Senior School News

Japanese Language Model United Nations Conference

On the 25th of July, Tingzijian (Bill) Y (of Year 12) and myself had the opportunity to participate in a simulated United Nation negotiations. Organised by the United Nations Association of Australia, the United Nations model is available in a range of VCE languages and for us, it was run in Japanese. 

This year, the topic of debate was “Re-write the Future: Quality Education for All,” and as Viewbank College we represented Canada. 

Prior to the event we had a few months to gather information and present an an issue our country was facing wanted to resolve.  Our objective through this speech and later in the day would be to persuade the other countries representatives into voting for our proposal. 

As we began we were greeted by a representative of Japan and Australia, Consul General Mr. Junji Shimada and Senior Policy Officer of Victorian Education, Mr. Satoshi Sanada, the organiser of this event.

Each country's representatives were called up to present their position statement speeches to the General Assembly and from there questions were asked between representatives to clarify each others’ interests.  Thankfully, we were able to convince France, Australia and a few other countries to vote for our proposal after a bit of discussion.  Like a lot of other countries, we proposed an amendment in regard to vaccine distribution laws and thankfully we were successful in passing our amendment.

Being placed in a room with nothing but the language you’re learning is simultaneously perfect immersion for improving your own knowledge and is one of the most challenging situations you can place yourself in.  All in all though, it was nothing short of a great experience and I hope more opportunities like this appear in the future to help other students studying Japanese improve their own abilities.  Thank you to Mr. Mertins for being there on the day and Ms. Naito who was the reason we were able to participate in the first place and did a great deal in helping us during our research.                                                                                         

Mikolai Z (Year12 Ignis)

Battle of the Houses

Battle of the Houses continued in week 3 with the Senior Students playing a basketball tournament.  It was great to see so many Senior students involved in the games and on the sidelines spectating.  There were some close games with many highlights.  

Stella came up victorious on the day, followed very closely by Terra House.  

Well done Senior students for you participation and enthusiasm.  

Can not wait for the next Senior round in a few weeks.

Ms Betts