Journalism Student's Present

As part of their Journalism studies, Year 10 students have been reporting on the outstanding achievements of PHSC students across both sporting and academic pursuits. The task required students to research their chosen achievement, gather facts, conduct interviews and develop a news article using professional journalistic conventions. Through this authentic learning experience, students strengthened their interviewing, and writing skills while celebrating the successes of members of our school community. Each journalist was awarded 10 house points for their efforts. 

PHSC YEAR 10 Winner of an ABC Nation Writing Competition  

Report by Jasmine Allouche (10A)

Alexa Fernadez, a year 10 journalism student in PHSC has taken a win in a national writing competition for the ABC news. The national writing competition is a competition to write an open letter to a person or a group of people about an important political or social issue that's important to the writer.  

Fernadez chose to shed light on the underfunding of public schools for her open letter due to most of government funding going to private schools. Fernadez always thought the topic was important until she later realised that the issue was way more serious than she thought since she tried to interview her friends and they had no idea that such a major issue is happening in Victoria, which led to her realising the matter is being gatekept from the public.  

 Alexa Fernadez was thrilled with her national win, and she was happy to say that “theoretically” more people will learn about the problem that Victorian public schools are currently facing. Journalism is important to Fernadez because it helps “educate people of all ages, specifically young people”. During this semester, Fernadez has learnt how inspiring journalism could be and she mentioned that she will “always be a consumer of [journalism]”.  

With her national victory, Fernandez has revealed to the public, the future of Victorian public education. Her success proves that student journalism is an important tool for waking up the public and educating people of all ages. 

Dang Tran’s ABC achievement

Report by Harry McKinnon (10F)

PHSC in 2026 has been a year full of achievement and highlights. Many students have acquired prestigious awards academically and in PHSC sport. With lots of students acquiring these achievements, it is our role as journalism students to report on such. Dang Tran, a year 10 student with outstanding academic talent, frequently achieves top of his class and has a reputation for being a high achiever. He is a fellow journalism student and this year, was tasked with writing an open letter that would be submitted to the ABC as part of their “In My Neighborhood” competition. His letter was so professional that it ended up placing runners up in the final standings, beating countless other letters that were submitted from all around the country. 

I was lucky enough to be able to interview him about the achievement and the first question I asked was “can you describe your academic achievement”. To which he replied “I got runners-up in the ABC “in my neighborhood” competition. I also asked him about how he managed to place runners up in which he replied, “I don’t even know how, as English isn’t my strong suit and is not something I usually kick goals in”. I also asked him about if he was surprised about placing that high, to which he replied “Yes, I was very surprised, but also inspired, as I never usually enter writing competitions, and was super shocked that I placed that high out of everyone who submitted their open letters around the country”.  

Dang has pulled off an outstanding achievement here at PHSC, and is looking towards the future not only for his core subjects

Collete Calls out for Greater LGBTQIA+ Inclusion in the AFL 

Report by Iris Widjaja (10D)

Tom Collete in 10C, has been recognised as the runner up of the ABC's News 'In My Neighbourhood Competition'. This competition is up against students all over Australia. Each term there are different challenges ranging from podcasts, videos, letters and photo essays. Term one's challenge was to write an open letter to an individual or group who they think can make a difference on a political or social issue that matters to them. 

In Collete's entry, he wrote an open letter to the Australian Football League addressing the concerns over the lack of openly LGBTQIA+ male players in the sport. Collette "condemn[s] the deeply rooted systemic discriminatory nature of the AFL" and how it affects "[the] generation of young[er] people, specifically aspiring athletes." He addresses how footy players such as "Bailey Smith […] casually make extreme homophobic comments, [and] that they are [to be] punished" as a solution. 

When reaching out to Collette, he discussed how he was inspired to write to the AFL because he "believes that [… the discriminatory nature towards LGBTQIA+ community] should be aware and held accountable [… as it is an] issue that is persisting due to the AFL as an organisation not holding their players accountable." 

Collette’s powerful words serve as a reminder that sport should be a place for everyone — free from discrimination and full of respect. By speaking up, he has shown that young voices can drive real change. 

Violoet Avotins the Hockey Champion

Report by Silke McCartney (10E) 

On the 18-23 of January this year, Prince’s Hill’s own Violet Avotins captained her team to a 6-0 win against New South Wales Blue, at the 2026 Hockey Australia Girls U14 Indoor National Championship. 

As Captain and right defender, Avotins illustrated her objective as “create attacking opportunities”, along with displaying her skills in the penalty shootout, where she was awarded the highest goal scoring player for the tournament, an experience she describes as “a very surreal moment… I would have never imagined before the tournament that I would ever win such a big award. I was very proud of myself… I had put in a lot of time and practice into my flicks which were 3 quarters of my goals … all of it paid off”. 

Avotins team fought hard throughout the 6 game long tournament, playing hard teams like Queensland and NSW, despite worries about the age of their teammates, although they “had lots of skilful and talented players”, who prevailed to win both the Victorian state and the Australian National championships. She recounted the state championship as one of her favourite memories, ‘an extraordinary win… we were 4-0 down then came back 4-4 [and] I scored 2 goals … we won on shoot outs”.

Violet speaks fondly about her team, describing her favourite memory outside of the game as “all the times [they] would spend together as a team talking or playing games”, training that reinforced their “greatest strength [in their] ability to move the ball efficiently and score goals while supporting each other and keeping a positive mindset no matter the outcome or how the game was going”. When questioned about feedback on the winning game, Avotins talks of her confidence in the game, saying “I would want to improve on my attacking [and] being more confident to take in the game more because at times when I hesitated due to a lack of confidence [and] I would not perform at my best”, something that was reassured by “the first 11 min quarter of the match … we [were] playing a strong and high intensity level of hockey”.

“Winning was such an amazing experience” Violet says when asked about the national title, “All the parents were there on the sidelines cheering us on the whole game along with the whole Victorian squad and lots of other states so the atmosphere was amazing but very nerve wracking so coming out with a win was an adrenaline rush and something I will never forget”

Both the national and the state titles are huge achievements for Violet and her team, and we could not be prouder to have her as a Princes Hill Student.