Nossal Year 9 2023 Students

justaperson_

Randomhuman24 ohh nice ur in pegasus too (welcome haha). Just curious, what tute are you in (don’t have to answer if you don’t wanna). Uhhh in terms of tests, they are surprisingly really standard and at a pretty decent level. For example, in math you can choose to do a standard or advanced side for the test. English works differently where you get to kinda ‘choose ur assignments’ (you’ll learn more about it later). Then the other subjects are your stock standard test like any other school. We just did our exams and ngl they weren’t that hard compared to what I thought it would be. But ig that’s subjective huh. Anyways good luck 👍

Randomhuman24

justaperson_ I forgot to reply to this but I am in 0S7 for tutorial I believe

Yolk15

Pegasus smh
I did Frankenstein, and I personally liked it! (Then again, I am a bit of a book worm). That's probably why Im doing literature, and I might have Dr Schroor! So, here's some unneeded, long-winded, info

English (from my experience last year) requires you to do a fair amount of work on your classic text, alongside selected poetry, selected articles, and a text of your own choosing (which will be elaborated on next year). When considering what classic text to choose, take in account that you will writing a few essays on it, and will need to choose between writing a creative, analytical, or comparative response to the text.
When weighing the options between Jane Eyre and Frankenstein, consider:
.Which do you think will be easier to annotate?
.Which genre/plot interests you more?
.Which novel has more themes that will be easier for you to write about?
.Would you be able to write a creative response, analyse it, or compare it to another piece of media/novel?

All in all, year 9 English's purpose is to thrust students into independence and Nossal's "adult-learning environment", to allow for more creativity, flexibility, and preparation for the years ahead. If English is not your best subject, year 9 is just a test to inform teachers on what pathway in year 10 and VCE you should take, and if you will need any additional aid.
Have a good holiday everyone!

Randomhuman24

Yolk15 thank you so much! I just wanted to ask a couple of last things about Nossal; what is the workload like? Is there a lot of homework? And in class, is it very fast paced?

Yolk15

Randomhuman24
I mean, "middle" school in general doesn't have too much homework, and high school not really? Most work at home is external research and practise. But with the expectations that Nossal students will do their best, i guess the simple answer is yes, there is a lot of workload and homework (some established by yourself). Home work will definitely ramp up going into VCE (recommendation of 3~ hours a day i think?), but ultimately how much workload you have is up to you. Different classes and teachers have different paces. I will say tho, that assignments and tests may creep up on you, as you have informal announcements the week before. Keeping notes during class about upcoming dates for tests is important! But in Vce, your digital calendar via Compass will show sacs that are upcoming, as tests will be more serious. I hope this answered your questions.

Ommahp

justaperson_
It was great! I really enjoyed it. It amazed me just how nice everyone was. Like I saw people asking others to join in to play or talk with them. It just seemed like a nice environment although everyone is quite competitive. I'm in Garuda and somehow on the first day, everyone knew that Garuda was the worst house. And when the whole year played a game at the end and the scores were being announced, like everyone in Garuda was super happy that we didn't come last (we also ended up winning so go Garuda). The school seems very nice, the teachers I've met seem super fun and like they actually care about teaching. I'm very excited to go here, I was almost sad that the next day I would have to go back to my old school because Nossal just seems so much better and more peaceful, like it doesn't seem like they'll be a lot of drama and fights here. Overall, great day!

Fish

Ommahp
That’s nice to hear I was one of the Garuda peer mentors. Unfortunately Garuda lost every major house event this year but hopefully that changes.
I’ll answer some of the questions to the best of my ability:
Regarding workload there is a moderate amount but not too much it depends on how much you focus during class.
There will be times where you have all your topic tests within a 2 week timespan where you may be overwhelmed by revising for all your subjects.
Class is not that fast paced but it depends on which teacher you have some will go through topics quite slowly meaning a lot of the work has to be done at home sometimes teacher will rush through the content and you just don’t understand but on the whole Nossal teachers are decent.
You will have i-week which will be fun and boring at the same time and you will constantly hear adult learning environment.
For year 9 english the majority do Frankenstein including myself.If I’m being honest no one likes any of the books so just choose one.
Nossal tests are not too hard but a big mistake is to underestimate them and not revise for them.
Regarding electives electronics is somewhat popular,food studies is also a popular subject.
I would recommend photography but wouldn’t recommend visual communication design unless you are very passionate about it.
Feel free to ask any more questions.

Fish

Hey, I am a year 10 nossal student for 2023 and I’m happy to answer any questions.

Fish

For exams there is only one exam at the end of the year which is maths,science,English,humanities, health (the exam was added this year) and the language you are doing.

Fish

For Japanese beginner you need to know hiragang,katakana and particles.

~ndha~

~ndha~ Sorry guys, the link that I gave for the Nossal music lesson enrolments turns out to be the wrong one.

The actual form is here https://forms.office.com/r/V41eYY4qvy

Randomhuman24

Hi all,
I have started reading the book of Australian poetry, but nothing has really stood out to me, and I’m also not sure how to go about annotating them, as poetry really isn’t my strong point. Can anybody provide any help with this?

justaperson_

Randomhuman24 tbh throughout the year we only really looked at like 10 poems MAX out of the hundreds. But if you want to improve ur annotation skills, then use a method called VISSSS. Voice imagery sound structure style symbol. Voice being who the perspective is and in what perspective (first person, second person etc). Imagery is the descriptions of things and meta language (simile , metaphor) . Sound is the rhythm and alliteration. Structure is who long the poem is, how many stanzas etc. style is the tone of poem and what themes are. Symbol is any symbolism in the poem. We used this method in nossal so it can be good for practice in the future. Hope this helps

Fish

Randomhuman24 You don’t annotate the poetry book just the classic text. Hope that helps and yes the VISSS table is what we are taught to use to annotate texts.

Randomhuman24

justaperson_ thanks so much!

Randomhuman24

Fish ah okay thanks for the clarification! I must have gotten confused, as I had heard we were supposed to annotate both.

Randomhuman24

Fish on a somewhat similar subject, as for the annotations of the novel, do the teachers look at them or grade them?

Fish

Randomhuman24
Yes the teachers will look at them and they will contribute to your study habits mark on you report as this encompasses all work done. Also I may be wrong with annotating the poems than as last year we were not told to annotate poems nor were they checked but maybe it changed for this year. Apologies as I am not sure about that now.

Randomhuman24

Hello all,
Are exercise books for each class necessary in year 9, or is everything more so done online? Is it recommended to bring an exercise book or a binder for every subject, or would these end up not really being used?

Yolk15

Randomhuman24
Honestly 98% of the time we use our laptop (except for textbooks/workbooks for some subjects). You are welcome to bring binders/exercise books for taking notes but if the teacher needs to see them, you have to take pictures of them and put them up on Onenote (our main notes space on the laptop). I know that some of my friends prefer taking notes for their subjects on paper, or writing out maths exercises manually- it really is up to your preference.

tldr: Not necessary- most things are needed to be done online, but you are welcome to use paper for notes, as long you take photos to show your teacher that you actually do work. Maybe just bring one or a tiny diary book or a paper folder to class.

Hope this makes sense!

Randomhuman24

Yolk15 thank you so much for your help!!

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