NEWS
Edition 8 – October 2020
Contents 2
Principal’s Say
Academic 3
Year-12 Breakfast with a Difference
4 UniMelb Mathematics Research Competition 5
Brain-Boxes Leigh And Oliver Tell All
Staff News 8 New Novel by Staff Member, Factory 19 9 French Competition Finalists! Hospitality
Co-Curricular 10 Environmental 13
Virtual LitFest 2020
Virtual Art Show 2020
15
Sewing for a cause
Little Aths
Extraordinary students 16
Student Voice and 2021 Leaders
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Important Dates
PRINCIPAL’S SAY
Friday 30 October Year 12 Final Day
Welcome back, again
Monday 2 November Report Writing Day Student free day Tuesday 3 November Public Holiday Melbourne Cup Day 9 - 13 November Year 11 Exams 10 - 30 November VCE Exams Friday 13 November Year 7 Immunisations 18 November Da Vinci Information Evening 20 - 27 November Year 10 Exams
Back at school – at last! No doubt we’ll soon be having COVIDstalgia, but how wonderful it is to be back among friends and colleagues. I want to say a few things about how the college came through the lockdown in such good shape. We kept studying hard and caring for each other and I believe this will be reflected in another set of excellent academic results at the end of the year. What accounts for this success? We were of course wonderfully prepared, with the best ICT infrastructure, equipment and training, topped off by our worldleading online portal and curriculum. We have been putting this machine in place for ten years and it paid off. I want to congratulate our ICT staff especially for keeping everything running so smoothly. Our culture of innovation also served us well. We could have panicked, adopted a negative approach, seeing the lockdown as something too hard, but we stayed calm and used all available technologies to their full capacity, using Google Meets not just for teaching and learning and exams but also for our extracurricular activities. The Art Show, the Lit Fest, our Athletics Carnival, our parent-teacher-student interviews, careers counselling, Create Clubs and many more all worked strongly online. Our teachers were extraordinary in the way they adapted and kept everyone learning so well.
circumstances is a sign of the school’s great depth. We kept things as normal as possible and even managed, while you were all away, to renovate the Danks Street campus and gain the college another exciting new campus, that I will be outlining soon.
Student leaders showed the way This leadership included the students. Our School Captains and Vice-Captains were superb. I guess we shouldn’t be surprised – the young are always more capable and adaptable than we think – but in taking the extraordinary upheaval in their stride, they surprised even me. They created The Huddle, APCTV and a host of other innovations that kept each other’s spirits up and gave everyone the support they needed. Thank you so much to Lily, Olivia, Eloisa and Oscar – and everyone who helped them, all the way down to our year-7 ambassadors. This issue of the newsletter is dedicated to them. The COVID crisis is far from over, but even when it does end, the lessons will continue to inform the future directions of the college. After this year, we can achieve anything. Steven Cook Foundation Principal
We communicated strongly. Sorry for all those emails and Compass posts, but they were necessary! Importantly, we all showed great leadership. The Principal Team of Maddy Campbell, Hayley Schirmer, John Pobjoy and Tim Nolan, joined by Kim McMahon, rose to the occasion and their efforts to keep the college going in highly unusual BACK TO CONTENTS
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Year-12 Breakfast with a Difference Nothing but nothing stops APC celebrating the achievements of our senior students. This year, confronted by the need to socially distance, we managed to stage our traditional year-12 breakfast in a new way. Using technology to connect everyone, the graduating class of 2020 spread itself over several classrooms on the third floor of the Danks Street campus, with parents watching on from home. It was the sort of amazing feat of technology we have come to expect from our IT crew and our teachers. Digital communications has been our saviour all year. It was marvellous to see that the collegiate spirit remained alive after students had been physically separated for much of the year. As usual, the students applied the idea of creative destruction to their uniforms and were inspired by the inspirational speaker and double amputee, Mike Rolls, and entertained by none other than our very own rhetorical weapon, Oscar Pearce. The students have now headed off for Swot Vac and we very confidently wish them success for their studies. We’re very much looking forward to seeing them back at school on 4 December for the traditional celebration evening/formal. All the best, team. See you soon.
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University of Melbourne Mathematics Research Competition As VCE students in lock down, we were searching for ways to entertain ourselves. Netflixed and gamed out, we needed a new adventure and so we became intrigued by the University of Melbourne School of Mathematics and Statistics Research Competition. This mathematical journey led us out of our depth into exciting, frustrating, and fascinating territory. As high-school students we were given the opportunity to understand what it means to conduct mathematics and solve mathematical problems. A set of eight open-ended questions, any of which could be attempted, were the bait and we took it. We were encouraged to use methods employed by mathematical researchers to investigate the problems, gather data, simplify, visualise, hypothesise, conjecture, and prove. Such a process places focus on creativity and problem-solving skills, to find eloquent solutions in a group or individual setting, as well as a lot of time just sitting on the couch – of which we had plenty of practise during stage 4! Approaching the set of questions was confronting, as each suited a particular mathematical field, and required different strategies; some more geometric, some more algebraic. We attempted six of the problems, with varying degrees of success. Often the pattern would be to attempt one problem, reach an impasse, move to the next problem, then realise the next line of working to the previous one so circle back. A large portion of time was spent wrapping our heads around the problem, understanding what it was truly asking, even rephrasing questions at times. After
making progress in these six questions, it was only one where a significant brainwave came. The problem was: given four functions, create a method to take any fraction to 0 by applying these functions as many times as necessary. We started by graphing the functions we had been given, to try and understand exactly what we could do with them. This didn’t seem promising, so we moved on to blindly applying the functions and seeing what happened. This mathematical fiddling was somewhat successful: we managed to prove that a certain combination of the functions let us subtract 1 from any input. It didn’t seem particularly important at the time, but ended up being one of the most important parts of the final solution. After taking a several week-long break to attempt a few of the other problems, we eventually came back to this one, and had our eureka! moment when we realised we actually had all the tools we needed to solve it – we just had to put them all together. Ultimately the experience was incredibly different from problem solving in a regular maths class: it required out-of-the-box thinking, aimless meandering, navel-gazing, and extended periods of contemplation (read lying on the couch). Unlike traditional questions, these were designed to be turned over in one's mind at great length, discussed, explored, and debated. It's something that every student even mildly intrigued by maths should have a red hot go at. In the end, it gave us insight into what maths researchers actually do, and gave us a result we are very proud of. Fortunately, the assessors seemed to agree, with our solution currently being in the final five for the senior years. Leigh Greville and Oliver Kalicin
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Brain-Boxes Leigh And Oliver Tell All Zoe A interviews our maths champions You’ve taken out the title as the UniMelb Maths and Statistics Research Competition winners, what’s the next step in your maths careers? Leigh: Pure maths at UniMelb, excel in the field. Positive affirmation in your mathematics. Oliver: Honestly, I’m not not 100 per cent sure, generally speaking the competition was a rewarding experience but not necessarily a stepping stone for a career. Maths or physics are two areas of interest. What was the most exciting part of the competition or the part you enjoyed most? Leigh: Finding the solution was really satisfying but when we made it to the finals and then found out we were crowned winners it was a pretty amazing feeling. Oliver: Presentation was really rewarding and it was awesome to see other participants’ approaches to the problem. What advice would you give to aspiring STEM students? Leigh: Something valuable for me has been simply developing my enjoyment and love of mathematics. Online resources have been really helpful and different to what you learn in school. There is a wealth of resources online that I might never have come into contact with: YouTube channel 3 blue 1 brown and math-o-logger (who is a Monash uni professor) just to name a couple of my favourites. Oliver: Keep doing it! Maths is an incredibly broad area, but take it further if that’s something you’re passionate about. By exploring more online you can look at all the different areas of STEM, which I have always found really inspiring.
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Why do you enjoy maths and when and why did your interest first spark? Leigh: Since primary school. My parents both work in STEM fields, so I’ve been surrounded by science and maths my whole life. It has been rewarding being able to find solutions to problems too. Oliver: It was always fun being able to problem solve in primary school and then when the mathematics questions became more creative and problem solving based, that definitely sparked an interest. Enthusiastic teachers also inspired me to push myself. What’s your favourite formula or mathematical equation and why? Leigh: Pythagoras’ theorem takes the cake, it’s simple, old and discovered by so many different cultures making it universally true and useful. Oliver: PR^2 2PR pie is transcendental so you can never have a definite expression of that number; this means that every answer is always going to be an approximation which really defies everything school maths is based on – I love that quirk. Do you think maths helps you in other areas of learning or thinking? Leigh: Maths is quite closely related to logic and it’s definitely helped me in philosophy and helps with identifying issues and arguments. It has cross disciplinary benefit. Oliver: Conceptualising ideas, lateral thinking and problem solving have all benefited from my maths skills. Maths also pops up every day and sometimes you don’t even realise it. Optimising the way you get to a solution and being forward thinking in that sense, is really helpful for English and humanities subjects. How did you balance the competition and its demands on top of all your regular school work? Leigh: A lot of the work was completed during lock down and so we felt we had more spare time. Oliver: The lock down really helped actually, less time commuting or exercising which assisted in being able to focus on the competition. We seemed to spread our time over the span of the day rather than sitting down for a block of two hours and just doing problems like you might in a maths class. It was always something that we were ticking away at in the back of our minds. Lots of chatting, Google Meets and thinking about the problem and the best solution. It’s more like waiting for something to click. We were waiting for a eureka moment.
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STAFF NEWS
INTRODUCING FACTORY 19 NEW NOVEL BY APC STAFF MEMBER APC welcomes the new satirical novel by our Comms Team member, Dennis Glover. Dennis’s first novel, The Last Man in Europe — which told the story of George Orwell’s dying struggle to write Nineteen Eighty-Four — came out in 2017 and was nominated for several prestigious literary prizes. His second novel, Factory 19, published by Black Inc., has just been released and will be in bookshops on Monday 2 November. Please support this great example of APC’s commitment to literature, creativity and political debate.
FACTORY 19 Dundas Faussett, an internet gambling tycoon, who owns the world’s most outrageous art gallery, wakes up one day and realises that the computer, the internet and smartphones are destroying our lives by addicting us to screens and impoverishing us through the gig economy. He closes his gallery and replaces it with a new experiment in human happiness: Factory 19. In this new arcadian community, life returns to the year 1948, just before the release of the first mainframe computer. All digital technology and all social media are banned. There are permanent unionised jobs, printed broadsheet newspapers, vinyl records and old fashioned handset telephones. The revolutionary example of Factory 19 spreads across the world. The digital empires of Bezos, Musk, Zuckerberg and Gates start to tumble. Can progress be humanised? Can nostalgia defeat the future and give power back to the little people? We are about to find out. You can find more information and links to purchase Dennis’s book here.
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Two outstanding Y7 French Competition Finalists! APC hosts a lot of skilled students in different fields. In French, 2 students from Y7 — Charlotte Kerwin and Saskia Chatfield — decided to not only do a French poem as a school assessment but decided to join an annual famous French Poem competition at the Alliance FrançaIse called Berthe Mouchette Poem Competition. They tried their best and did extremely well. So much so that they ended up being selected as finalists. All our congratulations to them for their effort, their drive and their talent, which were all highly valued. Ms Catherine Jackson-Grose French Assistant
HOSPO CLUB LEADER SPILLS THE BEANS Hospitality Club leader Lachlan Black welcomes you into the kitchen It has been an absolute honour to lead the hospitality team for the past 4 years since 2017 and watch it grow into the wonderful program that is today, while making some lifelong friends and memories that will never be forgotten along the way. From when the hospitality team was first established in 2015 to cater for the APC Art Show, to 2020 where our team of 35+ outstanding students catered for over 10 events at the school, it has been nothing short of an incredible experience. For those who may have attended events like the APC Art Show, LitFest or other various school events, you may know me as one of the student catering attendants, serving delicious snacks with a team of other incredible Albert Park College students. I’d like to say a massive thank you to all of the team members who have participated. Whether you’re a hospitality-veteran or volunteered to help out the night before an event, your work, commitment and dedication is deeply appreciated. I’d like to say an even bigger thank you to the amazing Johanna Tam and Adua Cipolato for transforming our club into a space where everyone has had the opportunity to stay connected during the COVID-times of 2020. They have done an incredible job at keeping BACK TO CONTENTS
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our team together through virtual cook-a-longs and regular catch ups throughout the year and it has been fantastic to see the engagement from our team members. This is something very different from our past, where we have mostly only come together for an operational purpose – catering for school events, sometimes with 300+ guests, requiring days upon days of preparation.
I was taught to show love through food and I think that’s something the Hospitality Club has embraced over the years. Because what I see in the club is a family. Ms Christina Chang Food Technology Teacher Year 12 Positive Education Leader
To anyone considering joining the team in 2021 – I can’t say what the year holds in store following COVID-19, but I believe our club will look very different. However, I can give full certainty that in the hands of our leaders for next year, you will be very welcomed, engaged and be backed by a team of dedicated students who will curate a wonderful program. The Hospitality Team has provided me with industry-level experience, customer service skills and friendships that I am proud to say I will carry with me throughout my professional career beyond Year 12. Lachlan Black, Year 12
More Hospo Club Love Hospitality Club was what made me fall in love with the beautiful students at APC. Nearly six years ago, I moved to Melbourne from Vancouver to teach at APC. I took on the hospitality club and started with a group of incredibly enthusiastic food-loving kids. Little did I know, some of these students would help define my experience here. We catered various events such as the Art Show, Lit Fest and Trivia Night, each time, we made it our own. Through food, we supported our community, and we had current issues at the forefront of our minds. We told the story of struggling farmers with strawberry sorbets and acknowledged the relationship with the land by utilising Indigenous Australian ingredients. Food brings people together and it always tells a story. I have worked with talented young leaders, Lachlan and Harriette, since the early days, and the story you have told of APC will always be remembered! To me, it will be all the long nights garnishing canapes, painting flowers onto a faux food truck and the pep talks before a big service. But to the other students at APC, it will be your leadership, passion and creativity.
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Why Carbon Neutral?
Emerging from this time of being apart are achievements such as the establishment of a united Sustainability Subcommittee, a Albert Park College is on track to achieve its goal of achieving carbon neutral accreditation by December of revived Enviro Club, a clear understanding of our carbon footprint and a compelling this year. action plan for making the college’s environmental vision a reality. Work Thursday 22 October marked a turning point for now begins on aligning our curriculum this voyage, with Foundation Principal Steve Cook to offer students an active role in being signing our licence agreement with Australia’s peak aware of and changing our impact on the federal body, Climate Active. By the time of our next environment to one that can be sustained. newsletter, we will finalise this process of creating an inventory for all of the college’s carbon emissions and Our recent successes have emerged from offset them through the purchase and retirement of the strong network we have established carbon credits. between Albert Park Primary School, Albert Park Pre-School and the City of Port Whilst the honour of the first carbon neutral state Phillip in our Wurru Wurru Sustainable school in Australia goes to Corinda State High School Schools Alliance. WWSSA’s stated aim is in Queensland, we will be the first in Victoria and will to establish a carbon neutral educational have achieved this through a global pandemic and precinct for the children of Albert Park and are well placed to hold true to our vision of leading a movement of schools to create a sustainable future for it is proof of the power of the Albert Park all. The pandemic has been a sort of chrysalis for APC, community. with systemic transformations taking place to ensure Steven Stanecki that this significant achievement is business as usual. Environmental Programme Coordinator
Environmental Passion Projects inspiring Active Hope This term our Da VInci Students developed a range of inspiring passion projects to combat our big environmental challenges. This project is part of a larger unit focused around the concept of ‘Active Hope’ – conscious participation in the solution of current environmental issues. With a steady stream of disheartening environmental headlines, people can be left with feelings of hopelessness and despair around our environmental future, or ‘eco anxiety’. Our students aren’t immune to this feeling with 70 per cent of APC year 9s stating more needs to be done to combat climate change. Conscious participation allows us to feel empowered, as opposed to helpless in the face of challenges. The Environmental Inquiry team members were so impressed with the range of meaningful projects developed. These included growing herb gardens to reduce food miles, creating social media campaigns highlighting the beauty of local native plants, implementing low carbon meal plans for the whole family, and sewing reusable masks to reduce waste, to name a few. BACK TO CONTENTS
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The environmental challenge that I have been facing during my passion project is why we should stop the destruction of native plants. To combat this issue I created an instagram page to help spread awareness about native plants and to show their true beauty. Now that the project is over, we were happy with how it went. Ryan Hay, 9J My environmental challenge was to reduce plastic and landfill. Without realising, our everyday household items are making this problem worse and I thought that it would be simple enough to come up with an alternative. I decided to make my own all-purpose cleaning product in which I could buy the ingredients in bulk, and continue to remake as it runs out. This removes the need to buy multiple bottles of cleaning products, therefore reducing the amount of plastic we buy and use. My project was very successful. I made the product and tested it out, and it was very effective. The passion projects were a good experience and inspired students to make small, manageable solutions for bigger issues. Annabella Plano, 9A For my passion project I decided to investigate and communicate what happens to waste after disposal — something very few people understand. I had great success in creating an interactive digital guide to teach users about this issue. Overall, the passion projects were a great success, and I feel we all now have a greater understanding of our chosen issue. Tana Deyell, 9F The impressive range of meaningful action our Da Vinci students have taken demonstrate their passion and commitment to combating these environmental challenges. Clara Simpson Environmental Inquiry Leader
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CO-CURRICULAR Climate justice
The climate crisis affects everyone, but not everyone sees it first hand. It also tends to affect the people who have done the least to cause it. For example, Indigenous Australians may have done little to damage the environment, but are already disproportionately suffering the effects. This makes climate justice about so much more than global warming – it’s about the land and social justice too. We must act now, work together and fight for what’s right.
Enviro myth busters
Here are some good facts to refute the skeptics’ donothing arguments. “Australians contribute relatively little to CO2 emissions”
Though Australia is only responsible for approximately 1.1% of global CO2 emissions, our per capita footprint is almost 4 times the global average.
“Natural gas is a clean alternative to coal”
Natural gas is a fossil fuel composed primarily of methane. Unreported leaks of this potent greenhouse gas compromise its reported climate benefits.
New Sustainability Action Plan
Recently we published Albert Park College’s first Sustainability Action Plan “Antarctica is the While Antarctica is losing 148 outlining required actions to increase our billion metric tonnes of ice school’s sustainability between 2020-2024. fastest-melting ice sheet” annually, Greenland is losing This is what its vision statement says: We much more — 279 billion. will lead a movement of schools to create a sustainable future for all. We will embed “CO2 emissions are Due to COVID-19 lockdowns, respect for all life into everything we do at an all-time high” carbon emissions were down as an organisation and a community. We 8.6% between January and are united in our dream of a sustainable June when compared to the world where everyone has access to same period last year. clean energy, clean air, clean water and clean food. A world where biodiversity Join the APC enviro Club team... flourishes, equality and justice prevail, and And help APC become a more sustainable school as sustainability is business as usual. well as getting connected with other students who are passionate about the environment and have a good Along with the Vision Statement, the time along the way! If you care about stopping actions Action Plan was also informed by the such as the one below, make sure to join us on Friday data we had collected about our carbon lunchtimes or contact Mr Steven Staneki, Mr Darren emissions as a school in 2019. For example, Steiert, Ella Simons or Ella Travis if you need any more it was found that beyond electricity info. usage, transportation (e.g. flights to overseas camps) was the largest source of emissions, creating 365 tonnes of CO2e. These statistics and many more were taken into account when creating the Action Plan. Our plan seeks to create an environmentally sustainable future for our school while inspiring other schools to join our efforts.
This month’s enviro quiz question
Q: Which country has the highest percentage of forest coverage? A: At an impressive 98.28%, it is Suriname in South America. BACK TO CONTENTS
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Virtual LitFest 2020
Art Show Success
On 28 and 29 August, students took part in our annual celebration of the liberal arts, Litfest. This time of course it took place virtually. That all went off without a hitch was a true testament to the hard work and dedication of students and staff.
This year’s Art Show not only celebrated ten years of exhibitions but also our first entirely virtual event. We are so grateful for the support and enthusiasm of all our Albert Park College Art Show artists and art lovers who made this event such a success. Milly Clark, our Visual Arts Leader, and Isabelle Noble have made a wonderful short video featuring interviews from artists and organizers to celebrate our ten-year milestone. This is available to view on IGTV https://www.instagram.com/albertparkcollege/
The night was kicked off our foundation principal Steve Cook, followed by an acknowledgement of country by Isabella Noble. Year 10 students Meliss Bigay and Aaron Hodge then interviewed Mark Smith, whose young adult novel series about a young boy surviving in a post-pandemic Australia is both timely and enthralling. On Saturday, Lily Sunberg and Danny Britzman interviewed Mununjali poet and author Ellen van Neerven, whose poetry collection Throat was released earlier this year and awarded the Quentin Bryce Award. To conclude the event, Meagan Doyle and James Glenfield interviewed the acclaimed author of The Dressmaker, Rosalie Ham, whose novel is currently being studied by our year-12 English students.
This year we received over 800 entries (a record amount) and from those selected 293 artworks for exhibition. We were especially delighted with the number of students who entered this year. We have always aimed to have 30 percent of the exhibition student work and this year, for the first time, we met that goal. Art sales over the weekend totalled at more than $20,000. A huge thank you to our selection group, our judges and the whole Art Show team for their hard work and dedication. Congratulations to our Award Winners It was not easy for our judges choose our winners but after robust and heartfelt debate, we are pleased to announce: Professional/Hobby Art Awards • Best in Show: Florence Wang, “Self Portrait — No Time Like Now” — mixed media on paper • Curators Choice: Lisa Sewards, “While the City Sleeps” — etched print • Judges Choice: Christine Aspland, “Renata” — oil on canvas • People’s Choice (joint winners): • Julie Ramsden, “Guerrilla Gardner” — mixed media sculpture • Cathy Yarwood-Mahy, “Innocence Lost” — oil on canvas Student Art Awards • Best Student Artwork Show — Lauren Stennett, “Searching” — acrylic on canvas
Overall, the authors provided unique insights into their works and creative processes, and all commented on the maturity and perspicacious questioning of our students. To rewatch the interviews, head to https://albertparkcollege.vic. edu.au/events/litfest/ BACK TO CONTENTS
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Judges Student Choice — Vadim Blanchy, “Kookaburra” — pencil on paper • Curators Choice — Annabelle Sterkenburg, “Dreams” — acrylic on canvas • Student Choice Award — Alyssa Seckinger-Crow, Curators Highly Commended Roxy Diamond, “Ur Biggest Fan” — digital print Judges’ Highly Commended: Vadim Blanchy, “Squeeze the Lemon” — digital print Jitse De Jong, “The Rose” — mixed media on canvas Freeke De Jong, “Film Noir” — photographic print Grateful thanks to all our sponsors We would like to acknowledge the assistance of all our supporters, with special thanks to our GOLD level sponsors. We are very grateful for the support of so many APC families. In addition to our regular supporters, many new families stepped forward to sponsor prizes. We are grateful to all of them. Fundraising with Wine — APC Wine Sales We still have a few cases of our “anniversary wine” available - Paroo Wines’ 2016 Philippa Shiraz at $210 per case. Pick up only from Albert Park College reception (Danks Street). Call 8695 9000 to purchase. “A classic example of a cool climate Shiraz with light peppery notes overlaying lovely red fruit characters blending very nicely new French Oak, delicate tannins and mouth lingering fruitful acidity…Enjoy” Together Apart We are delighted to once again celebrate the extraordinary creativity of our community. We very much look forward to next year’s exhibition knowing that, whatever the circumstances, the power of art to surprise and delight remains.
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Sewing for a cause
Little Aths Looking For Members
Earlier this term, Mia Rees from 7J reached out to her local council in a bid to help the community. Mia and her younger brother Sasha had come up with a wonderful idea to make homemade adult and children’s face masks when the second lockdown started in Victoria. Sewing machine, fabrics and accessories were ready to go. They started from scratch, learning from online tutorials. After many practices runs and failures, they succeeded in making about 30 face masks – 20 adult sizes and 10 children’s sizes.
With the schools back in Victoria and the COVID 19 numbers lowering, it will soon be possible for children to participate in community sports.
These masks have been donated to the Southport Community Centre and have been incorporated and distributed within their food and hygiene parcels to people in need in the community.
South Melbourne Little Athletics is going ahead in season 20/21 and we are looking to increase kids’ participation and grow and diversify the participants. We hope to start again in early November and would ask potential members to follow us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/SMDLAC and look on our website http://www.smdlac.org.au for more information on how to register. Kids can come and try for free in the first few weeks and we are offering a 15% discount to returning members (on the LAVic $82 fee component).
Well done to Mia and Sasha on their contribution to the community.
20/21 season going ahead!
SOUTH MELBOURNE DISTRICT LITTLE ATHLETICS CENTRE Run, Jump, Throw! Ages: 5 -15 years When: Sunday mornings 8.45am - 11.15am Where: Lakeside Stadium, Albert Park Registrations open soon!
www.smdlac.org.au
For more information email:
enquiries@smdlac.org.au Come & try for free! Simply register your details but don’t pay for the first session.
@smdlac @sthmelblittleaths
IN FUN AND FITNESS - SEE YOU AT THE TRACK!
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NEWS
EXTRAORDINARY STUDENTS
Edition 8 – October 2020
LEADERSHIP IN A COVID YEAR
Oscar — School Captain Responding to the pandemic didn’t cause us to stray from our original objectives. We After their wonderful efforts in keeping their fellow had four main areas of focus: expanding students engaged and looking after their wellbeing student voice, increasing school pride this year, we asked our outgoing and incoming and engagement, celebrating diversity, captains and vice-captains to review the year and and promoting sustainability. The 2020 outline their hopes for the next. Here were their trainwreck only increased our resolve to replies. achieve progress in these areas. With the help of countless committed students and The Class Of 2020 staff members – and with the support of School Council and the Principal team – Eloisa — School Captain I’m proud to say that progress was indeed In November 2019, we met for dinner as a leadership achieved. We’ve developed a Sustainability team and discussed with excitement, hope and Vision Statement and an Action Plan, with ambition our collective vision for APC in 2020. an eye on carbon neutrality in the (very) Knowing the weight that the role of College Captain near future. We’ve developed plans for carried, the most important aspect of our discussion a student conference and an interschool was our purpose. We dived deep and asked what we sports festival, with an eye on hitting the wanted to achieve and why, exactly, we applied for post-COVID ground running. We’ve begun our leadership positions in the first place. As cheesy bringing together passionate students, and simplistic as it sounds, for us, making meaningful staff and community members to figure and tangible change both in and out of the college out how APC can lead the way on First has always been, and will continue to be, that purpose. Nations Justice. Maybe our efforts to Despite all of the trials and tribulations of 2020, combat climate change and racial injustice unsuccessful plans and cancelled events, we are all so are just signs of teenage hubris, but I feel extremely proud of the fact that we persevered with proud of the steps we’ve taken in these that constant desire for change, and achieved our areas – as miniscule as they may be in the vision in both small and large ways. scheme of things. In fact, the one thing I reckon we would do differently if we had our time again would be to set our sights higher. Stuff modesty and pragmatism, what’s wrong with setting out to change the world?
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Lily — School Vice Captain Being in leadership this year has been exciting, challenging and, at times, just a little terrifying; but overall it proved a more rewarding experience than I think any of us could have imagined. If this year has taught us anything, it is that in the face of adversity and trying times, it is people that shine through, and that true progress and adaptation has its heart in team work. While, yes, teamwork definitely has looked a little different this year (thank you Google Meet!) and the people in question are sometimes pixelated and intermittently frozen (I blame my wifi for that one!), collaboration has been integral to every idea and project, and we have had the absolute privilege of working alongside each other, and many members of the college community and beyond. The SRC and all the student leaders we have worked with have shown incredible tenacity and innovation in the face of great challenges. Mr Pobjoy and Ms Lambert, who do an outstanding job of running student voice and student leadership, have been so generous with their time and dedication to us and every goal we have had. And to the college community in general, from students, to teachers, to the principal team, and all other staff, it would be an understatement to say that getting through this year and achieving anything has been a group effort. So, thank you so much for having us as your captain team this year, and for working alongside us every step of the way. We’re so excited to see where the college will go from here and we know that it is in great hands with the 2021 captains.
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Edition 8 – October 2020
Olivia — School Vice Captain In the face of a pandemic, we had to modify our original plans to maintain and strengthen the bonds of APC. We knew that the time spent in isolation was going to be tough for everybody, so we saw the need to keep connected – in online ways. We created ‘The Huddle’, a weekly newsletter to provide recommendations for lockdown activities and establish a place of support and positivity. We also worked with the amazing SRC team to produce content for the APC instagram account, beginning a new student communications program for the future. Ultimately, ‘virtual captaincy’ taught us some of the most fundamental foundations of leadership: responding to unforeseen situations, adaptation and resilience.
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NEWS
EXTRAORDINARY STUDENTS
Edition 8 – October 2020
The Class Of 2021
Melisand Box, Vice Captain In my last year at APC I hope to lead Bonnie Sheppard, School Captain students to achieve lasting change that To me, leadership comes from understanding and improves the college for all. I believe I empathy, especially from the acknowledgement that can provide impetus for change for the every person you interact with has a unique lived better and continue to help the school experience which you will never truly understand. This means two things – one is that you should always grow within itself and the community. I have been inspired by past captains who show empathy towards others. As a leader for the were not only all great leaders of the school, I want to ensure that I am always considering school but also genuine people with the the diversity of experiences among our school community, particularly when contributing to decisions common goal of implementing change or initiatives. The second thing is that there is so much to improve school life. I look forward to mentoring and facilitating other student beauty in this individuality; it is exactly what brings leaders in the SRC as well as acting as a new ideas and perspectives to the table. As such, it is something I absolutely want to celebrate and utilise for liaison between the student body and the principal team. Specifically, I wish to focus the betterment and growth of our school. on student mental health and wellbeing through improving pride and engagement Ben Collis, School Captain I want Albert Park College to be a place that supports — while remaining passionate about the environment and all other areas of the students in and beyond their education. I believe college. I am honoured to be a part of a that student voice and acceptance of difference is fantastic team of student leaders and I look very important – which is why I want to develop forward to what 2021 can bring. an inclusive and passionate culture within the APC community. We should all be proud of who we are and how we have supported each other throughout our six years at APC. It will be an honour to be your captain in 2021 and I am excited by what lies ahead.
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Edition 8 – October 2020
Hunter Seabrook, Vice Captain One of my goals for 2021 is to build on the existing efforts and commitment of the college by acknowledging the Boon Wurrung People of the Kulin Nation. I wish to strengthen the ties between the college and the Boon Wurrung People by working with representatives of the local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community to see how we can best acknowledge their history and traditions in meaningful ways. We could recognise their culture through the Positive Education Curriculum. However, this would need to be sensitively done, not to appear tokenistic. Being able to make a meaningful change in the school really motivates me: as well as being able to work alongside all year levels to make sure APC can be a place where we all feel safe and included.
Response from the college Mr Pobjoy: Assistant Principal, Student Voice In this somewhat difficult school year our school captains have shown the way in establishing a strong sense of vision, purpose and student voice. Their leadership and work ethic has resulted in a range of foci being explored and developed in the areas of sustainability, diversity, school spirit and pride and student voice. They have supported our student cohort through the development of a range of communication tools – most notably The Huddle and APCTV. They have modelled and displayed leadership, collaboration, empathy and creativity at all times. It has been an amazing year of dedication and work achieved by all. Their determination in connecting with others, giving voice and pursuing student led outcomes has been beyond approach. Oscar, Eloisa, Olivia and Lily, it has been a truly exciting and fruitful year, and you are congratulated on your outstanding leadership of the school in 2020. The college warmly welcomes our 2021 Captains and Vice Captains Bonnie, Ben, Melisand and Hunter.
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Eliza Lambert: Student Leadership Coordinator As the Student Leadership Coordinator it has been my pleasure to work with the APC Student Leaders throughout an extraordinary, unimaginable year. The growth I have witnessed in these students, as they persisted through the remote and flexible learning period, is nothing short of outstanding. The college captaincy team, composed of four very impressive young people, never missed a beat. They were flexible and consistently hardworking and creative in their approach to leading our school through this strange year. I’d like to thank them for such a magnificent contribution to our school. I look forward to working with the new college captains in 2021! Let’s make 2021 a sensational year for our school!
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