Secondary Years, Tarneit

Integrity: Doing the Right Thing... Even When No One is Watching

I love that one of our core college values is integrity. In a world that seems to lack integrity at times, I'm pleased that as a college we try to teach and impart to our students what it means to act with integrity.

An internet search will provide you with many words and explanations of integrity - honesty, principled, trustworthiness, unity, wholeness, solidarity, soundness, strength and solidness. But I like this simple definition: "doing the right thing in a reliable way".

As a community, we are only as strong as our weakest link. When we pull together and uphold our values in a unified manner we increase our strength. This can only occur when everyone "does the right thing". At times I'm sure the students feel that teachers impose rules for the sake of it, but our rules exist to ensure we have a moral and ethical community where every person feels safe. Unfortunately, when integrity does not exist, we have dishonesty, division and fragility. Therefore, adherence to school rules is indicative of our moral compass (our integrity) and our willingness to live and act in a unified way so that our community can be strong, robust and stable.

In the Secondary Years, there have been a number of incidences where some people have not acted with the integrity that reflects the values and ethics of the college. Sadly, this has resulted in the theft of personal property. All secondary students have been reminded numerous times to:

• sign in and out of the college through the Front Office (when arriving late or departing early) so that we can ensure their safety and know their whereabouts
• lock their lockers to ensure that their property is safe (replacement locks available from Front Office)
• park their bikes next to the Music building and place a lock on their bike (to ensure the security of personal property)

While theft of property is not condoned, neither is complacency and carelessness. I encourage all students to ensure they are "doing the right thing" to ensure we have a strong, solid and unified community.

Ms Joanne Wegener

Head of Secondary

Winter Warmers Non-Uniform Day

Pull out your winter woollies for our non-uniform day on Thursday 30 May!

Students and staff are invited to show off your beanies, scarves, winter gloves and woolly socks.

Please bring a gold coin donation AND/OR a clothing donation to support homelessness in our local area.

Items that can be donated: beanies, scarves, winter gloves, warm socks (new items only - not used).

We are accepting donations all of Week 7 up until Recess on Friday. 

Donation boxes will be located in:

• Front Office
• Mambourin Office
• Chapel Foyer
• SY Library
• PY Library

Ms Joanne Wegener

Head of Secondary

SLCs Biggest Morning Tea

This year the Student Led Council will be hosting Australia's Biggest Morning Tea in an effort to raise funds to support cancer research.

During Week 8, the SLC team, with the help of other student leaders, will be providing pancakes and hot milo after each of the Primary and Secondary Chapel services on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday of the week. Students will be able to purchase these items at a cost of $1 each. All proceeds from the morning tea will go towards cancer research.

Members of the community can make an online donation by clicking here. 

Thanks for your support of this SLC initiative.

Elevate Education - Free Parent Webinar Series

Since the start of the year, students in Years 10 -12 have been engaged in a series of study skills workshops which are aimed at motivating, supporting and encouraging students to develop effective study habits. The company that provides these workshops to our students also run a series of parent webinars each term. 

This term the following webinars are on offer:

Wednesday 8 May - How to get (and keep!) your child motivated!

Wednesday 22 May - Help your child prepare for exams

Wednesday 5 June - Help support your child during exams

Wednesday 19 June - Ask me anything

All seminars start at 6.30 pm. 

Parents can register for these webinars via the link below:

Wyndham Youth Civic Participation Project

I've often spoken about the importance of growing the whole student, which means engaging in learning outside of the traditional school environment. The Wyndham area often has many wonderful opportunities for the youth of this area to engage in community projects and civic learning. One such activity is the Wyndham Youth Civic Participation Project. 

If you are a Secondary school Legal Studies or Business Management student, you may be interested in this project. The project (aimed at 18-25 year olds) is for Wyndham’s aspiring lawyers, policymakers and community leaders who would like to see behind the curtain of Local, State and Federal politics and government. Participants will have to opportunity to speak with Councillors, senior public servants, and council staff members, about their responsibilities in government. Along with completing the program with like-minded young people, participants will visit Wyndham City Council, spend a day at Parliament House Victoria and travel to Canberra for a 4-day tour, visiting Parliament House, Museum of Australian Democracy, High Court of Australia, and the Australian War Museum. The program is delivered from July until September.

Applications are now open and will close 11 June 2024. Limited spots are available.

Integrity & Art

Anyone who knows Justin Zhang from Year 10, knows that he loves to draw! Justin has been busy following his passion for creating comical characters for the game Friday Night Funkin'… better known as 'fnf' for short. Check out the attached pdf which shows Justin's artistic vision which comes from his life - his thoughts, and his courage to follow through and commit to a fun group collaboration. Justin has added in a surprise link to a speedpaint of how he creates sprites for games. The link he has included is from Vs Tankfish, (soon to be rebranded as Funkin' with Tankfish).

Read more about his art here:

By Justin Zhang - 10B

Ms Annabella Helmer

Teacher

Subject & Pathways Expo

A must-attend event for current Secondary Year students (Year 7-12)

• 6pm-8pm, Thursday 20 June 2024
• Secondary Years Building

Subject & Pathways Expo is an opportunity for all Secondary Year students to gain more information on career pathways and subject selection. This is a great chance to speak with exhibitors from a range of future pathways organisations and gather subject information from Good News Lutheran College staff.

Please see the attachment for more information:

Year 10 Humanities Excursion 

During Week 4, Year 10 students went on a field trip for the Geography unit in Humanities. The first site we visited was Riverbend Park. It was a lovely clear day, which allowed three classes of students to sketch and survey the Diversion Weir, take a water sample from the river, conduct an experiment to measure the flow of the water and measure the turbidity of the river. On Friday, the other two classes explored Chirnside Park. Following the rain the night before, this area of water was popular with ducks and other water birds. Measuring the flow of the water under the Werribee Street Bridge was more eventful as the water rushes over the rocks and vegetation. Again, our water sample showed clarity of the river, with little debris in the sample and not much smell. This was a good chance to observe the river and collect data on human activity, and changes to the local land uses and evaluate the management strategies in place to protect wildlife and river health. Being outdoors to explore field sites is an important part of the senior Geography curriculum.

Ms Brooke Peters

Teacher

Wynspeak at GNLC

​On Tuesday 7 May, GNLC hosted Heat 2 of Wynspeak, a local public speaking competition. Wynspeak is a youth public speaking competition aimed at secondary school students in the Western Suburbs of Melbourne. Established by the Rotary and Apex clubs of Hoppers Crossing in 2003, this competition has grown to involve over 40 local schools. Wynspeak offers students a platform to develop and demonstrate their public speaking skills, enhancing their self-confidence and creativity and GNLC has a proud history of involvement in this worthwhile activity.

Those in attendance on the evening were privileged to hear some powerful speeches. We were represented by Year 12 students Inara Faheem and Anisha Anand in the Senior Division (Year 10 – 12), with Ananya Sriperumbuduri and Chakra Challa representing the College in the Junior Division (Year 7 – 9). Anisha’s speech on stepping out of your comfort zone won the heat and she will be proceeding to the Wynspeak final on Friday 7 June, held at Thomas Carr College. We congratulate all our speakers for their efforts on the evening and extend special recognition to Anisha Anand for her victory in the heat. We look forward to supporting her at the Wynspeak final. 

Mrs Tracy Williams & Andrew Cathcart