The Grade 10s continue to show engagement with their classwork and leadership across the school.  The Grade 10 shirts and jumpers have arrived, with the jumpers a welcome addition as the weather has cooled.

Core subjects are progressing well, with students undertaking assessment tasks as the end of Term 2 approaches.  In English we are currently studying John Boyne’s novel, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, which tells the story of a young German boy’s experience living at Auschwitz as the son of an officer, and his friendship with Shmuel, a boy who lives inside the camp.  At the end of Term we are planning to watch the movie, which will let students see a different side to the story.  In History students started the Term with a short unit on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, before moving on to the US Civil Rights movement. It has been wonderful to see students engaging respectfully with this topic, before we move on to the Australian context in Term 3. 

In Maths, we have been developing our understanding of straight lines including how to use them and interpret them. Straight lines can clearly show trends and help us to understand profit and loss as well as a myriad of other applications. Students have been practising identifying the gradient as well as the y-intercept and are now applying this to simultaneous equations.

Chemical patterns and reactions are all around us. Earlier this term, grade 10 students learned about the patterns that the Periodic Table is based on, investigating the reactivity, atomic radius and electron configurations. Currently we are learning about the different types of chemical reactions, including synthesis, decomposition, single and double displacement reactions. Students are practising their skills at creating word equations, and balanced symbolic equations, watching these reactions happen in real time in the lab.

In Health we have just finished up a unit on Support Services and how to stay safe online and offline.  At the end of this unit students completed an assessment task, for some students this was a situational analysis and for others it was to create a support or community service for our local community or school community.  For the remainder of Term students will be looking at racism and inclusiveness, particularly in sport.  Part of this will be watching The Final Quarter and looking at racism and bias in Australian media.

A key part of Grade 10 is preparing for the future.  On 25 June students will attend Claremont College for a Taster Day, where they can visit different subjects and get a feel for what their college years might look like if they choose to attend there. Students will also begin working towards undertaking work experience later this year. If a Grade 10 student in your household has a particular place they would like to try for work experience, encourage them to speak to our Grade Coordinator to see if we can help make it happen.