Many of you will be aware by now that our Head of Campus, Suzanne Camm is on sick leave after rupturing her Achilles tendon playing netball for Clunes last week. I can imagine you all wincing as you read this given that, by all accounts, it is a very painful and significant injury! Suzanne is now back home from hospital after surgery and is expected to be in plaster at least until the end of term. She will be back at work before then but we are currently awaiting an update from the doctor. You will be pleased to know that she is in pretty good spirits and is keen to hear regular updates on how Group 38 is travelling.

In the meantime, the program has continued with the students enjoying fantastic autumn weather and the first of the Visiting Weekends. No doubt those parents who made the journey to Clunes last weekend enjoyed catching up with all the news from their sons and daughters on life in Clunes. Our other big news is that as of yesterday we now have six chickens living on campus. Students helped to choose them from a selection at Tinakori Animal Farm and have already named them! Vegemite, The Colonel, Jemmy, Bubbles, Rocky, and Maurice. As you can see they have not let gender stereotypes get in the way when naming what we hope are six hens! Stay tuned for updates.

Wednesday is the day dedicated to the students to help them organize their cooks, rosters, shopping and a chance for their house leaders to catch up with them about their week as well as getting to know the people outside their houses. The day is broken up into three separate sessions, which consists of Logistics, House Meetings and Community Living. Community Living is held in the Bluestone Church and it is where a few houses are gathered together to find out a little more about each other. Games are played where we had to either tell everyone something about ourselves or find out something about someone else. House Meetings are held in each individual house with their own house leader. The roster, cooks and highlights are recorded down. Conflicts that have been caused throughout the week would be resolved and occasionally, house activity such as writing down one thing that you love the most about everyone and passing it around on a piece of paper would be done. The Jubliee Hall is used for Logistics during the day. Food is always involved in Logistics. Shopping lists, suggestions about how to shop and games are a few things that are done throughout the session. Food such as bread, butter, milk or bakery vouchers could be won by playing the games that are held each Logistics session. It may not seem to be very good prizes but when there are six, seven or eight people in your house irritated about how there is no butter, bread or milk, the everyday foods will be valued above lollies and chocolate.

Music Workshop is a program ran by Michelle, the music teacher, on Friday mornings and afternoons. Bands made up by students go and practice their music in the Bluestone Church or their own houses. Michelle assists them though making suggestions on how to improve, finding music for everyone, and preparing them for Presentation Day in Week Seven. The students practice very hard to sound their best on Presentation Day and sometimes they get together during their own time to rehearse their musical item. There are a broad variety of skills, genres and instruments varying from classical instruments playing jazz songs and people just starting the guitar. There are a few people planning to perform at the local primary school in Week Five. They are very excited about performing for the first time as a band and we wish them the best of luck. There is also a CD being recorded as a part of the program before Presentation Day. Many students are looking forwards to recording their songs onto the Clunes CD, which will be on sale for those who wish to buy it.

Saturday night brought on the event of Saturday Night fever - 80’s night. This was our first ever night of the program and everyone got dressed up in clothes that somehow resembled the 80’s era. We all gathered in the Jube Hall and the night started off. There was plenty of dancing and energy and heaps of laughter. The night went really well and time flew by. By the end of the night, everyone was exhausted and worn-out. 80’s night was a really good way to mix with people and a night that a lot of people took some really happy memories from. I really enjoyed it and I can’t wait for more nights like it.

Like the rest of the children in Year 9 across Australia, we had to undertake the NAPLAN tests this week. They ran over Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and in total we had to do 5 tests. Taking these tests in Clunes is a lot different to taking them back in Melbourne. For a start we weren’t in classrooms altogether, we were actually situated in the Town Hall and the Jube. We didn’t have our individual desks but instead shared a table with two others. Taking these tests in a different environment was a bit hard for some people, but I think the majority of us did pretty well.

Time and Place is just one of the themes we look at in Clunes. We get a choice of Gold, Modern Era, Indigenous Australia and Pre History to study. My choice was Gold and yesterday we went around on a bus and a Clunes local (Graeme) showed us around the town and showed us different sites significant to the gold rush. He showed us a number of pubs and the bank where we got to look inside the vault. We then saw a presentation prepared by Dan which showed us a few more aspects of the gold rush such as; Entertainment, Medicine, Art, Music and more, it was very interesting and I learnt a lot about the lifestyle that comes with being a miner in the gold rush. Gold is a great course and i can't wait to further research my project.

A number of the kids from Wesley went to footy training with the local Clunes footy team twice a week. Footy training consists of drills, runs and keepings off. We all train hard and we're eager to get a game with the local side. The training is fairly intense and it's heaps of fun. The locals are nice to us and are pretty good at footy. This week I have my first game and we're playing against the top side. It will be a big ask and i haven't seen the u/15's play footy, however hopefully we can give it our best and hopefully play a good game and not let ourselves get smashed. If we play 4 quarters of good footy I'm sure we can give them a contest.

Thursday night cluster sports were great. It was Green against Red. It started off walking down to the community center. Red Cluster picked up bonus points for being the quietest on the way down. The night started off with a chant like the Haka. Both clusters only had four minutes to make the chant up. Green Cluster went first with a pretty good chant and Red seconded being very ordinary. The next game was Jedi Ball. We had to stay within the key of the basketball court and we had a stick to protect ourselves and the other team had to try and throw a ball at us. The other team could steal the ball and hit the other Jedi. Green Cluster had a convincing win with 3 hits and red cluster with 0. The seconded game was called Frisbee Gold. The objective was to throw the Frisbee from quarter court and hit the backboard to score. Since Green won the first game they chose Red Cluster to go first. Red scored 3. Green smashed that score with 7 hits. The last game was a mix of basketball and netball. The objective for this game was to throw the ball at the backboard and let it land without anyone touching it. You were only allowed four people on the court at one time from each team playing 2 minutes each. Red was able to finally get a win with 4 to 1. The MVP was chosen the next day with House 4 girls winning from Red Cluster. This was able to give Red Cluster the win by 5 points.

On Saturday the house leaders took their houses to different places. House 12 and 13 chose the short straw and had to stay on campus. A lot of houses went ‘op shopping’ so Houses 12 and 13 went down to the Swap Shop opposite the Town Hall. The Swap Shop was great because we had 80s Night later that night. There were many great bargains, it was just a matter of looking. I found a small long sleeve checkered top and some pants for Cluster Sport as well as a tie. Some other people were able to find great things like suit pants for $3 and Lindsay Fox tops for $2. One student was able to find a great jumpsuit that was almost too small for him that looked great for the 80s night. The Swap Shop was almost more successful than the ‘op shopping’. I suggest for people to go there and have a look if you’re looking for a cheap costume.

On Saturdays you have a choice of either going off campus to Ballarat with your house and sister house or staying on campus. This week my house and sister house stayed on campus. We had a choice of either going down to the town, going swap shopping for the 80’s disco, watching a movie or going to play basketball. For the movie we watched Star Quest. The movie was ok but the people that watched the movie paid more attention to their laptops.

This week we had to choose a course to study. There were four choices. Gold, Indigenous, Modern Era and Pre History. I did Indigenous. For Indigenous we sat in a room and learned about aborigines. Then we went for a lunch break. For lunch we can sign out and go to the Bakery, Top Shop, IGA, or Widow Twankeys. We had 40 minutes. Then when we got back from lunch we had an excursion to the Major Mitchell Trail. When we got there, there were heaps of cows and our teacher was worried there would be a bull there but we convinced him there wasn’t so we got to climb the mountain. The climb was really hard but worth it. The view from up the top was magnificent. Once we got to the top we found a big statue made of rocks. I climbed up the top of it and could see everything around me. When our teacher got up the top he explained the significance of the mountain and what happened when Major Mitchell arrived.

On Thursday we had our first Time and Place lessons. There were four choices, they were Pre History, Indigenous History, Gold Rush History and Modern History. The one I’m talking about is Modern Era. Modern Era is about the history of Clunes after the gold rush from 1900 to the present. We talked about what has changed, what is the same and what could happen in the future. We were told to draw a picture of an old building in Fraser Street. Some people did the bank others did the green grocer or even the candy shop. In the afternoon we talked more about what our project would be. We had to choose an old building to research then write about it and also to show pictures old and new pictures of the building. The Modern Era course should be quite interesting and very educational.

Every Friday running session we have the Friday Challenge. The Friday Challenge is all about testing ourselves and pushing us to the next level. For some it can be easy, for others it can be very hard. Last week was the first Friday challenge and it involved runnng about two and a half kilometers then for ten minutes we had to run up the a hill. Some people could run up the hill four times, others only two but it didn’t really matter how many, all we had to do was push ourselves, not stop and encourage others to push themselves too. Now until the run to Mount Beckworth we will be doing the Friday Challenge to get us ready for the ten kilometers to Mount Beckworth then the two kilometers up to the top of the mountain.

On Monday the 11th of May, Blue Cluster played against Yellow Cluster for the first time this term. Blue won bonus points for their silent walk down to the Community Center and also for carrying the blue equipment bag. The night’s chant theme was the Opening Ceremony at the Olympics. Each cluster had to make out that their cluster was entering, but unfortunately Blue couldn’t compare to Yellow and lost. Four events were played on the night and in only one of them was Blue successful. Luckily Blue scored some extra points by winning part of the MVP, which was split between a girl from Blue Cluster and a boy from Yellow Cluster. Towards the end of the night Blue won more bonus points for volunteering to carry the equipment again and to clean up the Community Center, but unfortunately Yellow won the night with 10 points the difference.

On Thursday the 15th of May, the first Time and Place classes started. The course consists of 4 classes which are Gold, Aboriginal Studies, Modern Era and Pre-History. In Pre-history (taught by Nin) the class began by watching Walking with Dinosaurs and began to discuss the assignment that we will be working on. The assignment is a field journal that we are working on in groups. Each person in the group will focus on either plant life, marine life, geology, land life or insect life and then all the information is put together as a journal. On Tuesday of next week, the class in going on an excursion to Mt. Franklin, which is an inactive volcano. We will be looking around for fossils and crystals.