Student Leadership in Term 1

Our dedicated and enthusiastic 2022 School Captains; Mia Armstrong, Sarah Arquiza, Harvey Constable, and Tess Marjanovic have been diligently recruiting students this term to the student leadership committees, promoting a welcoming space for students from all year levels. 

The 2022 Year 10 Form Group Captains; Walid Abdirahman, Renee Akpobi, Lily Brown, Varden Brownsea, Dash David, James Dolby, Poppy Fitzgerald, Zach Kelly, Lewis Manterfield, Uche Ozougwu, Diana Triantafyllou, and Terry Wang joined the student leadership committees this term. These students were elected to be role models, and represent their peers as part of the Thornbury High School Captain Leadership Program for 2022. These Year 10 Leaders have already been making positive contributions to our student-led meetings, raising issues of concern on behalf of the student body and suggesting positive solutions to continually improve our school community. 

The student leadership committees have been committed to supporting students with the challenging transition back to regular school life this term, creating opportunities for students to build positive school connections. This has included; a week of celebrations for International Women’s Day, inclusive sports based activities for non-male identifying students for ‘This Girl Can’, and a Staff vs Students basketball game.

International Women’s Day Celebration Week

This year the Student Leadership Committees joined forces to create a week of events to celebrate International Women’s Day (IWD), providing opportunities for all students to actively participate in a meaningful way. With inspirational quotes from Australian women who are currently addressing inequalities in our society filling the school atrium, our celebrations culminated in an out of uniform day on the 11th March which raised $1,107.35 for Juno, a local charity supporting women in need. This is an incredible achievement, almost doubling the money raised for Juno on IWD last year. 

The range of events during the week included; 

• An empowering spoken word poem about gender bias integrated into classroom learning. 
• The ‘Strike the Pose, Break the Bias’ photo collage, inviting staff and students to strike the official IWD ‘Break the Bias’ pose for 2022.   
• A screening of ‘No Time For Quiet’, an inspirational documentary about ‘Girls Rock!’ Melbourne. 
• A ‘Break the Bias’ pledge board, calling all staff and students to make a commitment to address gender inequality in our school community. 
• ‘Break The Bias’ stickers designed by Sarah Arquiza that were distributed during the IWD celebrations. 
• A Gorilla Girls inspired flash mob, calling for equality in the arts industry. 

The Arts Committee also organised an Art Competition for Year 7 students, who created artworks that break the bias of stereotypes and discriminiation of women, promoting diversity, equality and inclusivity through their artmaking. The winners of this competition will be officially announced on Thornbury High’s social media pages soon! 

To align with IWD, the Year 11 Media Studies class created a range of awareness campaigns for IWD targeted at Thornbury High students. Along with posters, infographics, stickers and short films, one of the Year 11 groups created an interactive activity for the IWD celebration day, inviting people to respond to the prompt “They Can…”. This activity run by Dash David, James Magiatzis, Odin Mevissen, and Matthew Williams was incredibly successful, generating a wall full of submissions from students and staff detailing diverse and inspirational things that women and non-male identifying people can do. 

A massive congratulations to our 2022 School Captains and our new and returning student leadership committee members for such a positive start to the school year! 

Bec Perkin 

Student Leadership Coordinator