End of Term Narratives 

I have been at Launceston Big Picture School for 1 term and it has been the best term I have spent at school for a long time. My learning focus, this term has been equine diseases. My highlight of this term was going to a hospitality workshop with Kate at Drysdale. It went for two days and I got to work in the kitchen at TAFE, work with a professional chef, cook a cake, and learn how to ice it properly.

As for LTIs, I haven’t done a shadow day or an informational interview, but I have done a two-day hospitality workshop with a professional chef who worked on Master Chef for a season. We got to cook salmon fish cakes with a dressing, chicken burgers, and make chocolate cakes. We were taught how to write with white chocolate. I hope to get an informational interview at a vet before the end of term. 

Bridie Dwyer
Grade 9B Advisory 

It’s term 1 of 2021, and my first ever term here at LBPS.  I’ve been here for about 5 and a half weeks and I’m loving it so far.  My project for this year centres around my writing, my art and human psychology.  Most people, when they hear about video game creation, think about coding and level design, but they never think of writing, so I’ve decided to go and write a video game.  I’m then going to write up a document on the psychology of immersion, seeing I want to make a story that fully immerses the player and makes them feel like the protagonist, instead of the third person.  So far, the term has been fantastic.  It has been a huge change from my normal, though, seeing I was home schooled for 7 years before this, I’ve adjusted very quickly.  I’m really proud of myself for making the step towards a more engaging and physical education, and I feel that it will greatly benefit me in the future.

Brayden Cunningham
Grade10B Advisory 

I chose Art as the subject for my individual project. For this term, I didn’t get to work on it as much as I wanted to. Having constant new work given to me and having to focus on exhibitions and the Who Am I? project; I didn’t get any time for the individual project. I hope to be able to continue and maybe even finish it next term. When filling out my learning plan, I gave myself too many things to complete for my individual project. I tend to be too ambitious and stress myself out with a whole lot of work that I can’t finish. I did cut most of it down but I’m still not sure what I will be doing. I was planning to do some research on artists (mainly ones circa 1500-1800) who struggled with mental illness. What mental illnesses did they have, what caused it, was there a cause and how their lives affected their paintings? I wrote a lot of questions that I need to answer, but I don’t know if I can. I chose around seven artists that I would like to research. They are quite diverse with different lives, situations, and relationships, but all of them have some type of illness which has deeply affected them and their artworks.

Naomi Barry
Grade 9B Advisory

My personal project this year is split into two different interests, soft toys/plushes and sculpting, I’m also trying to mix these together. I think my coverage of the goals and 5As could be better but I’m happy with it. My empirical reasoning is to do with experimenting with different materials (in both sections of my project) and trying to figure out what works best. Quantitative reasoning is easy to cover because sewing in itself contains a lot of maths.  I’m also including research about what things sell best and material costs. My communication is mostly covered by what I’m communicating in the art and how I’m trying to get people to feel about it.  It is also about viewing other people’s art and figuring out how I feel about it and what I like. My social reasoning is about what demographics I’m aiming my products at and about how I can make them ethically. My personal qualities is a lot about taking inspiration from other designers but also about what I can manage making with my current skill set.

Grace Fyfe
Grade 10B Advisory 

The most important highlight of my first term at Launceston Big Picture School has been meeting so many wonderful people, including, friends, advisories, peers, and many other amazing people in the community. I have bonded with many of my peers over LTI and the many excursions that we have attended, where we would share, experiences and interests. My favourite excursion was the excursion planned by Rob’s Advisory, the beach day, as it was a day filled with many different activities, such as swimming, games, and a scavenger hunt. It will always be a fond memory of mine as it was a time where I felt that things were getting better.

Amber Hartland
Grade 9B Advisory 

Its 2021 and my first year and term at LBPS. This term my learning focus is based around the history of skateboarding. I chose this subject because skateboarding is a hobby that I enjoy doing and I would really like to learn more about its history and where it comes from. I feel quite good about this term and what I have chosen as my learning focus and I’m excited to learn more about its history. I’m also quite interested in writing and from that I have got in contact with some journalists and writers this term. I had an informational interview with a journalist that went quite well, and he was able to give me a contact to follow up with as he was not capable of doing much more than an interview. I’m not quite sure what my plan is yet regarding following up for an LTI, but I have some good contacts in mind. This being my first year a LBPS I feel I have settled in quite well and am finding it not too hard to do everything I’ve been asked to do, I feel I’ve done quite a bit this term, more than I would’ve expected but that’s ok because it's not bothering me, it's not overwhelming me. I’m happy with where I am with all my projects and am excited to see what they will look like once finished and presented.

Justin Street
Grade 10B Advisory

My learning focus is on a subject that I’ve been interested in for a long time, whether the reason for that is because of vague mentions through books I’ve read, or the fact that it isn’t as big of a researched subject as others, but it is the idea of childhood in Ancient Athens, and how parental figures thought of and treated kids. I think that perhaps the subject was too big for me to cover in just a semi- short piece of writing (or in one term), and that if I wanted to include all of my research or attention, I could have made a much more interesting and well-structured piece of work that others would want to read. The product of my work isn’t all of the things I originally wanted to achieve (or had set out in my Learning plan), for example, I had wanted to make an acrylic painting that reflected daily life for a child, which I didn’t end up doing. The finished product, as you may have gathered, is a small watercolour depiction of my own designed “horse on wheels” (which is a Greek toy that children liked to play with), and a piece of informational writing. The way I’ve included the Big Picture learning goals/the five A’s in my independent project may not have been the most efficient way, but I believe that I did try my hardest to include/use them to the best of my ability and to improve my work. Goals like empirical reasoning and resources, as I like to reference or use books and websites to gather more on topic information, and I think it’s more efficient to have questions you can answer at hand, so you are less likely to get off topic in your writing. As of right now, there is more information that interests me on the subject, such as researching further into only mentioned topics and the development of childbirth, education, dietary habits, the inclusion of rituals and much more. Though there is much more to know and research, I believe it will be more helpful for me (in the long run and just for variety in my knowledge) to investigate on other subjects in the terms to come.

Jessie Edrich
Grade 9B Advisory

Student Beach Excursion Report 

Our school went to Bridport for an excursion beach day. The Mob Bum advisory organised the special day for us. We were situated at the surf life saving club. It was really fun, it was very well organised and there was lots of activities to partake in.

Each student helped organise different parts of the day. I helped with the water wrist band risk assessment with Rhian and the scavenger hunt. We got some rocks and painted them bright colours and had a Sponge Bob theme with it. The smaller rocks got a small reward and the rocks with a character on it got a bigger reward.

Games consisted of capture the flag, as well as team building exercises that helped build culture within our school. After lunch we had a swim and we had the privilege of being able to use the paddle boards from the life saving club which was so much fun. Nick brought some of his stand up paddle boards and we had a great time in the water.  

We had red flags and cones and everything out for a safety precaution. Lots of people attended the beach day and there was lots of awesome feedback from the students about the day. I had fun hanging out with my friends the whole day.

Annabelle Aitken 
Grade 11/12 Advisory