Teaching & Learning

Monash Art and Photography Competition Honourable Mentions

Congratulations to Shae Dusic our Year 7 Art Scholarship recipient and Year 12 student Maple La  who has been selected as an Honorable Mention for her submission to the Monash Art and Photography Competition. 

Shae and Maple's work will be shared on the Monash Youth Services social media pages and the Quiksound Productions Facebook page. How wonderful! 

Both students have the possibility to be awarded for the Audience Choice Award. We encourage our community members to vote for either student by emailing: yrcr@monash.vic.gov.au with your favourite artwork and your contact information. 

Shrub planting with the Sustainability club 

Students in the sustainability club got their hands dirty planting a variety of shrubs and grasses during our first meeting of term 2. All species are indigenous to the Clayton/Oakleigh area, meaning they grow naturally in this environment. They will attract native birds and animals and perform an important role in enriching the diversity of plant life at SOC. 

Planting trees and shrubs is important, not only to make our school more beautiful but also as a way of reducing the damaging effects of climate change. Further plantings are planned for later in the term.  

Meetings of the sustainability club are on Friday, 1.15, in A2. Everyone is welcome, and please feel free to join us with our next planting. 

Alison Jones

Sustainability Club Facilitator 

“Chess club” is finally up and running with its internal and external competitions again!

On a daily basis at SOC, many avid Chess players play & train in the library at lunchtime, and every Friday during “Chess Club” they get to practice their strategies and tactics in order to improve their skills and perform better under stricter timed conditions. 

 Last term, we participated in an exciting online tournament amongst 130 different Victorian schools, Primary, secondary, public & private, gaining a plethora of knowledge on how to compete and review our games successfully. 

Once well-informed, skilled and experienced we were prepared for our first external competition at Brighton Grammar School, amongst many eager and enthusiastic players. Zaynab, Brian, Sanchit and our youngest Captain Aditya did their very best to represent our school, winning quite a few rounds, drawing, but also losing. 

Congratulations to them & all our other chess players for their amazing effort and performance.

We are now all looking forward to our upcoming tournaments at Scotch College, PLC & Balwyn High!

Nancy Bastakos 

Library Manager

Murray and Drama at South Oakleigh College

Hello again from Murray and Ms Jeffries, the certified visiting therapy dog team. This term year 7 Drama classes started to explore puppetry and develop a comedy performance using Puppets. Murray has really enjoyed participating in these lessons, getting to meet the puppets, and learning about their new characters and stories. Year 7 students are excelling at engaging with the puppets and bringing their puppet stories to life.

Murray has also enjoyed watching rehearsals for our upcoming school musical Matilda Junior on Wednesday evenings and helps encourage the cast to perform and sing with enthusiasm and energy. 

Atlanta Jeffries & Murray Jeffries

Classroom Teacher & Certified Therapy Dog

Debating News

Year 9-11 Debating Club

Our Year 9-11 Debating Club meets every Wednesday, at lunchtime, in C6. 23 members regularly attend meetings.

Our meetings start with a casual, friendly debate about a current topic. We then split into our debating competition teams and start preparing for the competition.

Shoutout to our Debating Club members who do not compete, but still come along and debate and help our teams prepare! Alexi H., Claudia M., Gus W., JJ S., Julia C., Mollie P., Olivia C., Phoebe D., Roma B., Tom S. 

Debating Training

Last Thursday, Xingy, from the Debater's Association of Victoria, came to school and trained our debating team on preparing cases.

She helped them break down the topics for round 3, taught them how to predict secret topics by keeping up to date with current issues, and how to gather evidence. 

The students found the session very helpful. Charli, Elsie and Sophia (Year 11) had a good time collating information on current issues.

Anna and Isavella (Year 9) broke down their topic, “That the government should employ state artists (E.g. Poet Laureate)” and planned out their arguments.

Kudos to Curtis (Year 10) for coming along and helping the year nines, demonstrating our SOC value of teamwork.

Debating Competition Team

On the nights of the competitions, our students travel to Wesley College in Glen Waverley to debate against 15 other schools in the region (randomly selected, until Round 5, which is paired based on rankings). 

Below is a summary of the two competition rounds we have participated in this year, so far:

Round 1 Summary (March) -

SOC Year 11 Team vs. The Knox School (loss by 5 points)

Topic: Artists should be held legally accountable for deaths and injuries that occur at their concerts. We were on the affirmative side.

SOC Year 10 Team vs. John Monash Science School (loss by 6 points)

Topic: We should boycott major sporting events held in countries with poor human rights records. We were on the affirmative side.

SOC Year 9 Team vs. Heritage College (loss by 5 points)

Topic: That sporting bodies should not accept sponsorship from gambling companies. We were on the affirmative side.

Students debated well, but needed to improve their manner (body language, voice, delivery, etc.), which can only be improved by practice. The teams demonstrated great resilience in their loss, finding out how they can improve. 

Round 2 Summary (April) -

SOC Year 11 Team vs. Westall Secondary College (loss by 1 point)

Topic: NOT only citizens and permanent residents should be able to own property in Australia. We were on the negative side.

SOC Year 10 Team vs. Huntingtower School (loss by 6 points)

Topic: Parliamentarians should be allowed to hold citizenship other than Australian citizenship. We were on the negative side.

SOC Year 9 Team vs. Oakleigh Grammar (loss by 1 point)

Topic: We should not abolish the Australian citizenship test. We were on the negative side.

All students demonstrated great improvement, especially in manner, and the year 11 and 9 teams were so close to winning!

We wish our teams luck for round 3!

Year 7-8 Debating

The Year 7 and 8 Debating Club is now up and running, led by Ms Matheson. We meet on Tuesdays at lunchtime in C6. 

Keep an eye on Compass for the link to sign-up for the Debater’s Association of Victoria’s Junior Secondary Program!

Round 3 Summary

This Thursday night, our Year 9-11 Debating Teams participated in Round 3 of the Interschool Debating Competition.

Our Year 9 Team: Anna Alexopoulou, Isavella Dimopoulos and Thomas McRae debated against Brentwood College that "The government should not employ state artists (e.g. a Poet Laureate)". Our Year 9s debated really well and lost by only one point. Best speaker of the night went to Thomas McRae.

Our Year 10 and 11 Teams had a "secret topic", which meant that we had to arrive at the venue an hour earlier than usual. Technology was removed from all of the students and they were given an hour to prepare for the topics, which were announced to the teams at 6PM. 

Our Year 11 Team won their debate against Mazenod College, that politicians should not have to speak at least 2-3 languages fluently. Well done to A.J. Mariona, Charli Donaldson and Elsie Shaddick. Best speaker of the debate went to A.J.!

Our Year 10 Team won their debate against Oakleigh Grammar, that the sale of Tobacco products should not be banned for those born after 2008. Well done to Curtis Du Buisson Fraser, Ana Donnellon and Eli Storey, the latter two are in Year 9, but challenged themselves to debating at a Year 10 level!

Sarah Crespo-Liu

Debating Facilitator 

Victorian Schools Parliamentary Convention

​This Wednesday, three of our year nines: Ana Donnellon, Eli Storey and Mila Peresada travelled to Parliament House in Melbourne for the annual Victorian Schools Parliamentary convention.

The year 9 students had been meeting with Ms Marlborough every week for a few weeks before the convention, to go through pre-reading and to unpack the topic of debate (the bill): 'Should the Victorian Government retain judge alone trials for indictable offences post-COVID?'

Upon arriving at Parliament House, the students got to sit in the Queen's Hall and meet the students from the other 15 schools in attendance.

Students were then directed to the Legislative Assembly Chambers and took their seats. Coincidentally, our students sat where our local MP, Steve Dimopoulos, usually sits in parliament!

One student from each school gave an opening statement, our nominated student was Ana Donnellon. She gave her opening statement very passionately. You can read the statement below:

Hello fellow students, we are South Oakleigh College and our team believes that if we can have a jury, we should have a jury. I believe, most substantially, that the law represents our people. Our people have always been on the jury seats, working hard to protect our country. Without a jury, we stray from our original Magna Carta, trial by jury, and we stray from the prospect of law. The rules that we have developed to make our streets safe places benefit the citizen. The normal people around us, you and me. After years of doting over these laws, making sure they benefit us, sitting in these courtrooms, ruling our decisions on what we think is fair; we are expected to leave it up to a single judge? After we've spent years representing our courts, just to say we aren't needed anymore? Even with the backlog, covid shouldn't stop the community from having a fair say in our laws, because our laws are for the people! Even with the cases piling up, it's important to have a jury, so we can still say that our law is written and passed by our people. Like voting on laws, our citizens passing laws proves the strength in our bills, but most importantly, in our community. Law represents the people first and foremost. That is the law's job and it's something society has been striving for since the ancient Greeks. A trial by the people, the people that lawyers and judges are working to protect. Our citizens sit on these seats to pass their thoughts to make society fair because they believe in the laws they’ve worked so hard to protect. So if law represents us, then why shouldn't we, the citizen, represent law?

The students got to listen to two keynote speakers: Jacqui Horan, from the law faculty of Monash University and Dr Felicity Gerry, professor of legal practice at Deakin University. Dr Gerry was a well-known barrister who dealt with terrorism cases in Melbourne. 

The students particularly enjoyed Jacqui Horan's session, as they replicated what would happen in a court (standing orders) and the picking of the jury. Mila was in the pool to be a jury member but was challenged because her "occupation" was teaching. Lawyers often object to teachers and nurses being on a jury, because they are perceived to be "bossy"! The keynote speakers both gave context and evidence for the day's topic.

Students were put in discussion groups of about 5-6 students with students from other schools and discussed their views on the topic, then came back to the Chambers and shared where their groups had landed on the decision.

They then had a "soapbox" session, where individuals could voice their concerns and rebuttals. Eli said that they especially enjoyed this part, because it was "like an actual debate", and Mila agreed.

At the end of the day, the students ruled in favour of keeping trials with juries for indictable offences, voting not to pass the law.

There was an official closing address by David Hodgett, the Shadow Minister for Education, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood and Children and Shadow Minister for Higher Education, Training and Skills. Students were able to ask him anything they wanted, and he had a personal conversation with just our school at the end! Ana discussed the voice of children in law-making processes, as they affect them too.

Overall, it was a jam-packed day of critical thinking and discussions!

Sarah Crespo-Liu

House Leader: Banksia 

Year 9 English Team

This term, we have been deeply analysing the novel "The Giver".

The novel is set in a dystopian community, where everything seems perfect, but citizens have no free will and everything is the same. The students have been reflecting on their own freedom and choices.

Unlike people in our society, people in Jonas' community have life partners and family units selected for them, and their careers are also selected for them when they turn 12.

Olivia Calder, Year 9, has written an alternate ending for the story below:

'Suddenly he was aware with certainty and joy that below, ahead, they

were waiting for him; and that they were waiting, too, for the

baby. For the first time, he heard something that he knew to

be music. He heard people singing.'

The whistling cold swept over their faces, burying them in sharp white as the hills rolled on and up, swirling like the rapidly fading memories. Jonas laughed, or thought he laughed, pure happiness beaming across his face as the sled seemed to slow. Gabe stilled and the world seemed calm for the first time since he left the community. As the movements around him halted, his mind filled with colours, the memories he'd been given, and the ones he'd made himself. Tremendous, it rose into a brilliant symphony, his final breaths sending steam curling through the air.

'Behind him, across vast distances of space and time, from

the place he had left, he thought he heard music too. But

perhaps it was only an echo.'

Sarah Crespo-Liu

House Leader: Banksia 

Role – Play in Language Teaching

Role-playing is an ideal technique to teach language because it prepares learners for the unpredictable nature of real-life communication, teaches appropriate language use, and increases students’ self-confidence. It encourages thinking and creativity, helps students develop and practice new language and behavioural skills and can create the motivation and involvement necessary for learning to occur. Role – play is the most interesting way for students to show how they master the language, their creativity. 

Year 7 students studying the Greek language enjoyed acting out their roles in “Introducing themselves to a new friend” in the TV Studio.

Dimitra Maniatis

LOTE: Heading of Learning