SCHOOL NEWS
DEAKIN: ILLUMINATE BUSINESS CHALLENGE
Seven Year 10 students, filled with enthusiasm and determination, set off on an endeavour to compete against thirteen teams from other schools around Melbourne in the Illuminate: NextGen Challenge. We were there to design the best social enterprise.
Our team (comprised of the fabulous Lee-Ling Bristow, Anthea Guerra, Joshua Nai, Ryan Basser, Grace Sporton, Eva Lu and Johnson “Sarcasm” Duong) created Bambook, a social enterprise that aims to help provide children in Niger with better education by giving schools books, stationary, teachers and classrooms. We would raise the funds to do this through the sales of our environmentally friendly bamboo pens, which we would sell in Australia.
Over the five days at Deakin University in Burwood, teams were required to create and submit twelve tasks! These included creating a detailed business plan, marketing package and a pitch deck presentation.
On Friday 27 July, the Bambook team set foot in Deakin for one final time, and after a delicious free meal, left that evening proud to have come fourth place in the competition - only short of reaching third by 0.2%!
Every one of us had a tremendous experience, from the building of the financial tables (our favourite, of course), having utterly (excessively) passionate “discussions” to the cold morning bus commutes.
The Bambook team would like to thank Mr Verlin, Mr Evans and Mr Fernandez for supporting us throughout the week and giving us the opportunity to participate in the challenge, Illuminate Education and all the student ambassadors at Deakin for their support.
Lee-Ling Bristow & Joshua Nai
(Year 10 students)
DEBATING
Whilst the debating year is winding down for the senior grades (9-12) with the completion of the final round last Wednesday, the competition for the juniors is just beginning.
SENIOR DEBATING (9-12)
The final round of competition for A-D grade (Year 12 down to Year 9) has been completed and McKinnon has had some outstanding results.
In both A and B grades, we have teams progressing to the DAV playoffs for the first time in recent memory. They will compete against other region winners on 24 and 31 August. It all came down to the final round for A grade team 1 who needed to go undefeated in order to progress. The team on the night, Hailey Gill, George Nikolakopoulos and Siobhan Halford, won by a point in a stunning demonstration of rebuttal and argument. They capped off a wonderful season by the whole team, including Sarah Mullane, Bianca Pardo and Phoebe Ponsford.
The B grade team 2 also won a spot through to the playoffs despite having a couple of losses through the year. The team of Savannah Wegman, Hannah Rosenberg, Brinda Manogaran, Lochie Carey, Lily Tamir-Regev, Monica Tran, Bridget Schwerdt and Claire Pardo have really performed well this year.
Our other A-D grade teams also had great years and there have been some great results across the board and some great finds this year!
A big ongoing thank you to our wonderful debating mentors: Mrs Angela Masterson, Miss Charlotte Douglas, Mr Joshua Kamener, Miss Kellie Dickson, Mr Adrian D'Ambra and Mr Joshua Cukierman.
JUNIOR DEBATING (7-8)
The DAV Junior Debating program is designed to teach students in Years 7-8 the basics of debating through teaching by the DAV trainers and also gives the students a chance to put that into practise against other participating schools. McKinnon is one of the host schools for the Junior Debating program and hosts around 70 students from other schools on various nights throughout August and September. The McKinnon students are also being mentored by some of the more accomplished senior debaters as well as Mr Adrian D'Ambra, Mr Joshua Cukierman and Miss Lauren Mellios.
We hope that these students go on to successfully represent McKinnon in interschool debating in Years 9-12.
Joshua Cukierman
Debating Co-ordinator
DONATION APPEAL AND COMMUNITY SERVICE
Dear parents and students of McKinnon Secondary College,
The Year 11 and 12 students of VCAL are focusing on the topic of Homelessness and Adversity in our local community. We are aiming to raise money for the “Sacred Heart Mission” and “Youth Projects”. Sacred Heart Mission is a not for profit organisation that is run by volunteers purely based on helping and assisting disadvantaged people in the community and helping them to rebuild their lives.
Youth Projects is also an independent not for profit agency that provides health care, employment, education and training to youth experiencing homelessness, drug and alcohol issues and unemployment.
We are collecting second hand shoes and new toiletries as a way to give back to our community and help those less fortunate than ourselves. These include runners, school shoes and work shoes. Please make sure they are still in reasonable condition, keeping in mind these people are looking for employment and will be using your donated items as part of their daily lives.
If you are interested in donating toiletries we are looking for things like shampoos and conditioners, hair ties, hair brushes, deodorants, shaving creams and sanitary items. Please make sure these items are new. All donations can be dropped off in R7, near the canteen. Collection times are Thursdays in the morning before Period 1, recess and lunch or after school.
Homelessness is a very big problem in Melbourne. So far there are over 22,000 homeless people in Melbourne and this statistic is rapidly increasing, about half of this statistic is a young person under the age of 25. Primary homelessness is the term applied to those without conventional accommodation; this means they could be sleeping rough on the streets or living in a car.
So please help out in any way you can by donating, it is very greatly appreciated by everyone in the McKinnon Secondary College community.
Regards,
Ella Maitland, Josie Edwards, Kevin Lin and the rest of the VCAL Class 2016