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Group 28: Weeks 2&3

From the Head of the Clunes Program

Group 28 are now well settled into country life. As predicted their initial concerns about how to fill there time in such a seemingly quiet place has now been replaced with a slight sense of panic about the time flying by so quickly! Already the first block of courses has been completed and today the first draft of the Clunes Project essay is due. This term we are trialing some adjustments to our weekly program. Mondays are now House and Personal Development day where each house spends half the day working with their House Leader and the other half participating in the newly developed Personal Development program. Wednesdays are now all day Mentor/ Project days where all students can work on their projects and meet with their mentor in the morning. In the afternoon the Mentor staff offer a range of activities to assist students with their projects. These include trips to the library, work on the practical component, guest speakers from the community and trips to Ballarat (particularly to Bunnings!!) to purchase materials.

Robert Grant

Water Wise and House Meetings

On Monday we had House Meetings for half the day and for the other half we did Personal Development, which was focused on the drought in Victoria. We learn a lot about how we can reduce the amount of water we use by shortening showers, pressing half flush on the toilet, turning the tap off when we brush our teeth and more. A very shocking fact we learnt is that some parts of Victoria could run out of water by April next year. For activities we worked out how much water we use in our Clunes House and did role-plays on people in Ballarat that are affected by the water restrictions. It was overall a very eye opening session. In House Meetings we talked about house issues and other things to do with the running of the house and then went for some milkshakes down at the bakery, as did many other groups.

Eleanor P.

The Morning Runs

From Monday to Friday everyone has the opportunity to run three days a week and if you complete three runs a week then you qualify to do the run up Mt Beckworth. There are about 30 of us who are aiming to qualify for the Mt Beckworth run. All the runners are doing really well. They are getting faster and better at running in a group. Everyone encourages and helps each other along the way. There is also a group of walkers who come along as well. This week is the last week of the 3km run and next week we start the 5 km run.

Eleanor P.

End Of Block 1 Courses.

On Tuesday we finished the last day of our first block of courses, these courses were “Pop In You,” 42, More Then Meets The Eye and Sea Change Tree Change.
I was in the Pop In You, this was a very interesting class where we learnt about Pop art, and the main artists. In the final class we finished off our pieces of art, which are now hanging up in the jubilee hall. After we finished off the pieces of art we presented our work to the rest of the class, with the class attempting to use artistic words, and talk about the medium, composition and subject. We were also required to complete a Self-Assessment about what we had learnt and how we would use these skills back in Melbourne during our normal school routine.

Declan T.