Throughout term two, our students have produced some outstanding work, and in doing so, provided the Tyabb community with countless moments of inspiration. With the conclusion of the semester, students can expect to receive their midyear reports - a valuable source of feedback as to how they have performed throughout terms 1 and 2. I encourage families to celebrate their young person’s successes, reflect upon areas for improvement, and assist them in setting goals to achieve their personal best in their learning for the remainder of the year.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish Mrs Tahlia Wilkinson, all the very best for her upcoming maternity leave. We are so excited for Tahlia, husband Perry and soon-to-be big brother Tanner, and we very much look forward to meeting the newest addition to the Tyabb family. I would also like to welcome Mrs Carmela Theobold to the Tyabb campus in the role of Maths and Italian teacher and Learning Area Leader, along with Mr Jayden Tomkins who will be joining our teaching team next term, taking on Religious Education and Health and Physical Education classes.

On a final note, I seek your support over the upcoming break, in ensuring that your child has all the necessary class materials to best prepare you for a successful Term Three, and that their uniforms adhere to college expectations.

Have a wonderful break,

God bless!

Now, I hope you enjoy the following student experiences from Term Two.

Community Tree Planting Event

This term, we were fortunate enough to have the Mornington Peninsula Koala Conservation visit our campus, along with an army of community, staff and student volunteers, to help with the koala habitat project, by planting over 1200 trees along our oval.

Tyabb Campus has been identified as a potential koala wildlife corridor. By restoring the Indigenous vegetation, our campus can help provide the correct habitat and food needed to sustain a healthy koala population on the Peninsula for future generations.

We managed to get all the trees planted in under 2 hours! A big thanks to all in our community who gave up a Saturday to come and help out. We also had a koala colouring competition and the winners received stationary supplies and moonlit sanctuary wildlife family passes.

Written by Willow Russell

Padua Day

Wow, ok. Padua Day is a day for students, teachers and anyone else in the Padua community to come together. Students (and teachers) from the Tyabb and Rosebud campuses travel to the Mornington campus for a day of celebration. There is a Whole School Mass, followed by many different activities that you may choose to take part in, like Face Painting, Jenga, there was even some live music performed by the spirit of music class, as well as there being a lolly shop where all the money raised would be donated to the St Vincent De Paul (Vinnies) Charity and once you’ve been freed from the sea of blazers at Mornington. You can’t wait to do it all over again.

Written by Emily Huguenin

Year 7 eXcel Day

On the 11th of June, all Tyabb Padua year 7’s participated in a very fun excel day. We had a visit from the Speak And Share group who taught us about what they do and how they help people. They showed us how to support others' mental health by frequently checking in with our peers. Some year 9 peer mentors played some team building games with us and taught us many team building skills. It was so much fun. We had Mrs Witt, a teen and children author, teach us how to persist when things get tough, and that bad things may happen but we have to be resilient and keep a positive mindset along with feeling empathy for others that may be struggling too.

Last but not least we had some year 8’s put on a very funny show teaching us about peer pressure and how it is important to share our feelings with others.

Written by Luella De Vere

Year 8 Medieval Day

On the 13th of May the Year 8 students had Medieval Day. Throughout the day we participated in many entertaining and educational activities such as archery, weapons and armoury, medieval games and tournaments.

We started with a short meeting in the gym where we watched videos and were introduced to the head of humanities. We then participated in activities in our core classes. Our class started with weapons and armoury where we got taught about how the armour changed over the years and how different materials were used and the weapons that came with the different suits of armour.

After recess we then participated in archery where we learnt how far an arrow can go during a fight and we practice our aiming and shooting. Our instructor was a motivational speaker who educated us on many different platforms, and he was very inspiring to us young people including the adults. We then contributed to lots of mini games that we had to work as a team to complete such as being blindfolded while your partner directs you to find a piece of wood somewhere around the room.

Finally, we did the tournaments where our instructor told us all about the armour and weapons used. He showed us how to safely use the weapons without hurting anybody before we had a go at trying for ourselves. Throughout the period we would try out different weapons on the instructor who had a shield and many different forms of armour distributed across his body to protect himself.

Written by Ella Sawyer and Amelia Lee

SIS Cross Country

Congratulations to our runners on winning the SIS cross country for the 36^th consecutive year! Training and teamwork paid off and Padua was successful in winning all the major shields in Division A including, Junior, Intermediate, Senior, Girls Aggregate, Boys Aggregate, and the Overall Shield. A huge thank you to all the staff who were involved and to our stars on the track.

Mother’s Day Activities

On Thursday the 9th of May, multiple Mothers/Special Person Day activities were held in the Breakout Space next to the Library. There was card making, cookie decorating and origami. It was a great experience that was held to celebrate these special people in all of our lives. There were lots of people who arrived and helped out, even the student leader helped host this special event, but it couldn't have been done without our school counsellor, Helen.

Written by Rob Ammann

SRC Portfolio Update

Academic Portfolio

This term, the Academic Leaders have been working on our SIS Debate team with workshops every Tuesday. So far, we have done an informal mock debate, brainstorming technique games and rebuttal practice. We are slowly building up our new debaters' skills, so they are ready to crush the competition at SIS next term.

Written by Academic Captains Chelsea Taylor and Kalani Love

Visual Arts Portfolio

This semester we have been really busy helping out with everything visual arts, we’ve mainly been contributing to the Koala plantation by setting up and judging a colouring in competition, and creating the wood cutout photo station. We also have been working through other small jobs throughout the terms like bringing awareness to the August Art Attack competition, and we’ve got many more ideas to come.

Written by Visual Arts Captains Bella Boswell and Isla Hart

Performing Arts Portfolio

Theatresports

A few Thursdays ago a selection of 5 drama club students were chosen to go to the Theatresports workshop. We did some warmups as we arrived and then began various drama games along with learning about improv. Like how you need to be aware of what you’re doing, is it inappropriate? Or not doing drastic things for comedic effect like dying. It was very useful to learn about and we brought the information back to the drama club to teach them about it.

Guitar Club

Tuesday lunchtimes at 1:30 in the music room Mr Kerr runs Guitar Club. a place for aspiring guitarists or beginners to learn. Guitar club does not discriminate. The aim of Guitar Club eventually will be to perform at the showcase concert for Rosebud and Tyabb. Feel free to join, especially if you’ve been thinking about learning guitar.

Drama Club

Most Monday lunchtimes at 1:30 there has been drama club going on in the drama room. We play various drama games and prepare for things like SIS Theatresports. My favourite game to play is Space jump where you play out a scene and then freeze to change to another scene with an additional player. Drama club is super fun and I recommend to anyone interested that they should definitely join!

Written by Performing Arts Captain Jade Ross

Sports Portfolio

At Tyabb Padua this term has had a lot of sports, including SIS sports, Cross Country, and weekly volleyball competitions. Many students participated in these events and would like to congratulate them for their efforts. We would also like to thank all the teachers for their contribution to helping these sports happen, they are greatly appreciated.

For the SIS sports this term we had:

Year 9 boys AFL
Year 9 girls AFL
Year 9 girls Cricket
Year 8 boys Soccer
Year 8 girls Netball

We give thanks to all the students representing our schools in these sports.

Written by Sports Captains Lara Blease, Evie Gibbs and Ethan Banfield

Cows Create Careers

Earlier this term some of our students had the wonderful task of bottle feeding and caring for two young Friesian calves. Padua College Tyabb Campus Plant and Animal students participated in the ‘Cows Create Careers’ program, which is a fantastic hands-on learning opportunity for enriching student understanding of agriculture and animal care.

“The two little calves we had were Maisy and Daisy,” explains Year 9 Geoghegan student Bella Birks, “We measured and weighed them, and fed them at 8:30am and 3:15pm every day.”

As part of this program, students were also invited to showcase their creativity by creating informative 3D model and videos to demonstrate their insights and understanding of the calves.

Aspire 9 Update

Intensive Electives

In the last few weeks of term, the year nines have started their intensive elective program. There were many electives to pick from across all three campuses including, hospitality, upcycled fashion, plant and animal studies, perspire dance and a whole lot more. One of my electives was perspire dance, where I headed over to the Mornington campus. We have been learning the different skills of different types of dancing with Ms Shannahan and were able to meet other students with the same passion for dance.

Written by Charlee Trueman

Focus Week Camps

Over the third week of term 2 the year nines across all campuses entered their first focus week. Focus week is a week of camp for Aspire 9 in either the city or on a challenge camp that pushes you to your limits. Blue and Red houses were off to the city for three days and Green and Yellow were either on a horse and mountain bike riding camp in Howqua, a canoe camp at the Murray River, on the Great Ocean Road adventure camp or on a bush walking expedition. Each camp came with its challenges but overall, it was an unforgettable experience.

Howqua Camp

On Monday the 29th of April year nine students from green and gold houses set off on a three hour long bus ride to Howqua. We were split into four colour groups that didn’t correspond with our house colours, giving almost everyone someone they knew. With our bags taped with our given colours, the gold and green group unloaded our stuff and packed it back onto the trailer so we could walk up to the horses. It took about an hour of listening and waiting and learning how to ride and look after the horses but finally we were all on a horse and riding into the nearing sunset. The rest of the week consisted of another day of horse riding and painfully cooked dinners, mountain bike riding, a game of murder and new friends in beautiful locations.

Written by Bella Birks

Murray Canoeing Camp

One of the Year 9 camp choices was to canoe up the Murray River for a couple of days. The first day we arrived and set up camp. We were sleeping under tarps and cooking our own meals. The days looked like packing the canoe and packing up camp in the morning then rowing 20 kms to the next site. We learnt many useful life and survival skills. The camp was a great and fun experience.

Written by Lachlan Jackson

Enterprise Jewellery

Students in year 9 Enterprise Jewellery have completed and presented their final pieces for assessment.

Their goal this semester was to identify the characteristics of a target audience in order to understand what aesthetically attracts them to ensure the creation products that will have an impact in the marketplace. Gathering inspiration from designers and trending themes, the students sketched and designed a jewellery range that suitably fits the parameters of the brief.

Trialling a range of materials and production methods allowed the development of a consistent theme throughout final jewellery pieces. Presentation on their own branded cards, provided the finishing touch.

Semester One Academic & Endeavour Awards

Congratulations to our Tyabb award winners across, academia, sports, social justice, and the arts.

Please find below a list of our award winners.

School Holiday Library Access

The Padua College Mornington Library will be open for studying over the school holidays from Monday, 1st July to Friday, 12th July, between 9 am and 3 pm each weekday. Join us for fun activities like drone racing, mindful colouring, and pop-up book creation, making your holiday both productive and enjoyable!

Padua Students from all campuses welcome.

Student Photo Permissions

At times, photographs or videos of our students will be published in newsletters, on the school intranet or website, or in our social media. Copies of our Standard Collection Notice and Privacy Policy are available on the College website in the Enrolments section of our Policies page. Please note that consent to use these images in this way, if provided at enrolment, may be withdrawn at any time by contacting our marketing team via email: marketing@padua.vic.edu.au .