Parents' Association Phantom Drone

The school Drone, kindly donated by the Parent’s Association, has been thoroughly tested is and ready to document the Environment Team’s Solar Panel Installation, part of the Zayed Future Energy Prize, due to start during the next school holidays.

The Drone is also available for other school purposes such as sports development, documenting school-based events, media classes and promotional material. Please contact the IT/AV department for further details regarding bookings.

Year 10 Annual All Girls Government Secondary School Conference

On Friday the 7th of August, ten students from MGC attended the annual All Girls Leadership Conference, which was held at Pascoe Vale Girls’ College.

The conference included schools such as: Gilmore College for Girls, Pascoe Vale Girls’ College, Canterbury Girls’ Secondary College, Mentone Girls’ Secondary College, Mac.Robertson Girls’ High School and Matthew Flinders Girls Secondary College.

This year’s theme was Empowering Women. The focus was on violence against women, in which we learnt ways to defend and protect ourselves. The day started off with an introduction assembly, where the leadership captains from each school spoke about the events that would be happening throughout the day. Then we had a presentation form Jess Fraser, founder of Australian Girls in Gi. Jess spoke about her achievements in life and her fighting career. The two activities that were running were Yoga and Self-defence. The self-defence class taught us was to protect ourselves in situations where we might feel unsafe or uncomfortable. The Yoga class taught us how to relax our minds and our bodies.

Overall, it was a successful day! From learning to defend ourselves to being able to make many new friends, it is always an enjoyable time to share with some of Victoria’s powerful girls schools!

Kate Noble and Sarah Patterson

Youth In Philanthropy

MGC has taken part in the Youth in Philanthropy/Lord Mayor's Charitable Foundation progam in 2015.

The following students participated in this challenging and valuable activity:

Amanda Attanayake, Emily Nguyen, Irene Barbati, Madi Roof, Naomi Miller, Tallara Drew-Hazou, Katelyn Berridge.

On August 11th the students attended the Graduation Ceremony at Melbourne Town Hall and gave an excellent presentation.Throughout the long and complex process, our students always had great energy, displayed integrity, dedication and bucket loads of common sense. It was a pleasure to work with them.

Thanks to The Lord Mayor's Charitable Foundation and Anita Hopkins our mentor.

*The Youth in Philanthropy program was established by the Lord Mayor's Charitable Foundation in 2002 to help young people learn about philanthropy, social issues and community leadership through a guided grantsmaking process that funds eligible charities.

Monash Leaders Forum

At Scotch College Tuesday, August 4, 2015

Eight MGC students embarked on the grounds of Scotch College, unfortunately not by river (which would have been very quick) but by the MGC school bus. We hopped off the bus with an idea of leadership in our minds, ready to partake in the event. We were asked to read a speech by Sir John Monash and think about leadership prior to the event.

After introductions we were split off into mixed groups that had students from different schools around Melbourne. After a few minutes of ‘uncomfortable’ introductions the event officially started and we were ready to learn. After being told a brief history of Sir John Monash’s life we were posed the question “What does leadership mean?” It was a broad question that should’ve been easy to answer. After the light and quickly paced discussion our attention was brought back to one of the guest speakers of the event. The speaker began to talk about the meaning of leadership and the roles that a leader plays, though some points were very truthful they were also very one sided about what it means to be a leader, often relating back to the military and cadet corps. We found it a moral tension that allowed for more discussion as a team with Mr Torey at the conclusion of the event.

We took away from this event that to be a good leader you must be able to set a good example and be able to lead even in the worst of times.

Jovana Davila and Brittany Nott, Year 10

PS If you would like to read or obtain a copy of Sir John Monash’s speech to the armed forces in WW1 please email Mr Peter Torey on 02170097@mgc.vic.edu.au

Diamonds are a scientist's best friend

The school had the privilege of hosting a talk by Associative Professor Jodie Bradby, a physicist from the Australian National University. Girls from years 9 to year 12 listened to a highly engaging presentation during which she talked about her journey as a student interested in science to her position as a researcher and teacher at ANU. She discussed her work using diamonds to discover new and useful materials at high pressures and at the nano-scale, some of which may have potential uses in solar applications. This was a fantastic forum for girls to see the interesting and varied opportunities available in science.

Sandor Kazi, Physics Teacher