​New Horizons Celebr8 Evening

On Wednesday, 9 August, students from Years 7-9 New Horizons presented their Design-Centred Learning tasks at the Celebr8 Evening, in front of 200 excited guests. It was an incredible event with a wide range of curriculum activities on display, and showcased the hard work and dedication of this innovative group of students within our college.

The activities included; multimedia presentations on water research from Year 7 HaSS, workstations displaying water research from Year 7 Science, a premiere screening of “I Am The Coastline” short film from Year 8 HaSS, automated “Mars Rovers” from Year 8 Science and the unveiling of light boxes from Year 9 Science, demonstrating their learning about tectonic plates over the past term.

The feedback from the evening was overwhelming with many parents sharing how they wished they could have attended a school that encouraged such innovative thinking. Below are some reflections from Year 9 student Kayla McAlpine, who was part of the Year 9 English class that took to the stage.

On Wednesday night our Year 9 New Horizons English class moved the audience as we performed a collage of performance poetry to our parents and peers. In preparation for the project, we studied Shakespeare’s plays and themes. We were then posed the challenge of writing individual soliloquies which focused on complex human emotions; more specifically forgiveness, deception, betrayal, love and loyalty. As a class, we chose five soliloquies and in groups, we turned our poetry into a collage drama that put the whole class on stage.

After much planning and rehearsing, on the night we waited for 6:00pm to tick around. We all had mixed feelings about the performance, from satisfaction to relief. But we all agreed that we had come a long way from the beginning of the project, when nobody even knew what a soliloquy was.

We look forward to sharing more of our learnings at the next Celebr8 Evening.

Darren Rackemann
Director – Academic Performance and Innovation