Year 8 French

Student Reflection

In French we made children’s books and used all the French we have learned in class. Using numbers, colours and animals we were able to create our stories. Some people helped with the creative drawings and others helped with the translations and writing. Some stories that we wrote were Mr Square and Ms Triangle, Albert Goes to the Park, Big James and Jimmy and Lala’s Day Off. Throughout the time that we were making these we had heaps of fun and learned even more words in French.

Zoe Salter

Year 8

Year 12 Italian

Why studying the Italian Renaissance matters

On 11 October Year 12 Italian students completed their VCE oral examinations. For their exams, each student brought an image as a stimulus for discussion in Italian with the examiners. This year, the chosen image was La Primavera (Spring), an early Renaissance painting by the Florentine artist Sandro Botticelli.

This masterpiece is a quintessential celebration of life in its many forms – love, fertility, joy, the blossoming of nature and birth. It also captures some of the core ideas of the Renaissance spirit. Beyond analysing the painting’s techniques and meaning, our students explored a larger question: Why does it matter to study the Italian Renaissance?

In essence, we discovered that Renaissance philosophy centres around “humanism,” a renewed confidence in humankind. This emphasis on human potential and reason led to a shift towards empirical inquiry and individual achievement. These ideas continued to flourish during the Enlightenment, which expanded upon Renaissance ideals of rational thought and progress.

The Renaissance celebration of human achievement inspired a desire for freedom that influenced the American and French Revolutions, laying the groundwork for modern democracies and rights-based movements. The Renaissance also sparked innovations that paved the way for the Industrial Revolution, shaping the societies we live in today.

Giovanni Di Fabrizio

Learning Leader: Languages