Each year our Year 7 students create something special to leave as a memento for the school to enjoy and to also leave a mark that helps everyone remember them. The school is full of lovely art and technology installations that have been memento projects over the past 14 years.

These projects are usually first designed by a team of Yr 7 students working with Mr Marshall to develop the design concept.  One of the considerations is that the project needs to be able to involve all of the Yr 7 students in some way. Once designed and  costed by the student team the actual creation of the memento relies on significant support of Yr 7 parent volunteers and usually also includes an artist working closely with the students.

This year students wanted to extend the castle area which had been created as part of the 2012 memento project.  The 2016 project was to create a 3.6 metre high castle tower that is also 2.4 metres deep by 3.6 metres wide and 4  large medieval shields to be installed on the  nearby fencing.  The project involved students first helping to relocate the school’s southern boundary fence further down the slope towards the WCC carpark.  This created a bigger play space around the existing castle and tree climbing  area.

Groundsperson Ken McTaggart worked closely with the students to relocate the fencing and then to orchestrate the construction of the tower.  We thank all the volunteers for their support of this project. There was significant painting of stones  on the marine ply panels and we thank Kym Sard and Gerry Senior for there very generous efforts. Amongst other great helpers were Anna Ward, Michael Dean and Mark Guinan.   Students at Woodend will enjoy this gift, from our senior students, for years to come.  We hope that over the years, the graduates of 2016 will come to visit and look out for their memento.

Not yet updated on the school website is information about last year’s project.  The 2015 memento project was the development of the school history trail which worked in conjunction with the school’s 20th birthday celebrations..  The students worked with Cate Ellis to create mosaicked  bollards and other station markers for the history trail.