Over the past four weeks our Grade 6 students have been participating in an Art Therapy program which has been focusing on supporting their transition from Primary School into Middle School. Each week had a different focus for the students to express themselves through art work; creating a safe space, my chill/Zen place, gratitude boxes and celebration/achievements.

Below are photos of the students art work along with comments from students who participated in the program:

Olivia– I liked everything.
Tipene– It was great. I liked creating new things.
Peter– I liked painting my hands with blue crayon.
Jack- I liked doing the happy boxes.
Blair – Painting party hat.
Manon – I thought it was nice and I enjoyed it. I liked creating all of the art but I didn’t like missing out on play.
Robbie – I liked doing painting and making my magic box.
Kaden – I liked doing the painting.
Cameron – I liked Annette, she looked adorable. I liked making the graduation hat
Grady – Making the graduation hat was cool.
Harper – I liked drawing balloons.
Lincoln – I liked the art.
Ethan – I liked talking about feelings like being nervous and I liked drawing about my feelings and breathing. It was peaceful. Annette was nice.

We would like to congratulate our amazing senior school students that have been awarded their full VET Certificates this year. Students have worked hard over the year, and in some cases over 2 years to be granted a Vocational Educational Training certificate in their chosen industry. Their dedication and commitment has been wonderful to see, especially their joy when they learnt they would be receiving their completed certificate.

Certificate II Sport and Recreation
Joshua Taylor
Harry Dobbin
Bailey Ohlsen

Certificate II Kitchen Operations
Shakira Heath
Lily Terry
Jasmine Nanscawen
Eloise Buck
Elizabeth Maver
Braiyden Oakley

Certificate II Horticulture
Luke Bullen
Charlie King
Michael Haywood
Harrison Norman
Brendan Casley
Orrin Cooper-Donaldson
Eli Flatman

Certificate II Animal Studies
Ainsley McKenzie

In total this year we have had 80 senior school students enrolled in a VET certificate, this includes 8 high support students enrolled in Certificate 1 in Life Skills. We are extremely proud of all the students efforts and willingness to try hard in their VET studies. In 2023 we have many students pursing the 2nd year of their chosen VET course, as well as some new VET courses on offer. Students are able to choose from the VET certificates taught onsite at the FARM that include: Life Skills, Kitchen Operations/Cookery, Sport and Recreation, Visual Arts, Retail, Music Industry and Horticulture. Students are also able to choose from a range of VET courses offered off-site through the Highlands LLEN VET cluster.

Below photos: Bailey and Josh who have been awarded their Certificate II Sport

On Thursday 25th August 2022 Ballarat Specialist School celebrated Book Week.
Students and Staff dressed as their favourite book character and were able to parade their costumes for all to see. The students danced and had lots of fun at the parades.

Classes read stories and participated in activities related to the books from the CBCA awards.
The junior School took part in a Butterfly Scavenger Hunt where they had to find the letters behind the butterflies and unscramble the letters to make the book week theme “Dreaming with eyes open”.

The Book Swap was an opportunity for students to donate a book and swap it for another. There were some wonderful books donated by the school community.

The colouring in competition was drawn with many students receiving a prize.

You can see them displayed in the Administration area at the Gillies Street Campus.
It was a funday with lots of smiles and laughter

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The Senior School at Ballarat Specialist School is very excited to have joined a student work experience affiliation with Country Grocers IGA, in particular their Country Grocers store in Skipton. This wonderful opportunity came about earlier in the year when Loretta Robinson, our VET, Careers and Work Experience Coordinator approached Ben Decis, who is a past Specialist School teacher.

Ben and his family own and operate Country Grocers IGA and have 5 stores in the region: Skipton, Trentham, Avoca, Smythesdale, and Ballan. For the last 23 year’s Ben’s family have been one of the many independent family-owned businesses that operate IGA stores in small town markets that sit at the heart of local communities across Australia. IGA originally own as “Independent Grocers Alliance” first came to Australia in 1988, 62 years after IGA was first founded by a group of independent retailers in New York in 1926. Since 1988, Australia has over 1400 IGA (now Independent Grocers of Australia) stores.

During the initial early conversations with Ben to discuss the possibility of his supermarkets taking on work experience students, Ben had a brilliant idea of offering us a 10-week work experience program. Ben commented: “When Loretta and Katie first approached me to take on work experience kids from BSS I said no, because they were only going to be sending us two. I knew we could do a lot better than that!”

Essentially Ben offered to turn his Skipton supermarket into an operating training hub for 10 of our year 11 and 12 students. Ben and his chosen staff, along with two supporting staff from BSS, join the students each Wednesday this term to support them learning valuable retail skills that may assist them in gaining employment in the future.

From the moment students enter the store each Wednesday they are treated as though they are employees, dressed in appropriate IGA uniform and name tags. The students have already learnt beneficial information on how a supermarket operates from day to day, including many of the behind the scenes’ aspects.

The students are all given tasks to complete that include: basic retail principles like rotating stock or ‘FIFO’ (first in, first out), the importance of stock placement and presentation on shelves, building customer displays, training on the register and serving customers, helping when new stock arrives, store walks with Ben looking at what needs to be done to make retail stores operate, and allocated time to complete the IGA induction modules.

Even though we are still in the early stages of the program the students have thoroughly enjoyed the experience and were drawn into learning from the initial induction day during week 1 when Loretta mentioned “Students were engaged from the minute Ben opened his mouth and spoke”.

Discussions with the students about the program so far have been brilliant, and the general consensus is how enthusiastic they are to be part of this program. Many students commented that they “love working with Ben and his staff” Courtney, Ashlee, Kate, Jess and Bec. They talked about Ben being a friendly and humorous “boss” and enjoyed the way he was teaching them, and “keeping them on topic” about all the supermarket daily practices. It was also lovely to see students greeting customers in a friendly and cheerful manner, and they were delighted by many of the customers interest in what they are doing and wishing them well.

We feel this is a very rare and great opportunity for students, and we are exceedingly grateful to Ben, his family and staff for providing our students with this essential learning job skills program.

At Ballarat Specialist School our positive mindset and can do attitude has again ensured our students and staff have been able to put together an amazing show. We have no doubt that your feet will start tapping and before you know it you will be rocking along to our Senior School Virtual 2021 Production “Born to Rock”

We are well equipped to modify plans and although the destination has changed from a live performance to a virtual one, all students should be extremely proud of the journey they have been on. They have once again demonstrated their resilience and their ability to make the most of a challenging situation.

A winning effort always begins with preparation; the students’ preparation in their regular and at times irregular rehearsals due to lockdowns, shows their passion for performing. We are very fortunate to have wonderful supportive staff who have continued to facilitate such an experience for our students. We would particularly like to acknowledge and congratulate our production team. Amy Jeffreys who is our Director, Chris Bond our Musical Director and Editor, Alex Gay our Choreographer, Katie Howard our Programme designer, Wendy Gordon our Assistant Director and the involved staff for all their assistance. You have all demonstrated a high degree of adaptability and creativity during this production and we appreciate it immensely.

Finally, to the stars of the show, the students. You should be proud of the dedication you have continued to exhibit; starting something and having it changed, demonstrates your ability to persevere when working together and that is something special. Whether you are up on stage in the spotlight or behind the scenes working off camera, you all have played a significant role in ensuring the show still went on.

Underpinning our school is safety, respect and responsibility and these values have shone brightly throughout the rehearsals, filming and the final edit of the show. We are excited to share with you our 2021 Virtual Production “Born to Rock”

Rock on!

Mat Gannon and Tegan Winzar

Senior School Leadership

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