Celebrating Student Achievement

Congratulations Sienna!

Right before the holiday break our Year Four student Sienna competed in her first ever triathlon as part of the 2xu series at St Kilda beach!! Despite feeling incredibly nervous leading up to the race, Sienna performed amazingly well and enjoyed it enough to agree to sign up for the full series of six races next season!

We asked Sienna about her triathlon experience, and here's what she had to say:

How or when did you become interested in triathlons?

My mum encouraged me to give it a try this year. I’ve now competed in two races. 

Can you describe your emotions before your first race?

Nervous and excited.

What was the best thing about your first race day?

After the race I felt really proud of myself and I got a medal at the finish line. 

What was the most challenging part of your first triathlon? How did you get through it?

The most challenging part was definitely the swim because the water was freezing cold. I tried not to think about it and instead focus on how I would feel after the race.

Has anything or anyone helped you to achieve your success?

My Mum and Dad cheered me on. Mum’s friend Emily helped me train for the ocean swim.

Do you have any future goals?

Next season I would like to complete the full series of six races.

Could you give any advice to other students who are working towards their goals?

Have the courage to try something new. Don’t worry about being the best, just try your best.

Great advice Sienna and congratulations again, we wish you all the best for your future races!!

Congratulations Gianne!

During the school holidays, our Year Six student Gianne received a Green Room Award as part of ArtPlay's By Kids for Kids Collective! The Green Room Awards are Melbourne's premier, peer-presented, performing arts industry awards. Each year, the awards recognise achievements in Cabaret, Contemporary and Experimental Performance, Dance, Independent Theatre, Music Theatre, Opera and Theatre Companies. This year's awards were held at the Comedy Theatre on Monday 8th April.

Read on to find out more about Gianne's performing arts journey!

Can you tell us about ArtPlay's By Kids for Kids (BKFK) Collective?

BKFK is a program I joined in about the end of 2022 and I had to participate in a audition where my two teachers Alex and Hannah chose eight of us to join BKFK. It is a program where we meet up every week or every fortnight and we might meet some new artists and we might have interviews, we sometimes would start a project where we combined our daily life's and thoughts into topics and exhibitions! Our most recent example was Can Everyone Please Calm Down. This exhibition/experience was based of kids challenges and chores in life, then from this main topic we made main experiences; can everybody please calm down - a relaxing and how to relax experience, the world is lava - trying to get through daily tasks in a fun way, how to get power - how kids can also get power and lead!

In which category were you nominated at the Green Room Awards?

ArtPlay was nominated in the work for young artist category.

How long have you been involved in performing arts?

I've been involved for two years and continuing!

What was it like to be nominated and attend the ceremony?

I felt so scared and proud for ArtPlay and for myself, I also felt so proud of me and my peers for making it this far! But overall it was an amazing and scary experience.

Can you describe your emotions when your collective was announced as the winner?

I kinda expected it because all of the possible winners got told beforehand which categories they got nominated in, then once they called the nominees they announced one winner and that was ArtPlay! But the whole time I was shaking because there was so many people watching us talk and accept the awards.

How did you celebrate winning your award? 

When I accepted the award me and my peers had to make a thank you speech as an addition to receiving the award, in that speech I made sure to congratulate ArtPlay and all my other peers in BKFK. And we didn't really have time to celebrate because once the awards ceremony was finished it was about 11:30pm! But we celebrated inside the theatre while receiving the award.

Has anything or anyone helped you to achieve success in performing arts?

Definitely my two teachers or mentors Alex and Hannah, they created this program and accepted me into BKFK! They were alongside me and my team throughout everything that we've been through and they were always so supportive of our ideas and thoughts and always made sure we felt welcome and happy.

Could you give any advice to other students who are working towards their goals, or thinking of becoming involved in the performing arts?

If you have any ideas and you wanna make a change just because you're a child doesn't mean it can stop you from thinking and creating ideas and doing what you love!

Well said Gianne!! Congratulations on ArtPlay's success and thank you for sharing your story with us!

Would you like to share your child's extra-curricular achievement or an example of your family taking action within our wider community? It could be volunteering, sporting, or otherwise! Please get in touch with our editor at Fran.Milic@education.vic.gov.au. We'd love to hear from you.