On Thursday, 10 February Year 12 students attended a day-long retreat, which was rewarding, informative and entertaining.

There were a range of different sessions and activities throughout the day, the first of which was a team building session. The first part of this session involved the class arranging into order based on a variety of categories, including age, height, VCAA student number and ID number. The second part was a scavenger hunt, in which groups of around 4-5 students were given a sheet of clues and had to find a three-digit number at specific location. The third and final part of the session was a paper plane making contest, where group members worked together to create the best paper plane model in an attempt to win the contest.

The second session of the day was called ‘VCE Matters’. In this session, we were told all about VCE, the rules and protocols of SACs and exams, non-scored pathways, and about the General Achievement Test, or GAT for short. At the end of this session, Ms Black gave each of us a chocolate for attentively listening to her fantastic presentation.

Our School Counsellor, Mr Tim Battersby’s crash course in managing stress and anxiety, has given many of our peers new tools, as well as ensuring we know we are supported. We were able to participate in activities in this session that assisted us to reflect on coping strategies, dealing with stress and anxiety, and to find new ways to thrive in the year ahead.

The careers session allowed us to gain greater insight into researching tertiary education and pathways after school, depending on our individual aspirations and dreams. Following these sessions, we were able to build our relationships with our peers over lunch - grazing boxes.

The final session was about Goal Setting and was completed with our Homeroom teachers. We were taught about SMART goals for the next week, for the short term, and for the whole year. We challenged the ideas of why we actually come to school, and study in VCE, and how this sets us up for life beyond school. We learnt how to regularly change and adjust our goals to ensure we could reach them, whilst also pushing ourselves to achieve our best.

This day was very important and has positioned us to both enjoy our final year of school and push ourselves to reach our potential. A big thank you to all the staff involved in making this day so engaging and meaningful.

Omar Jaza and Louis Harrison - Year 12 Students