Welcome Back

Welcome back to Hollows students after a well-deserved break. Well done to Hollows students for their participation during an extremely busy semester, one that was packed with camps, Hollows and Dunlop House fundraisers, many excursions and the Year 10 and 11 exams. Students have had a smooth start to Term 3 with a week of subject selection and course counselling for Year 10s. We look forward to rest of the term 3.

Hollows House would like to thank Mr. Scott Conte, Ms. Rajpal Kaur and Ms. Kelly McGrath for stepping in for Laura Brock, who was away on her long service leave for the first 3 weeks of this term.

A sad farewell to Sigrun Mikula who has started her maternity leave. We wish her all the best and look forward to meeting her bundle of joy!

Semester One

Attendance Raffle

School Attendance is an important indicator of a positive school climate, the more frequently students attend school, the greater the educational, social and emotional outcomes will be.

Semester One, 2022, was a very challenging Semester. Not only did we return to full-time onsite schooling, but we were also challenged by COVID guidelines, freezing weather, and the annual flu.

Regardless, we are very proud of our student's resilience to continue attending school and each Semester we endeavour to celebrate our students for their efforts.

Congratulations to Poppy Valentine-Ross, Adele Sommerville, and Natika Jobson who were the lucky recipients of our canteen vouchers via our attendance raffle.

School Values Award Certificates

Our House Assembly on Monday 25 July included the celebration of students who have consistently demonstrated our School Values of Respect, Citizenship and the Pursuit of Excellence. These students were nominated by their teachers and acknowledged in front of their peers for their outstanding work during the first Semester.

Respect - Jeremy Driver, Zahlia Ligthart, Isla Moore, Ben Chen, Kendall Gaudion, David Goddard and Cici Zhang.

Citizenship - Charity Onley, Eva Tan, Babette Nathan, Lucy Bryant and Jamie Ryan.

Australian Baseball Team - Aiden Patterson

Blackburn High School and Hollows House, would like to wish Aiden Patterson the best of luck when he travels to Easley, South Carolina, for the 2022 Senior League Baseball World Series. This is an amazing achievement and a once in a lifetime opportunity for Aiden, who has been selected to represent Australia after winning the 2022 Australian Championships. Well done, Aiden.Pursuit of Excellence - Jay Kittelty, Charlie Orpwood, Nuzaira Arisha, Asher Loke, Milica Maric, Freya Nicholls, Para Rajaeian, and Isagani Veloira.

Youth Citizenship Award

Malik Alamin

Hollows House would like to celebrate Malik Alamin, who was recently acknowledged in the community for his Citizenship.

Malik was awarded the Forest Hill Youth Citizenship Award for his contributions to our School Community, support of fellow students and his willingness to volunteer.

Over the years Malik has been a valued Student Leader, a member of our High Achievers class and most recently assisted with the Open Night as a tour guide.

Well done Malik!

Australian Baseball Team

Aiden Patterson

Blackburn High School and Hollows House would like to wish Aiden Patterson the best of luck when he travels to Easley, South Carolina, for the 2022 Senior League Baseball World Series. This is an amazing achievement and a once in a lifetime opportunity for Aiden, who has been selected to represent Australia after winning the 2022 Australian Championships. Well done, Aiden.

National Basketball Competition - Charlie Wilson

Congratulations to Hollows Year 7 Student, Charlie Wilson and his Representative Basketball Team the Under 14 Nunawading Spectres.

Charlie's team has qualified for the National Basketball Competition, which will take place in Sydney during September 2022.

This is an outstanding achievement for bother Charlie and his team and we wish Charlie and his team all the best and look forward to hearing about his experience upon his return.

House Athletics and House Swimming & Diving Champions

We would like to acknowledge the outstanding performance of a number of students who were awarded Age Champion at the House Swimming, Diving and Athletes Carnivals.

These students performed exceptionally well and achieved the highest ranking within their section, Well Done!

Swimming & Diving

Girls 13 Years - Charlotte Pepper

Girls 16 Years - Kirra Webber

Junior Girls

Maddie Moore

Chloe Cooper

Athletics

Boys 14 Years - Jeremy Driver

Girls 15 Years - Isla Moore

Boys 20 Years -Lachlan Curtis

TV Drama

Turn Up the Volume

The very talented Ben Chen will be breaking through to the small screen with his first television role in an upcoming ABC ME drama ‘Turn up the Volume’

Produced by Matchbox Pictures and Film Camp, the ten-part series will follow a group of young female and gender diverse teenagers who start a band at a music camp held in Melbourne’s vibrant inner west.

School Tree Day

On Friday 29th July, Blackburn students had the opportunity to participate in National Plant a Tree Day. The response to this opportunity was overwhelming, and we ended up with a wonderful group of volunteers from all year levels. After a demonstration on the best ways to plant our trees to ensure they had the best chance of surviving, we got to work and got our hands dirty! There were three larger trees that will end up providing a lot of shade once they mature, and a lot of smaller native plants. The students had a lot of fun with the trowels and shovels - some of the holes were harder than we expected, but we got there!

We are now looking forward to watching these new patches of greenery grow! Thank you to Whitehorse Council for providing the trees and the expertise!

Robotics Team

During the Term 2 School Holidays, Blackburn High School participated in the First Robotics Competition, which is a highly acclaimed national event.

Students and Staff worked tirelessly over a 3 month period to create a functioning robot, this required creativity, problem solving skills, collaboration, flexibility and of course, a passion for STEM.

A very special Hollows congratulation to Daniel Driver, James Elliot, Ethan Lee, Dylan Mitchell, Yamen Sayes, Mayurika Sundaravel and Maggie Xu for proudly representing Hollows House.

Whilst a huge thank you goes to our Hollows Staff, Ms Emma Love, Mr Tony Lahy and Mr Adrian Metheringham for supporting our students.

House Captain Update

As Hollows House Captain, the goal I have been working towards this year is to develop a stronger house community bond, and increase house culture in Hollows. An important element of our house culture is the Fred Hollows Foundation, which was established in 1992 by Fred Hollows to aid with and continue in his work. The foundation strives to eliminate avoidable blindness by ensuring developing countries receive quality eyecare, and has restored sight to over 3 million people worldwide.

This year, the Hollows Student Leadership team aims to improve our connection as a house to the Fred Hollows Foundation. We have had several meetings involving the brainstorming and planning of a range of activities to be implemented during mentor sessions throughout this term. The purpose of these activities is to keep the Fred Hollows Foundation in the minds of Hollows students throughout the entire school year, rather than just around the time of our Hollows House Fundraiser, and to bring Hollows mentor groups together through competition to encourage student connections. These activities include a Fred Hollows-themed scavenger hunt, blindfolded team colouring competition and weekly Fred Hollows wordles, and involve making small changes that ensure Fred Hollows is always present and discussed in the house. I’m looking forward to working with the Hollows Student Leadership Team to bring these activities to life this term!

Mia Barrett – Hollows House Captain

Year 12 Profiles

Over the course of this year, Hollows House would like to acknowledge our amazing Year 12 Students and give them the opportunity to tell the Blackburn High School Community about themselves.

Name: Kendall Gaudion

What’s your favourite animal? Ducks

What's your favourite subject? Drama

What is at the top of your bucket list? Create a play and perform in it

Who is your hero? My Mama

What is your best memory of Blackburn High School? House Performing Arts 2022

Name: Lee Martin

What’s your favourite animal? Penguin

What's your favourite subject? PE

If you won a million dollars, what would you do? Buy a classic mustang and go on a big holiday

What are your plans for next year? Study sport and exercise science at Deakin

What is your best memory of Blackburn High School? Gold Coast camp

Name: Raphael Twigg-Ho

What’s your favourite animal? Dog

What's your favourite subject? English

What is at the top of your bucket list? Travel

What are your plans for next year? Get an Apprenticeship.

Name: Charlie Foster

What’s your favourite animal? My dog

What's your favourite subject? Physical Education

What is at the top of your bucket list? Bungee jumping or visiting other countries

What is your best memory of Blackburn High School? The year 7 memory i had where we spent a week making projects on a chosen topic to present to teachers and parents.

Name: Adnan Sayes

What’s your favourite animal? Falcon

Been at Blackburn since: Year 8

What's your favourite subject? English Language

What are your plans for next year? Go to university

Name: Cicy Zhang

What’s your favourite animal? Bunnies

Been at Blackburn since: Year 10

If you won a million dollars, what would you do? Invest all the money and be richer :)

Who is your hero? My parents