9-12 Community News

It has been a time of great sadness within the St Augustine’s Community with the passing of Year 10 student, Benny Smith, and his brother, Luke, a former St Augustine’s student. All members of the 9-12 Community offer our heartfelt condolences to the Smith family: Ryan, Olivia, Leonie and AJ.

Vale, Benny and Luke.

While there has been sadness, there have also been many reasons for celebration amongst the students in the 9-12 Community in the past two weeks.

Last week saw the end of the exams for the Year 12 students. We are sure that this moment brought great relief but was also a moment that they will later be able to reflect upon with great pride. VCE can often feel like a long journey but, after reaching the end of this stage of their lives, the class of 2024 can rightfully look back and celebrate the strength, resilience and perseverance that they have shown in pushing their way through to the end.

Last Thursday, the Year 12s celebrated the end of their exams with family, friends and staff at a moving Mass and celebratory dinner. Leaving their uniforms, books, laptops and pens behind, the students came together to share the moment of collective pride, relief and excitement as they signalled the end of their secondary school years. Following Mass, the students and their families made their way to Dungula, in Moama, to celebrate the evening with the significant people in their lives.

As they did throughout their time at St Augustine's, the students epitomised the St Augustine's values of living life with 'strength and kindliness'. We congratulate all of our Year 12s on their achievements.

As this year's Year 12s finish their VCE pathways, other students are moving into the final part of theirs. Last Friday, our Year 11 cohort participated in the two workshops presented by Darren Pereira from Success Integrated. The first session was all about study skills and being your B.E.S.T. Darren talked to the students about setting goals, managing their time, establishing effective study habits, skills and techniques, neuroplasticity and growth mindset.

The second session for the day was the ‘Leadership Challenge’ workshop. This workshop was designed to prepare our students for their final Year of school where they will all be looked upon as leaders of our College – badge or not!

The course was aimed to help our students create meaning around leadership and leadership behaviour, understand the importance of leading by example and develop a vision, inspire each other to take action, build strong relationships and develop a strong and positive mindset.

Topics covered included:

Servant Leadership
Re-defining Leadership
Small things can make a big difference
Leading without a badge
Setting the tone – Culture
Leaving a Legacy
Together Everyone Achieves More - working as a TEAM

There were many valuable messages to take away from the presentation and we look forward to seeing the Year 11s taking on the mantle of school leaders and role models in the coming weeks as they receive their Year 12 Rugby Jumpers, move into their Year 12 lockers, the Tolle Lege and their final year of secondary school.

The Kwong Lee Dow Young Scholars program is a prestigious University of Melbourne program for high achieving students, in Year 10, allowing them to be involved in academic enrichment activities at the university, to meet with peers from schools all across Victoria and to gain insights into tertiary institutions as they complete their VCE studies. Students are selected to be a part of this program when they are in Year 10 and continue in the KLD Young Scholars program through Years 11 and 12.

To be accepted into this program is a significant recognition of the student’s application to their studies and their contribution to their school community as a leader.

We are very proud to announce that Neeharika Reddy has been accepted into the Kwong Lee Dow program for 2025/26. Congratulations to Neeharika.

Years 10 and 11 Exams were held this week. Completing exams in these years is vital in preparing students for the requirements of their Units 3 & 4 VCE subjects. To that end, we followed the type of processes and conditions that students will encounter when they do their final VCE examinations. The students are to be commended for how well they managed the exam process. We are sure that the students will learn a great deal from this experience.

As you will have noted from the Exam Timetable and Early Commencement Program (ECP) Operoo letter sent to families earlier in the term, Monday 2nd December sees the start of the College’s Early Commencement Program, which will continue for all 2025 VCE classes through to 13th December. A copy of the ECP timetable was shared with students this week.

The aim of our Early Commencement Program is for staff and students to get to know each other in preparation for a smooth start to the 2025 VCE academic year. Staff will have the opportunity to learn about their student’s different learning styles and develop strategies that might be used to help plan curriculum and learning activities for the following year. To enable students to get the most out of their ECP classes, we ask that students come to classes with all of the necessary textbooks, equipment and stationery to begin their classes. If any families have encountered delays in receiving their booklist orders before ECP begins, please let your TAs know so that we can provide assistance.

December 10th will be the Statewide Orientation Day, when students in all classes will ‘step up’ to their 2025 year level. For our Years 9-12 students, that means that our current Year 9 students will complete a day of Year 10 classes and the 2024 Year 8 students will complete a day of Year 9 classes.

As we approach the end of year, we encourage the students to continue their positive focus right until the end. With only a few weeks to go until the end of the academic year, we encourage all of our students to set themselves the goal of finishing their year well.

Michelle Downie Brad Downie

9-12 Community Leader 9-12 Community Leader

Wellbeing and Community Student Learning and Professional Practice