International Students
International Student
Buddy Program
In July 2022 we welcomed 4 new International Students starting their brand-new life here in Melbourne! They are from Hong Kong and Cambodia. The International Student Program paired them up with local and international buddies to help them adjust to DSC life smoothly. Principal team Glenn, Belinda, and Gina also showed their warm welcome to these students.
Who are your buddies, please tell us more about your buddies?
I have 3 buddies for the Orientation day. First, Rana, who loves rap music, and romantic and action movies, is really helpful. Her hobbies are reading and watching movies. This week, she walk around campus with me and introduce our classrooms to me. Second, Suki is friendly. She provides me with a lot of information and tips on my first day. Third, Che is nice who shares me Australian culture. I believe I can adapt to the changes and enjoy my new school life through their help.
Venus FUNG, 10G
Cynthia, Candy and Christabelle are my buddies. They are very friendly and supportive. We shared information about our home countries’ culture and lifestyles, as well as our hobbies and interests, which helped us get along really quick. They assisted me by guiding me to every one of my classes on my first week and providing helpful information about the school and their learning experiences.
Lisa CHEA, 9G
How was your first week so far, did you get help and assistance from your buddies, the international student team, and your subject teachers?
I got a lot of support from buddies, the international student team, and my subject teacher. They are all very friendly and helpful. Whenever I have a problem, they got my back and help me to solve the problem. It’s my honor to receive a lot of care in this school. I also met some new friends who are also from Hong Kong, with a similar background, they shared with me the tips to adapt to changes. Overall I feel welcomed by the people here and look forward to my new school life.
Venus FUNG - 10G
My first week went really well thanks to the help and support from my parents, homestay, teachers, friends and the international student team. I am still adapting to the new learning techniques and the classrooms atmosphere. I love how my subject teachers follow up on me to make sure I understand the lesson well. Despite all the positive aspects, the classroom I am attending is a sometimes noisy which disrupts me from focusing.
My homestay provides a very safe and healthy living environment and makes me feel comfortable living with them. They supported me by preparing healthy foods every day, providing enough facilities to use at home and they are always there for me whenever I needed help.
I also received a lot of assistance from my buddies. They carefully helped me with getting to class, using my locker, knowing how to use compass, checking timetables etc. I am very satisfied with their help, I hope to become a good buddy and support other newly arrived international student in the future as well.
There were also help and assistance from the international student team and subject teachers as well. Ms. Huang and her assistant has worked hard to sort out classes and have my student information set up. They would always make sure I am comfortable with the school environment and feel welcomed to school.
Lisa CHEA- 09G
How did you help your buddy in their first week of DSC life?
My buddy is Lisa, she’s from Cambodia and she’s starting year 9 this year. She’s a fluent English speaker and a overall pretty nice and funny person to be around.
I helped Lisa by showing her around the school to her classes, I’ve also eaten lunch with her and helped her get familiar with the school.
Cynthia Lau, 9F
Global Exposure to Sports
Tuesday 12th July lunchtime, the International Student Forum Representatives organised another successful event to get our teachers and students to try out some well-known traditional sports around the world. These include badminton, palla, shuttlecock kicking, four square and more. they also recruited some friendly instructors to guide students of how to do it!
Thank you message from our student representatives
First of all, we would like to say thank you to all the teachers who have provided us with their continuous support and assistance throughout this whole journey. Our final activity “Global Exposure to Sports” on Tuesday 12th July was spectacular, with the whole stadium filled with students, teachers and surprisingly with a crowd of spectators as well.
We believe that our initiative has not only promoted multiculturalism within the community but also encouraged students to feel comfortable with their peers and teachers through events like these. This helped them create new friendships and potentially discover their own agency too.
We hope that our actions have elicited the concept, that as long as you have the voice, Doncaster Secondary College WILL LISTEN. We are incredibly grateful for all the support we have received to achieve our goals and cannot wait to share DSC’s accomplishments to the wider community.
--Berry Eain, Jenny Le, Che Cai and Nathan Cheung
Multicultural Free Dress Day
International students at DSC have been actively participating in language week activities including Multicultural Free Dress Day. Here is the reflection of some students’ experience.
For the Multicultural Free Dress Day, what traditional costume did you wear? What does this traditional costume represent?
For the Multicultural Free Dress Day, I wore Krama ក្រមា as a representative of my traditional costume. Krama is one of Cambodian’s garments which traditionally comes in red or blue. It is a checkered scarf which is used for many purposes such as covering our faces from the hot sun, infant’s hammocks, towels, belts and many more. Most Cambodian young adults use Krama for styling purposes such as wrapping it around their necks as a scarf or tie it around their bellies. Krama had been used in Cambodia for many centuries and is Cambodia’s symbolism.
At language week, what other activities did you participate in/what type of food did you try? what did you enjoy the most?
At language week, I tried out French Crêpes and Chinese Bubble Milk Tea. What I enjoyed most about language week is doing fun activities in Mandarin class. The activities were focused on improving teamwork and resilience among the students.
- Lisa CHEA, 9G
For the multicultural free dress day, I wore a Nigerian Igbo Wrapper. A wrapper is a piece of clothing that is worn around the waist. It is worn on special occasions and formal outings but is mostly seen on the bride in a wedding. The wrapper symbolizes what ethic group the wearer is from as the different ethnic groups in the country wears the wrapper differently.
- Christabel Onwumere, 9A
International Student Voice Forum -Presentation Day
Our International Student Voice Forum representatives Berry Eain, Jenny Le, Che Cai and Nathan CHEUNG attended the final part of this project. They successfully showcased the activities that promoted multiculturalism within the DSC community. Their presentation clearly demonstrated how these activities brought local students, international students, teachers and the school leadership team together to celebrate our diversified culture and to listen to the student’s voice and act on it.
As a team, Berry, Jenny, Che and Nathan have delivered a fantastic presentation and we are extremely proud of their achievements!
Global Youth Dialogue
at the 2022 Global Learning and Engagement Symposium
The Department, in partnership with the Asia Education Foundation (AEF), will be coordinating a student voice panel called the Global Youth Dialogue at the 2022 Global Learning and Engagement Symposium.
The dialogue, comprised of a diverse group of students from years 5 to 12, will offer insights at the symposium to principals and leading teachers on the topic of global citizenship, answering the statement ‘it is easier to be a global student now than it was 20 years ago. The panel session will be followed by student participation in the collaborative workshop session “Activating Student Voice Across Cultures”.
Students will be mentored and coached to confidently provide their thoughts on the topic by the department and AEF over a series of sessions prior to the symposium. AEF will be using a variety of high impact teaching strategies, design thinking and visible thinking routines to support students to collaboratively discuss, explore and make visible their thinking around the statement.
Our school has been selected as one of the 6 government schools to provide our students talent to this dialogue. DSC’s student representative Lisa CHEA and Harry BUI are required to attend four preparation sessions before participating in Live Student Panel at this Symposium.
This global youth symposium allows students to embrace their abilities of identifying issues around them and deeply think about globalization. It also expands students’ knowledge about real life situations.
I am very pleased to be given the opportunity to attend this global learning symposium. It has embraced me to become more comfortable with interacting with many other people and sharing my own thoughts. It was a great chance to start adapting myself to participating in a discussion with people from different places and develop my socializing skill as well. As a person who is new to Australia, it is one of the best ways to get familiarized with the country and to learn more about Australia.
- Lisa CHEA, 9G
International Student Club Program
Despite the chill and wet weather recently, our newly arrived international students have shown their confidence, positivity and excitement to start their life in our school. We extend a warm welcome. Our international team has launched the International Student Club Program for them to adapt to our school life smoothly.
On Thursday 14th July after school, the international student club held a session where we had many positive discussions about the bell times, term dates, the school’s purpose and values, rules, and expectations. In this session we helped them gain a better understanding of our school. We wish our newly arrived international students have many positive experiences in our school.
Ms Ning Hong
International Student Program Assistant
Christabel’s new hobby at DSC
Our international students enjoy a variety of curriculum choices at Doncaster Secondary College and Christabel ONWUMERE is one of them!
My Duke of Edinburgh is an award program as well as a Myself subject at school. It has four categories: skills, physical recreation, voluntary service, and adventurous journey. For the skills category I chose crochet, a hobby I am passionate about, and I work with Ms Chiappa for a few days every week during lunch with the goal of making a granny square crochet blanket.
Christabel ONWUMERE, 9A
Well done Christabel and we look forward to seeing the final product!
Education Agent
Revisit-08-2022
Mr. Glenn Morris, Mrs. Belinda McGee, Ms. Sally HUANG welcomed education agents from Set Education Melbourne Office to revisit DSC with their warm hospitality.
DSC is taking initiatives to build and reinforce beneficial relationship with education agents in order to grow and lift our International Student Program. During the presentation and school tour, we showcased the international student achievement at Doncaster Secondary College, the unique program we offer, the beautiful school campus and facilities, as well as comprehensive school curriculum.
DSC looks forward to continuing our mutually beneficial relationship with these education agents in the short and long term.
Virtual School Familiarisation Tours
Online marketing event
Glenn Morris and I attended the Virtual School Familiarisation Tours organized by the Department of Education. This event served as a powerful promotional tool and marketing resource for our education agents, prospective international students and parents. On a global stage we showcased the great International Student Program DSC offers to overseas students. Harry Bui, the International Student Ambassador of the Year, participated in this event as DSC’s alumni. Berry Eain also attended this online marketing occasion.
I want to congratulate Glenn for his outstanding presentation of our school on this platform. His passion and care for international students and his great vision for the international student program will no doubt bring many more benefits to our school community.
A big shout out to Lisa Fairweather for her tireless behind the scenes effort. Many thanks also go to Howin, our IT Guru, his technical support certainly kept this online event running seamlessly.
I am very proud to share with you the video link below which showcased Doncaster Secondary College:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKN_HXzvfKg
Victorian Global Learning Awards
As mentioned in our last College Newsletter, Doncaster Secondary College was very successful at this year's Victorian Global Learning Awards (VGLA), achieving the following awards.
- Homestay Family of the Year Commendation Award - Alvin Tan
- Year 12 Global Citizenship Award: Tien Hieu (Harry) Bui
- International Student of the Year – Ambassador Award: Tien Hieu (Harry) Bui
We are proud to share their videos with you:
Year 12 Global Citizenship Award: Tien Hieu (Harry) Bui
International Student of the Year – Ambassador Award: Tien Hieu (Harry) Bui
Homestay Family of the Year Commendation Award - Alvin Tan
Sally HUANG
Director of International Student Program
Doncaster Secondary College
Phone: 9848 4677