Across Campus

Frayne Speech Festival 

On 25 August, members of the Debating Team represented the College at the Frayne Speech Festival. Students competed in two rounds of debating. In the first round, students argued that political parties should nominate individuals from underrepresented groups. They presented convincing arguments and won their debate. In round two, students attempted to convince their audience that we should not regret the rise of AI. The students delivered considered points, but were narrowly defeated by the opposing team. 

Audrey Callanan delivered a speech about the youth of today in the Public Speaking Competition. Audrey’s insight, maturity and passion was truly impressive. Audrey was selected as a finalist and delivered her speech to Mr Aaron Violi MP and Ms Daniela De Martino MP. She was awarded runner-up in the Public Speaking Competition - a fantastic achievement!  Audrey delivered her speech to the school community at our most recent College assembly. 

Well done to Christina Camilleri, Ada Ryan, Olivia Moffat, Audrey Callanan, Cara Egry and Florencia Herrera for their involvement in this year’s Frayne Speech Festival.

Ms Sherine Baydoun

Public Speaking Coordinator

Japanese Exchange Students Visit

This term the Academy had the privilege of hosting 3 Japanese students; Hina Takakusagi, Mayu Ohashi and Sae Miyagi from Yamawaki Senior High School, Tokyo. 

Hina, Mayu and Sae quickly became an integral part of our college community and made the most of all opportunities; learning in an Australian context, improving their English, in addition to loving their experience of performing in the Mercy Day dances, as well as trying some work experience with their Year 10 cohort. 

Hina, Mayu and Sae's lively spirit, friendliness and their admirable work ethic enabled them to make many friends at the college, which we hope will last for many years to come. In particular, the Year 10 Japanese class will miss them greatly, as they brought to life the joy of being able to converse in another language and the excitement of gaining a glimpse into life in Japan. 

We extend our deepest gratitude to Hina, Mayu and Sae for making Term 3 such a memorable and enjoyable experience for all at the Academy and we wish them safe travels and every success as they return to their studies in Japan. 

Work Experience 2023

Year 10 Work Experience 

Ella Clifford 

For my year 10 work experience, I had the amazing opportunity to be a part of the music therapy program at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. Music therapy is a service provided to patients in hospital that aims to promote relaxation and ease discomfort or stress through music. Being involved in the program for the week has really shown the importance and the necessity of music therapy in hospitals. Throughout the week, the music clearly had a positive effect on the patients and the staff in the hospital. 

Observing the patients’ reactions was one of the things that made it really clear why music therapy is so important. Their mood would visibly improve, and it was easy to see the joy in their eyes when a song they knew was played. It seemed like music therapy allowed them to forget about their current situation for a little while, I really enjoyed seeing the patients sing along if they knew the words, the music covered up the beeping and all the typical hospital sounds, which gave the patients a break from having to think about what was going on. 

The other thing that was really obvious was the positive effect music therapy had on the staff. Being a healthcare worker is a high stress job, and music was a very effective way of lifting a weight off the staff’s shoulders, even if just for a few minutes. Whenever we came to play music either in the hallways or in patients’ rooms the staff would always smile, sing or sway along to the songs and thank us for coming. Even just watching their body language, it was clear the music was relaxing and offered a reprieve from the typical stress of their work. 

On the last day I was with the program we went to a conference at the Exhibition Buildings for Scrub Choir (part of the Music therapy program) to perform a number of songs they had recorded as part of the program during the pandemic. I loved being backstage with them and watching rehearsals. It is amazing that Scrub Choir is now being promoted and collaborated with others all over the world. I previously knew about Music therapy but to actually see it at work in the hospital was eye opening and a joy to be part of even for just a week. Music therapy is so important in places like hospitals, it was a privilege to see how even such a brief interaction can brighten someone’s day.

Sophie Lee 

I had my work experience placement at Toyota the Centre of Excellence in Altona North. I found this experience to be very interesting and beneficial. I learnt about the different areas of the company as well as the processes and systems they used. I found that Toyota is very structured and is continuously working to improve their policies and systems. I worked in a variety of areas over the duration of the week. These included:

An improvement activity called a Jishuken 

An experience day for new employees 

Report writing training 

My highlight of the experience was viewing the behind the scenes of the product design centre. I was able to see the life size 3D clay models of new car designs as well as look at what goes on in the centre. The most challenging part of this experience was understanding the acronyms for their systems and processes. The company uses many acronyms so there were a lot of new terms to learn. 

I found it surprising how Toyota is not only a car brand but has a variety of systems and groups that work with other companies to share their knowledge and insight on resolving issues. I like the strong theme of Kaizen which means continuous improvement. I would recommend this experience to other students.

Emma Otsuka

Recently, we completed the Work Experience program offered by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Throughout this placement, we gained insight into some of the departments that operate behind the scenes, such as the Marketing Team, who taught us about what goes into advertising a concert to make it as successful as possible. Alongside the informative guest speakers, students were divided into groups, and produced concert pitches, each with new and creative ideas that could be brought to life in concert form. Constructing the repertoire, theme, marketing, and budget for these concert pitches were a highlight of the program, and many fascinating ideas were presented to a panel of MSO staff. Watching the band rehearse live was an experience that will be valued, and overall, the opportunity we received at the MSO Work Experience was an extremely rewarding one. 

Alisa Sanelli

Work Experience at the MSO was an amazing opportunity that taught me a lot about how the arts industry works, especially creating an understanding of the careers of the MSO’S musicians and staff. Working to create a Concert Pitch gave us real experience in understanding the factors that make up a career in the arts. I would definitely recommend this placement for anyone interested in getting an insight into how a career as a professional musician or as a manager of the arts works!

Year 10 Students are currently immersed in a diverse range of industry placements throughout this final week of Term 3 [11-15 September 2023]. Amazing and unique experiences have already been reported by many of our students. The empowering effect of these individual experiences will undoubtedly impact our students as they consider their VCE studies and future careers. 

Ms Anne Marie Allan Work Experience Coordinator 

Ms Lauren Sach Careers Practitioner

MRC

This year the Year 7s have been participating in our “Readers’ Cup”. We at the Academy value reading and wanted to get the students excited about reading too. Reading has many benefits for students, from inspiring the imagination to improving academic abilities. When students embrace the importance of reading, they can reach their full potential. The Readers’ Cup will be awarded to the Year 7 English class that reads the most amount of pages. They have also been writing a short Book Reviews via our Library Home Page accessed on Compass. The year 7s have been reading furiously over the past two terms and have amassed a total of 144,636 pages of literature. Simply amazing! 

The Reader’s Cup winner will be announced in early November. During Book Week the organisation “Students Need School Libraries” had a competition running in which stories were submitted on why you love your school library and how the library has helped you. Ms Kathryn Orfini (Year 7 Silver English Teacher) secretly entered and wrote about our “Readers’ Cup” and out of 150 stories that were submitted we were one of the seven winners that received a $100 Gift Certificate to buy books for their school community. We and the Year 7s were all thrilled. 

Happy Reading

Ms Anne Chowne & Ms Cathy Bennett 

MRC Co-Learning Leaders