YARRA HILLS SECONDARY COLLEGE

25 August 2017 A Fortnightly Bulletin Issue No. 12

PO BOX 42 MOOROOLBARK 3138 Mooroolbark Campus: Tel: 9839 8800 Mt Evelyn Campus : Tel: 9736 3650

Respect ♦ Endeavour ♦ Achievement ♦ Pride

KEY DATES

AUGUST

Friday 25 Yr 11 Business Management - Marketing SAC MB

Monday 28 PE Lab Test - Incursion MB

Intermediate Band Rehearsal 1.15 - 1.45 ME ME

Tuesday 29 Intermediate Band Rehearsal 1.15 - 1.45 MB MB

Thursday 31 Yr 7 Community Connections - Mt Evelyn Fire Station ME

Yr 10 WOW Leap Design Incursion MB

Y9 OE - Horse Riding MB

SEPTEMBER

Friday 1 Yr 7 Table Tennis ME ME

Monday 4 College Concert Rehearsal at Mooroolbark Community Centre 9.15 - 12.30pm ME & MB

VCE Solo Performance MB

College Concert - Mooroolbark Community Centre at 7.30pm ME & MB

Tuesday 5 Athletics Yarra Group - Knox ME & MB

Senior Concert Band Rehearsal 3.30 - 4.30pm MB MB

From the College Principal

College Production

Since my last newsletter report, I have had the pleasure of attending the college 2017 production “Marvellous Musicals”, held at our Mt Evelyn Campus Performing Arts Centre. This year’s production was a highly entertaining and engaging, fast-paced run through musical history. It was fantastic to see the wonderful performances from our many talented students and I congratulate all involved, including all of the staff and parent supporters who worked tirelessly behind the scenes to enable the show to run. Well done and thank you! There are further reports and photos in articles later in this newsletter.

Safe Schools?

I would like to take this opportunity to correct misinformation about the Safe Schools program that has been posted on social media, which has in turn been reported in the press and raised concerns in our school community. Safe Schools is not part of the Victorian Curriculum – it’s a commitment that schools make to be safe and inclusive places for all students, including LGBTI students. Safe Schools is not a sex education program, nor does it teach sexual practices. It is simply a program to help schools and students understand and respect that people should not be discriminated against for any reason – including gender and sexual diversity. It is a sad reality that LGBTI young people are more likely to be bullied at school than elsewhere and this has a major impact on their educational outcomes. The Department of Education and Training provides evidence-based information, resources and professional learning for school staff to use as we see fit to prevent discrimination against LGBTI students.

Resources provided by the Department of Education and Training to help deliver the program are carefully selected to ensure they are appropriate for the ages of students using them. Our school is free to decide how we implement the Safe Schools program, and we will take into account our local context and the needs of our school community when doing so.

If you wish to discuss the Safe Schools program further, please do not hesitate to contact me. Alternatively, further information about the program can be found on the Department of Education and Training’s website: www.education.vic.gov.au/safeschools.” Darren Trippett College Principal

From the Mooroolbark Campus Principal

It’s hard to believe we are halfway through the term already. It has been a busy few weeks here at the Mooroolbark Campus. There is a real focus on working hard as our Year 12s are only weeks away from nearing the end of their secondary schooling. There is still much to do in terms of assessment tasks and school-based course-work.

Marvellous Musicals (School Production)

A very big thank you to the cast and crew of the Production ‘Marvellous Musicals’. I went along on the Thursday night. We have some incredibly talented singers and dancers. It was a great selection of songs and acts. Congratulations to Julia Rockett, David Billings, Airlia Johns and Glen Impey as well as a great support team of staff and students for putting on another great show in 2018.

Year 10 ROAR presentation

On Thursday August 10, 3 of our Year 10 students, Ben Callaghan, Grace Ferrari & Bonnie Hunter presented a film they had developed called ‘The New Kid’. Our 3 Year 10 students were involved in a Yarra Ranges Council initiative known as the ROAR program. As part of this program they were asked to develop something for young people who live in the Yarra Ranges Shire. They developed a Short Film that focuses on youth depression and what we can all do to support young people with mental illness. It was a project that was supported by Headspace. The film was presented to all our Year 7-10 students at the Mooroolbark Campus. Along with the film, representatives from Headspace also spoke about supports that are in place and a bit about their organisation. It was really well received and the film is a credit to the hard work of Ben, Grace and Bonnie.

Advance Class

Our Year 9 Advance continues to have an action-packed class. After they helped design and develop the Outdoor classroom and gardening area in term 2, this term they visited the Murrinidindi State Forest area as part of preparations for their upcoming overnight hike and camp in term 4.

100 Days of Change

Our Wellbeing team, Cat Strempel and Virginia Stacey organised Nathan Want, a guest speaker with a wealth of experi-ence in working with young people, to come and speak with our Year 7 and 8 students about Social Media as well as giving them some practical tools for being responsible when online. It was really well received and the students were really engaged. We hope it started some healthy discussion at home about ideas for behaving appropriately online.

Parent Opinion Survey

Just a reminder to those parents who have been notified about our Parent Opinion Survey. We ask that you please take the time to complete this online using the link provided. We do appreciate and use this vital feedback from our community. The survey closes for the selected parents on Sunday August 27.

Girls in Physics Breakfast

David Audesho, our Physics teacher took some of our aspiring Science students in Year 9 and 10 to a physics breakfast at Latrobe University in Bundoora. The selected students: Jaimee Barber, Jasmaine Collins-Whyte, Madolyn McKerley, Caitlin Miller, Emily Russo and Nadjoua Youssif enjoyed a wonderful breakfast and heard from some of prominent scientists and physicists.

Greg Cowan Mooroolbark Campus Principal

Celebrating EDUCATION

SUPPORT STAFF WEEK

August 14 - August 18

To celebrate Education Support Staff Week at Yarra Hills we have provided a visual ‘snapshot’ of the great things

that our ES Staff do at the Mooroolbark Campus!

Music students travelling to China

Instrumental music students, Katie Connor, Katherine Rosevear and Ben Callaghan, along with Instrumental Music Director, Richard O’Toole, are bound for China this week as members of the Australian Youth Band. The band has been invited to China by the Shanghai Tourism Festival, providing an opportunity to perform a marching display, which is to be televised to millions of people right across China, as well a symphonic concert and other performances around Shanghai. This international tour follows a year full of major performances including an Australia Day tour to Swan Hill, two shows at Hamer Hall alongside Rhonda Burchmore for Morning Melodies, our Yarra Ranges Concert in Mooroolbark and our recent Annual Concert with Debra Byrne.

We are very excited about travelling to a country we have never visited - 8,050km from home, with a flight time of over 10 hours. We will be challenged in a city of over 25 million people with a different language, new food experi-ences, an ancient and diverse culture and many new adventures while on tour. Touring with 45 musicians of the Australian Youth Band will inspire us to become better performers, and hopefully provide us with future musical opportunities. We have worked incredibly hard in preparation for the tour, with some Saturday rehearsals lasting up to 6 hours at a time. Learning to march and perform with a band of such a high standard has been a challenge for us, but a challenge we have faced together. We hope to make Yarra Hills proud of our achievements and ambitions as young musicians.

Katie Connor, Katherine Rosevear, Ben Callaghan

From the Mt Evelyn Campus Principal

Last week we celebrated ES week; a chance for us to say thank you to all our extra support staff who do so much within our college. From maintaining our Foods and Science departments, to organising the Library, to the Integration Aides who assist so many students in class, wellbeing staff who support so many of our students, our Maintenance staff who make our school look great and of course our office staff who look after everyone! It was a wonderful week where we showed our ES staff how much we all appreciate them and what they do for our students and our school. Thank you!!

Our Musical was Marvellous!

After many hours of rehearsals, singing, practicing lines, opening night was finally upon us. Our performers, back stage crew, sound and lighting not to mention our Producer, Director and Choreographer were all in place for each performance. Marvellous Musicals was such a fantastic production. It was such a wonderful tribute to the musicals from yesteryear, those all-time favourite Disney musicals as well as many popular ones too. I could see many audience members singing along! Congratulations to Julia Rockett, Airlia Johns and David Billings for the insight you all had in putting this fantastic show together. Congratulations to the entire production cast and back stage crew. It was an awesome production!

Nathan sent a powerful message

Nathan Want, a motivational speaker, came to both campuses to deliver a powerful message regarding the impact online behaviour can have on mental health. He helped students understand what can be funny at the time of posting can have devas- tating and lasting effects on others. He spoke passion- ately about looking after your friends and the importance of thinking before you post. One activity which Aleesa took part in was to squeeze as much toothpaste out of a tube as possible then try and put it all back. With the lure of $50, the pressure was on Aleesa to try and achieve this. The big message behind this very funny activity was: once you post online, it is there forever; it cannot be taken back. Therefore be careful what you post!

Year 8 & 9 students time to choose electives Christina Shaw (Director of teaching and learning) came out last week to help students understand the choices they have for next year in regard to electives. What is exciting for our students is the introduction of new electives that will better prepare students for VCE. Subjects like Psychology, Big Bang History and Forensic Science just to name a few are being offered. It is essential all students make informed choices by reading the handbook which was given out and be confident in the choices they make for their first and second preference. If students have any concerns with their electives, they are welcome to speak to their subject teacher about specific subject questions or Robyn Dew for any questions about the process.

Robyn Dew Mt Evelyn Campus Principal

On Wednesday August 9 the Year 8 Boys & Girls Table Tennis Teams ventured to the Kilsyth Stadium for the Yarra Group Round Robin Table Tennis.

The girls had 2 easy victories in their preliminary matches and then came up against Lilydale High in the third round. The first 2 singles matches were won by Lilydale before Jordan Buscheinen and Shante Gooren fought hard to win and to level the rubbers at 2 games all. Lilydale was 80 points to Yarra Hills 79 going in to the doubles and Yarra Hills managed to win the first Doubles rubber placing them at 3 rubbers to 2. Unfortunately the girls were unable to beat Lilydale in the second doubles to go down in the narrowest of margins 3 rubbers all/ 6 Games all Lilydale HS 120 Points Yarra Hills 117 to finish second overall.

The Year 8 Boys had convincing wins in their preliminary matches and came up against The Yarra Hills Mt Evelyn Campus in the Final and despite some narrow results overall the Mooroolbark Campus secured the victory with 5 rubbers to 1 to finish first and Mt Evelyn finished runners up.

Well done to each of the girls who played on the day and represented Yarra Hills so well. Year 7 Eastern Zone Badminton

The Year 7 Badminton boys played in their Eastern Zone Finals matches on Friday October 11 and whilst they were quietly confident that they were going to perform well, they really found it tough going against some of the bigger and more experienced schools in the district. Playing Brentwood in the first round, the 4 boys were leading quite comforta-bly before being defeated in each of their games 21- 17, 21-19, 21-17 and 21-17. There was only one win in the Doubles going down 5 games to 1. East Doncaster had a very strong team with the number 3 from the Victorian State Team playing and our boys went down 6 Games to 0. In their third match they played Wantirna and once again only won 1 of their games to Wantirna ’s 5. Whilst they battled hard they still represented Yarra Hills well.

Murray McAllister