Student Leadership
Amanda GOMES
Student Leadership Co-ordinator
School House System Update
The votes to decide our new school House names are finally in! I’m excited to announce Highvale’s new House names:
The purpose of renaming the Houses is part of Highvale’s journey to revive House spirit, improve student connectedness, and to foster a sense of community.
Students submitted many suggestions for new names with ‘animals’ and ‘Indigenous language/Indigenous Australians’ in the top themes. Through consultation with the School Leadership Team, the theme ‘Indigenous names of animals’ was decided. Students then voted for their 4 favourite names from a list of 6.
The new House names connect with Highvale as our school stands on Wurundjeri ground. Using Indigenous names shows our respect towards the original inhabitants of this land. The names of these animals are in Woi wurrung (Wurundjeri).
The next step in the journey of renaming our Houses is to create mascots for each of the Houses. Students are invited to submit their designs of what they envision their mascot to look like. These designs will be shown to an Aboriginal artist that the school will work with to incorporate the students’ ideas into the final design. Submissions are due to by the end of week 1, Term 3 and can be emailed to ago@highvalesc.vic.edu.au or submitted as a hard copy to Mrs Gomes.
Student can look forward to some upcoming House events including our school Athletics Carnival (week 3, Term 3) and the House Cup (last day of term 3). Start getting your costumes organised (House colours)!
SRC Update
The SRC has had another busy term planning for future events and running some fundraisers. Our first fundraiser for the term was a bake sale that raised money for the Drama Club and Pride Foundation Australia. Thank you to all the bakers, helpers and teachers involved.
Well done to Year 9 student Yong R and his team of helpers who ran a successful fundraiser last week. Yong proposed a sausage sizzle fundraiser to raise funds for the Volleyball team who recently won the Volleyball Victoria School Cup. The team is keen to enter their next competition and the funds raised will go towards their entry fee.
The sausage sizzle ran after school before the Winter Concert. Thank you to all students and staff who bought a snag to support the team. Congratulations to Yong for his assistance in organising the event and a big thank you to Miss Singh who also helped out on the day!
Child Development- Toy Library Visit
On the 31st of May, the Child Development class ventured to the Nunawading Toy Library (NTL). When we arrived, we were amazed at the amount of toys! They were split into different sections such as games, nature and puzzles. The signs around the library displayed the area of development the toy promoted including physical, social, emotional and intellectual.
The purpose of our class visiting the NTL was to discover how play can assist children in reaching their milestones and how different toys can promote children’s development. Each student chose a toy from the library to create a social media post that the NTL will use on their social media page.
By Norah (Year 9)
