Around the College
RoboCup Junior Australia National Champions!
Having won the Victorian state title in the Secondary Rescue division of RoboCup Junior, Koosha Kayani and George Sempelidis were quietly confident going into the national championships, competing against more than 40 of the best teams from every state and territory in Australia and one team from China. Through nine preliminary rounds over two days, their robot, Pashmam, completed nearly every challenge it faced in its quest to rescue a “victim” trapped in the centre of a toxic chemical spill. In doing so, it accumulated more points than any other robot, but it still had to come out on top in a final three round, head-to-head competition against the robots placing 2nd and 3rd. All three robots had performed admirably throughout the competition, but in those final three rounds there was only one clear national champion! With their win comes an automatic invitation to the RoboCup Junior International finals in Bordeaux, France in June next year. We wish them well.
David Ebert
Digital Technology Coordinator
Tax Super and You Competition 2019 winner
We are pleased to announce that Alma-Mia from Year 7A won the First Prize in the junior category of the 2019 Tax, Super + You competition. This competition is organized by Australian Tax Office (ATO) every year.
She also won another First Prize, which is the People’s Choice Award of the 2019 Tax, Super + You competition. This award is given to the entry which gets maximum number of votes from the people in the community. A big congratulations to Alma-Mia for her outstanding work.
Students from across Australia participated in this competition in which they had to use their creativity to highlight the value of tax and super in the community either by writing or making a video. It was a very hard competition where all the students across Australia did an amazing job at developing their creative products that highlight the value of tax and super.
Alma–Mia won the following prizes for herself and Glen Eira College.
- First prize winner
- People’s Choice Award
As the first prize winner she will receive a $400 MasterCard gift card. In addition, our school Glen Eira College will be awarded MasterCard gift cards worth $600.
As the People’s Choice Award winner she will receive a $400 MasterCard gift card. In addition, our school Glen Eira College will be awarded MasterCard gift cards worth $600.
Lastly, ATO will be holding an Awards Ceremony in Canberra on Wednesday 4th December 2019 and would like to invite Alma-Mia (and a guardian) to attend so ATO can congratulate her in person! The travelling expenses are also covered by ATO.
Her video is on the Tax, Super + You website and here is the link to watch her video about the importance of Tax and Super.
https://www.taxsuperandyou.gov.au/vote2019
Thank you to everyone who voted for Alma-Mia as she was able to win People Choice award with maximum number of votes.
Parminder Kaur
Mathematics and Business Teacher
Future Leaders Conference
On Saturday 12th October, I had the amazing opportunity to be part of the Future Leaders Conference run by Swinburne University. This conference brought together young people from all over Victoria to discuss the issues of bullying and school absenteeism and how these issues can be resolved in our schools. Throughout the day we heard from six inspirational speakers about their experience in the above fields. All of their experience and advice has inspired me to want to implement initiatives in our school.
One initiative that I think would be great to start is to have an anonymous box in the library. In the box, the student body will be able to submit any concerns that they have about problems, challenges and success they are having at school. This will remove the possible fear and stigma behind raising a problem in a more public forum. From there, I would make a committee of teachers, students, and Well-being staff to go through the box monthly. This box will provide an opportunity for any student to have a voice.
I was also fortunate enough to be on the student panel at the event. This was a panel where six of the participants including me, answered any of the questions that the rest of the students had around the topic of bullying and absenteeism. I am so thankful to have had such an inspiring opportunity and I hope that I will be able to attend the conference in future years.
Aimee Harris
SRC, Year 10