2020 Valedictory Dinner

Third Time's the Charm

It turned out the saying 'Third time's the charm' was completely apt for the 2020 Valedictory Dinner. 

After having to 'indefinitely postpone' the original date of Thursday 19 November during the 2020 lock down(s), the 2020 Valedictory Dinner was eventually transformed into the GRADUATION/FORMAL DINNER 2020 to make up for the fact that the Class of 2020 had missed out on their Year 12 Formal and to compensate the students, because due to number quotas and restrictions, we could no longer include their families at this important event. The new date was set for Tuesday 16 February and tickets went on sale in December.

Then just four days before this long awaited event was due to happen, it was announced that Victoria would be going into a five day lock down. The planning team were shattered and then had to contact the 206 ticket holders to let them know that all was not lost and this event would happen! 

Once the all clear was given by the government to end 'Lockdown 3.0', a date was quickly found for us by the Sofitel Melbourne on Collins and all of the guests were notified that we were once again 'good to go'.

And that is how, after much re-arranging and shuffling and praying, the 2020 Valedictory/Graduation/Formal Dinner finally came to happen... Of course, two hours prior to the event starting there was a major accident on the Monash Freeway which caused all inbound traffic to be diverted off the freeway at Clayton and the majority of the guests to arrive late - but that is a whole other story! 

Principal's Address

I would like to warmly welcome the Class of 2020 – the IsoClass – to your long-awaited Valedictory Dinner. It has been a long time coming and I’m really pleased to see so many of you here this evening and very happy to be able to join with you to offer you our belated final farewell from Nossal High School. This is my last chance to bore you, although I guess as you are now all graduates, you probably have the right to ignore what I have to say, and I do note that some of you had been exercising that right prematurely.

Let me take you back to this time last year – it feels like it was a long time ago and a great deal has happened in the meantime. People were starting to get nervous about the virus – but it was very much business as usual and we were looking forward to the next week – which was to have been your Year 12 camp and right up until 10.00 pm on the Sunday night before Camps and Pathways week I was still reassuring everyone that it would all go ahead – although was increasingly apprehensive about how uncomfortable some people were about that, and I was in fact quite relieved (although disappointed like you) when the direction came to cancel all camps and excursions. Of course, at that time we just thought that we would be able to move the events to another date and we did not yet anticipate that we may actually go into a full lockdown and remote learning program – as that has never happened before and there has been no precedent for such a thing. I don’t need to remind you of the continuing impact of the lockdowns and restrictions on travel, movement and events – and you really have been the only Nossal Year 12 class to have missed most of your milestone events and celebrations.

So, it is wonderful to see your happy smiling faces and to be able to finally celebrate your graduation from Year 12, and not that we could have done it any other way, but I do sincerely apologise to you for what you missed along the way. Unfortunately, a number of students have been unable to join us this evening due to the change of dates after the snap lockdown last month, and we are all hoping that this might be the last time we have to comply with such instructions. If that is the case – it is yet another thing that you can add to the long list of historical moments that you have experienced in your completion of your secondary schooling. It is not always a good thing to create or experience historical moments – particularly those that are traumatic or life endangering like pandemics, diseases, wars, or natural disasters for instance. But can living through such an experience be a positive thing, and can it have a positive impact? The great wars of the 20th century were terrible but triggered dramatic technological and medical advances, and often in times of great community challenge we see the best and worst of humanity. I’m not sure we can with any validity yet compare the COVID 19 pandemic with World Wars 1 & 2, and the impact on Australia was comparatively mild in terms of infections and death rates, but we did all experience a huge upheaval and our way of life, our expectations about the future, and the reality of our own mortality and fragility has been brought to the fore. We saw strong political leadership in Australia, alongside the disintegration of the USA caused by exceptionally poor leadership, and across the globe we have seen great disparity in leadership and community responses to the pandemic and great disparity in impact as a result of this – and many other factors of course.

What was the impact on us here at Nossal? We were well prepared – I would suggest probably better prepared that almost any other school – thanks to the foresight of Mr Fankhauser and our experience with Digital Delivery Days – and we were/are world leaders in the use of Microsoft Teams as a communication platform in schools. So, did this help and what did we learn from it? I think the thing that most shocked me is how fragile our community really is – the ludicrous panic buying of toilet paper and the selfishness and panic that permeated our supermarkets early in the lockdown was astounding to me – that people could be so stupid and show absolute disregard for others did not at all accord with my image of our local community, and while things did eventually settle down and we started to see the better sides of our society I now think that the dystopian visions of the future we see in books and movies is not as far below the surface and perhaps not as fictional as I thought. 

Fortunately, I did not see this at Nossal – in fact, I saw the opposite – I saw staff students and parents trying very hard to make the best of some challenging situations and trying their hardest to ensure that none of you were disadvantaged. I saw many of you going over and above to support your friends and peers and I saw many people overcome significant personal challenges as they faced situations beyond their control and beyond all our experience. I saw strong leadership from your School Captains and the school leadership team, and we had excellent support from the Education and Health Departments, even if it was not always what we wanted to hear – nor in the timeframe we wanted.

Some of you did it hard, while for others it was quite easy; some parts of the experience were enjoyable, many were not – but ultimately we all survived and I hope are now stronger and more resilient as a result. We certainly learned much, individually and as an organisation, and I am hoping that we can use these learnings to further develop Nossal’s capacity to teach more effectively online and to better prepare us to examine diverse pedagogies and delivery systems that capitalise on the benefits of remote learning while minimising the negative aspects.

I am hoping that you too can take some positive learnings forward with you to university, and am encouraged as always by the feedback from the alumni who, in retrospect, were very complimentary about their Nossal experiences as a solid preparation for a successful transition to their tertiary studies. We can commiserate with the Class of 2019 who last year had a university experience of only one or two days on campus and the rest of their time online, so some of you have already done more time at university than they did for the entire 2020.

How disadvantaged were you academically? – well – it appears not much at all – in fact you achieved arguably some of the best results Nossal has ever had. So, if we are happy to acknowledge study scores and ATARs as valid success measures you should be very pleased because in comparison with others you did very, very well. And while these measures do not sit comfortably with my views about success measures, predictors of success and growth mindsets – they do tell us that you worked hard, and effectively and you should be congratulated and we celebrate that formal recognition of your dedication, hard work and talent – and I acknowledge and thank your parents and teachers for the essential role they played in helping you reach this level of performance. Unfortunately, the High Achievers assembly was another casualty of the Covid lockdown last month so we have not been able to gather our top performers together to acknowledge and applaud their achievements publicly. In fact, you presented us with quite a dilemma this year as we had such a large number who were ranked above 97 and we weren’t sure whether we needed to set the bar even higher. To put that in perspective – this is well above the Dux levels in many other schools, and most of my principal colleagues would be very happy to have such a problem.   

In summary – so we can all bask in the glory of your collective achievement.....56% achieved an ATAR over 90; Median ATAR was 92.3; 16 of you achieved an ATAR over 99, and Hasna – our Dux achieved a perfect 99.95 (only 38 students of over 50,000 did this – and only 6 females) Our study score mean was 35.4 and 26% of study scores were over 40. Our school had 17 study scores of 50 in 2020 – one of the highest numbers in the state (although 9 of them were in Year 11 and must have been inspired by your excellent role modelling).

In terms of success measures – importantly most of you gained entry to the tertiary courses of your choice and everyone has received an offer – again – few schools are able to make such a claim. We know this does not guarantee success, nor happiness, but it is a significant milestone and an achievement worthy of celebration and acknowledgement, and I hope that it is an indicator of future success. Please do not be discouraged if you are sitting here thinking that your results were not as good as you would have liked – as important as they have been – they are already consigned to history and the world is waiting to see what you do with your next challenge and how you will shape your futures – and mine. You are the leaders of tomorrow and I’m always pleased and proud to be in a situation where I can witness our future being shaped and am always reassured by what I see in the young people before me.

You have overcome big challenges – and there are more to come – I hope that we have helped to positively shape and support you, as you have shaped and supported the school.

Can I take a moment to thank Sir Gus for joining this evening, Mr Keith Butler, and Ms Gayl Shute who are making their last formal appearance at a Nossal event - as they are now retired. I sincerely thank them for their long term contribution to Nossal and for their outstanding leadership – we are missing them already. And finally – can I please acknowledge and thank Ms Juliea Slywka for her persistence and resilience – as it is through her hard work and excellent organisation that this evening was finally realised. Please join me in thanking her for making tonight possible – in spite of the setbacks and delays.

I have greatly enjoyed the privilege of sharing some of your journey and look forward to seeing you forge new pathways, take on new challenges, and I hope to be able to (at least vicariously) celebrate your future successes.

Please remember us fondly, please stay in touch, and I will finish with the same thing I always say at the Valedictory Dinner – you will always be a part of Nossal and I hope that Nossal is always a part of you.

Thank you and farewell.

Roger Page 

School Captain's Valedictory Speech

Good evening everyone, it is nice to see you all again. After a tumultuous year, we are very glad we have this opportunity to finally celebrate the conclusion of our secondary education; they don’t get much harder than this. We hope that everyone was able to get their top preferences for uni, and you’ve all enjoyed your first taste this past week of what the next few years have in store. Hopefully, you are able to enjoy the next few years of your lives, doing something you love. We wanted to take this chance to reminisce on our time together these last 4 years. About a month ago, we, along with Shivaani & Habib attended this year’s Foundation Assembly, watching the year level that followed us, assume their positions as the leaders of the school while a new cohort of excited Year 9s began their journeys in this new environment. With blazers too big, pants too long and bags too heavy, we were reminded of our own beginnings in what would become home for the next few years. In our time here, we grew from the somewhat shy and quiet young teens to mature and worldly young adults ready to make our mark on the world around us. 

Being given control of our own education and decisions, we have all learnt how to tackle the unexpected and do so while becoming better people. When we started our own journeys here, it seemed as if our VCE was the biggest obstacle ahead of us, all in pursuit of this one magic number which would seemingly set us up for life. We spent the next few years memorising quotes, learning formulas, writing essays and sweating over practice SACs. Sending teams messages to teachers at ungodly hours of the day, and pestering them in the hallways, it seemed as if VCE was our own personal hell. However, in 2020, the entire world found itself on its knees. As we battled an invisible enemy, faced economic crises and saw a paradigm shift in the way the world perceived the rights of individuals, it appeared that many of you were passionate about these fundamental social issues. Using the momentum from 2020, as we enter a phase of our lives where we will learn who we are and what is important to us, we encourage you to maintain your passions and create positive change in the things you deem important. In the unique position we are in as Nossalonians, we will now be embarking on a plethora of different pathways. While some of our degrees may be the same, where we end up will be vastly different 5, 10, 15 years from now. As such, we cannot stress enough the importance of creating positive changes in the communities around you, impacting the lives of those you meet and striving towards using your unique skill sets in such a way that you find your purposes as individuals.

We’d like to take this opportunity to thank some important people who have shaped us these last 4 years and made our journeys at this school better. To you guys, our friends. Each of you has played a role in contributing to the tremendous memories we have all made, right from Orientation through to tonight. Without you, the last 4 years would’ve been dull. Thank you for sharing your energy and passion with one another. Even though we may all be going our separate ways, with different unis, states and career paths, we are all connected as Nossal graduates and will be for the rest of our lives. To the Nossal staff, you are integral to the fabric of our school. Thank you for cultivating an environment that has helped us grow, prosper and has set us up for everything we want to now do. Your commitment, drive and genuine care towards each and every one of us, is greatly appreciated - particularly through the daunting and challenging year that was 2020. To the Principal Team, your guidance and leadership has been a godsend, especially in 2020 which severely tested our abilities to improvise, adapt and overcome at each and every curve ball thrown at us. We are constantly in awe at the work you do and this school is forever grateful. A special mention to Mr Butler, who has worked tirelessly with the 4 of us, always putting up with our constant queries and much too frequent office visits. We cannot thank you enough for everything you’ve done for us, not just for developing us as captains and leaders, but also as young adults. Though unfortunately not here with us tonight, we want to thank our parents and families for putting up with us for 18 odd years and for preparing us to become the people we are today. We could not have done it without their constant support. 

The Class of 2020. We urge you to go forth, work hard, and achieve greatness; the kind of greatness that will make your dreams a reality. These last 4 years have been too valuable to each of us, and we all have too much potential for us to not make the most of it. Thank you. 

Shalaaka Brahmavar & Kaaviyan Pathmasiri

School Council President's Address to the Class of 2020

Welcome to the Valedictory dinner of 2020 or should it be 2021 - I'm a little bit confused but I guess third time lucky. Obviously last year was somewhat different from what we could have envisaged a year ago - full of challenges and obstacles. Challenges and obstacles that we as the School Community largely overcame. In fact, academically the School produced an outstanding set of results of which you can be justifiably proud. However, it came at a cost and you missed many of the key milestones that mark your last year of school. This Valedictory dinner will hopefully compensate for some of those missing events.

The delay in this Dinner has resulted in one key benefit - it has changed this event from one of celebration, overcast with a certain amount of tension arising from unknown VCE results to one of pure celebration and a chance to catch up with friends and teachers. The only ingredient missing are your parents and carers. As I think I am the sole parent representative at this dinner, I thought it would be appropriate to just say a few words on behalf of the parents and carers who are missing this milestone, not only in your lives, but in their lives as well.

Becoming a parent isn't really a rational decision! It involves a lot of work, money and commitment - this is something you only find out once you become a parent. However, it does come with its own set of rewards, seeing your child evolve from a dependent being to an independent person - it's an amazing journey for parents and carers with its highs and lows. You learn from each other and discover new talents (like telling Dad jokes) but there comes a time when you have to start letting go and a Valedictory dinner represents one of these occasions. In the absence of your parents and carers tonight, I would suggest when you meet them afterwards that you thank them for supporting you up to this point, even if the nagging to complete assignments didn't really seem like help at the time. They always had what they thought were your best interests at heart - that's how parents are.

Here you are on the cusp of a new adventure, free from the handcuffs of the ATAR. Enjoy yourselves, thank your teachers and enjoy your chosen direction into the future. Remember your school and all that Nossal has given and taught you.

Dr John Inns