Gleeson College Curriculum Guide 2026 - Middle Years | 18 Year 8 Subjects Welcome Learning at Gleeson College Gleeson Staff Contacts Year 7 Overview Subjects Year 8 Overview Subjects Year 9 Overview Subjects FOOD & TEXTILES LEARNING AREA: Technologies LENGTH: Semester SELECTION: Elective LEARNING SUMMARY: Students further develop their skills, knowledge, and understanding in the kitchen while learning about food and nutrition. They explore topics such as meal planning, dietary needs, and sustainable food practices through practical, hands-on cooking experiences. In textiles, students develop confidence and skills in using a sewing machine and overlocker while following a design process to create personalised boxer shorts. Students must bring a basic sewing kit and purchase fabric for their boxer shorts. ASSESSMENT: Students demonstrate their learning by completing practical activities and investigations. ENGLISH LEARNING AREA: English LENGTH: Full Year SELECTION: Compulsory HEALTH & PHYSICAL EDUCATION LEARNING AREA: Health & Physical Education LENGTH: Full Year SELECTION: Elective LEARNING SUMMARY: Students continue to develop leadership, collaboration and outdoor education skills, refine specialised movement skills, and apply these across a range of sports and game types, including invasion, net/wall, target, and striking/ fielding games. They explore how body control and coordination influence performance and learn to transfer movement concepts across different physical activities. Outdoor education experiences provide opportunities to build resilience, teamwork, and decision-making in natural environments. A highlight of the course is the Sports Education unit, where students take on leadership roles to plan, manage, and participate in a team-based sports competition, promoting responsibility, teamwork, and fair play. ASSESSMENT: Students demonstrate their learning through practical assessments and theory tasks. LEARNING SUMMARY: Students develop their skills in reading, writing, speaking, listening, viewing, and creating through a wide range of texts and learning experiences. Students explore and evaluate media texts, including online and digital texts, as well as analyse novels, non-fiction, poetry and dramatic performances. Shared texts explore themes of interpersonal relationships and ethical dilemmas in real- world and fictional settings, and represent a variety of perspectives. Students consider context, purpose and audience, exploring a range of textual conventions and language techniques. They investigate the art of Science communication through an integrated cross-disciplinary unit with Science. ASSESSMENT: Students demonstrate their learning through the study and creation of a range of text types that can include imaginative, informative, persuasive and multimodal texts, creative writing, essays, poetry, media, film, and speeches.