink playdough group which included Aarna, Sakina, Sharlene and Liana.  Well done to all teams for their effort and the spirit in which they undertook the task. You can view their amazing efforts below.  Miss Hicks.

8G10

8G10 created anti-bullying posters for Creativity Week last Friday, either digitally or by hand. Students worked in groups or individually. Some students are continuing to work on these posters each morning in the Learning Group to complete them. We will be displaying them in the art room, G10. There are some budding artists in this class.

 8F3

After the whole-school assembly, 8F3 heard about why creativity can be important for mental health, well being, learning new skills and self-expression in meaningful and creative ways.  

Students voted on whether or not to play creative drawing/interpretive games or to play an outdoor game and enjoy the sunshine after the lengthy period of rainy weather - outdoor games won by a landslide vote. Then students went outside in the beautiful weather and played some creative outdoor games like ‘Pac-Man’, where two students lead the class and described the rules. After two rounds to clarify rules, we played one serious competitive round and a winner claimed victory (and bragging rights).

8F5

8F5 were given the task of choosing two out of the three following activities:

• Create an anti-bullying poster by hand or digitally. 
• Work as a team to write a short story using a randomly selected character, setting and action. 
• Write a song, rap or poem to encourage people to stand up against bullying. 

The students applied themselves and let their creative juices flow throughout the completion of their chosen activities. Some students worked as a team and used each other's talents and ideas to create something unique, whilst others were inspired by existing works of art, poetry and music. The lesson showed that F5 had such a wide variety of creative talents including creative writing, drawing, digital media creation, song/poetry writing etc. The students were able to learn how to take these talents and apply them to their classwork or even use them to raise awareness for important causes such as the National Day Against Bullying and so many more. 

An example of the awesome poem/rap/songs that were made:

“When you wanna be mean, it may be jealousy. You need to think with clarity. Have some class with your words, respect is earned. We make mistakes, but you gotta learn.”

Below are some of the great Anti-Bullying posters that were produced by the F5 team:

8C8 - Miss Bade

For Week 9, the theme was activity. After some brainstorming on what creativity was and how we could explore our own sense of creativity, the students participated in a few activities that allowed them to go beyond their comfort zones and explore their creativity. 

In teams, students got creative in games of charades and pictionary. They were given very unusual prompts which required a lot of thinking on how to put these things together and be creative.