Balaklava High School
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14 Gwy Terrace
Balaklava SA 5461
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Email: dl.0769.info@schools.sa.edu.au
Phone: 08 8862 0600
Fax: 08 8862 0650

YEAR 8 ANTI-POVERTY PROJECT

Currently, Mrs Pudney’s Year 8 English class are reading the novel Trash, written by Andy Mulligan. The story follows three young boys who live and work at a dumpsite, until one day they make a discovery. This leads the boys on an adventure from slums to prisons to mansions, but they must fight to stay alive.

When reading novels, I encourage my students to use The Text-to-TextText-to-SelfText-to-World strategy to help develop the habit of making these connections as they read. When students are given a purpose for their reading, they are able to better comprehend and make meaning of the ideas in the text. My students started to ask questions about if people really do live like this, are there people in our own community who may experience poverty and how do we define poverty?

These were great questions and the students wanted to explore them further. Jake Martin, Emma Hamdorf and Chelsea Michalanney organised a guest speaker, Michael Greenshields who manages at the Balaklava Swap Shop and is an elected member on the Wakefield Regional Council. Mr Greenshields explained the three types of poverty, the effects of poverty and what people can do to help.

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The students have asked to take this learning and turn it into their final English assessment. I’m extremely proud to have such caring, passionate and excited learners and look forward to seeing how this project evolves. Our students will continue to share this story and their learning in upcoming newsletters.

Michelle Pudney

Middle School Assistant Principal