This year, the Senior Resource Centre introduced our 4R program for Year 7 students.
This program was adapted from others done in the past to provide incoming secondary students with a suite of skills that will benefit them in their studies. In Term 1, our focus was Digital Access and Citizenship including responsible use of social media, as the students all approach the age where they may be using these platforms.
In Term 2 we moved onto inquiry/research skills: note-making, using resources both via the school and via public libraries, evaluating authentic digital resources and identifying fake news.
In Term 3 we had our Wide Reading unit, kicking off with Book Speed Dating, followed by relaxed reading sessions each week and then creating book recommendations to share with other students.
Finally, this term the students were all tasked with creating a Passion Project.
Passion Project (also known as Genius Hour or 20% time) has many roots, but is based on a business practice used by Google with its employees. Google allows their developers to spend up to 20% of their work week to pursue projects of personal interest. The rationale is that happy, inspired, engaged employees are more motivated, innovative, and productive. Google’s 20% projects have worked so well that some of their most popular ideas, such as g-mail and Google News were created during this time.
(https://sites.google.com/camas...)
Despite our limited sessions this term, most of the students have created some wonderful projects which were showcased this week to appreciative audiences. From scrapbooking to film editing, history of Japanese temples to history of volleyball, miniature gardens to cookery, the perfect footy kick to master class drawing; students demonstrated an amazing array of fabulous and inspired results. If your student has not yet shared theirs with you, ask them about it!
To conclude, our year of learning, the students were all given a little memento of our program - the 'key' to their secondary studies.
We wish all the students a happy holiday and look forward to seeing them in Year 8.
- Ms Sue Warren, Head of Library Services
