WESTCOURT
Westcourt Campus Captain Reports Westcourt is the benchmark where boys turn to young men.The opportunities, challenges and experiences foster this growth for students. 2020 proved a curveball for the entire Joey’s community and importantly Westcourt. The opportunities and experiences that are so integral to this journey were put on hold or cancelled. Victorian Young Leaders to China, ACC, immersions all gone with the blink of an eye. It was in the face of this adversity that instead of giving up on what we had left, we relished it and continued to push forward with our year. 2020 threw everything possible at our year level and instead of knocking us down it brought us closer together and made us a stronger year level than we ever would have been. 2020’s Westcourt may not have been the same as the years before us, but together as a year level the experience we have has undoubtedly made us ready for senior school at Mt Sion. Sure, Westcourt missed out on a lot this year, so it makes it easy to forget the new opportunities and facilities Westcourt has in 2020. Most notably the Westcourt Gymnasium was opened this year and has opened the doors for so many PE options that just wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. At lunchtimes, the gym is full of avid basketballers, shooting and playing ‘till the bell rings and in PE battle ball, badminton and netball can now all be taught and played on the court. Looking up from the court you will see an awesome weights room, filled with dumbbells, exercise balls and many other great features for the High Performance and Adventure Race classes. On top of this a new classroom sits on the top floor of the gym, allowing students to sit and work in a different space to the Edmund Rice or Ignatius Wings. Mr McDowall and Mr Schlank run a class utilizing the Kitchen Gardens that Westcourt has the opportunity to look after. Heading out they plant their produce, look after it, harvest it and cook it into a delicious meal able to be enjoyed by the whole class. 2020 has taken some things but has given us some great spaces to be enjoyed by the many cohorts of Westcourt to come. Jaeger Fawcett – Westcourt Campus Captain After a crazy start to the year with bushfires, 2020 just got even crazier with a worldwide pandemic. Shortly after everyone established that COVID-19 was dangerous people started to panic and not long after we were in lockdown. Globally, everything stopped. Workplaces were closed. School, sports and all regular things were stopped abruptly and we were forced to stay inside. The first wave hit us in around April but school had to proceed so we went into remote learning.
Unlike many others I personally really enjoyed a different way of learning. I think it made me a more independent and that will stay with me forever. For an example in a situation where I would normally ask the teacher a question, I could google it and find my way. It also gave me lots of different options to organise my day and more free time to expand on other hobbies and focus on myself. I really enjoyed the freedom of choice. Depending on the subjects and the teachers we had real time learning and anytime learning. Both ways of learning were good in different ways. I personally liked anytime learning the best because I could do it early in the morning or later in the afternoon and during the day I still had time for sports and to do other errands. The great positive of real time learning on the other hand was that you would see your teachers who were always more than happy to help us with anything we needed and also to hear your friends which was really refreshing at times. Just as we were all becoming fed up with online schooling, restrictions finally eased at the perfect time. We were back at school and it was like a breath of fresh air seeing mates again and being able to socialize. Much to our displeasure though came the second wave and we were put back into lockdown and needed to find our rhythm again. Fast forward eight weeks and we are now on track to finish our journey at Wescourt. School had to make few changes to safely open again. We all have to wear face masks which I find annoying but we will have to get used to it because it looks like it will stay like that for a while. This year, that seems like a very long year, I have learned to be more adaptable, to adjust to all these restrictions, to be more organised and most of all I have learnt to never take things for granted. Noa Skoko – Westcourt Campus Captain. This year has been different for everyone, it affected everybody in its own way in good and bad ways, not only physically but mentally as well. There have been the highs and the extreme lows. It looked like a normal year to start off with until March hit and it’s been downhill ever since and still looking worse in October. Our Year 9 cohort has missed out on a lot of things this year which is very unlucky as I’m sure we were all looking forward to what Westcourt had to hold for us in the terms we missed due to COVID. Things we missed out on included the camps in Term 4 which all the boys were very excited about. ACC sport: footy, soccer, etc which is a big thing in Year 9 since there is no
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