The Trade Days ran over 3 days with 21 year 9 and 10 students taking part. It is the initiative of the Construction Training Fund.  Part of their role is to help young people enter a career in construction, so there are skilled trade’s people for the future.

Over the 3 days students got to experience tiling, roof plumbing and electrical trades. Thanks to the lectures from South Regional TAFE, Rod Connell, Peter Sudran and Kath Brown for running the activities. Students got to tile a floor, cutting the tiles to form patterns. Students also leart how to wire and build small electric motors. Roof plumbing involved assembling/fabricating roof gutters. The students did extremely well, even enduring a 37 degree day. The lectures where very happy with the students on the day and they look forward to come back and run even more sessions next year!!!

Congratulations to the Social Sciences team who were awarded Honours at the Australia Pacific Finals on the Gold Coast on Saturday 15^th October. Students had a great trip that included visits to some of the Gold Coast attractions.

TOM is a problem solving competition. This year we had four teams: Language Literature, Social Sciences, Maths Engineering and Science Technology. There are seven students per team. The teams are given a problem six weeks before the regional finals. Teams have 10 minutes to present their solution for the problem to a team of judges.

The judges mark the solution based on:

• Answering the question (this is broken down into different components and different points are allocated for each section)
• Presentation skills – a choice of two from a long list including sound-scapes, rhyme, creative movement
• Two forms that are submitted outlining their solution and a costing list.

Teams are only allowed to use hand-made props created from a list of allowable materials and recycled products for their presentation.

Teams are also given a “Spontaneous” problem and have between three and five minutes to solve  the problem and usually only one minute to present. For the spontaneous section teams are judged on:

• Solving the problem; and
• Working together as a team (everyone must contribute)

This year the Social Sciences and Language Literature teams went through to State finals. The Language Literature team were awarded honours (runner-up).

The Social Sciences team won and are now funding-raising for the Australian Pacific Finals on the Gold Coast! 

The student experiments were displayed in the high school gym on Tuesday 18^th August. Parents, guardians and primary schools were invited to view the displays in the gym. Primary school students completed a Science Quest during their time here, where they had to find specific answers from certain displays.

Some examples of experiments included:

• Tsunami defence walls
• Balloon rocket travel distance
• Which brand popcorn gives the best value for money
• Which type of chocolate melts the fastest.

Three cash prizes per year group for the best investigation, which includes the report and display, were on offer - winners announced soon.

Some comments from parents and staff: “Fantastic”,  “Awesome job”,  “Love the concept”,  “Wonderful celebration of student achievements” and “Thanks to all the Science staff for an excellent job done with the students”