From the Captains 

Smoking Ceremony

It was an honour and a privilege for us captains to be involved in this year’s smoking ceremony, which was conducted by Elder Bill Nicholson, a respected Elder from the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation. It was a pleasure to see so many people take part and show their respect to Australia’s First Nations communities. We extend our thanks to the head of the schools Koorie Club, Rachel Aden, who led the organisation of this event, and made a speech addressing its importance, as well as to both Vicki Ward MP (State Member for Eltham) and Cr. Natalie Duffy from Nillumbik Shire Council for joining us.

Nillumbik Youth Summit

On Wednesday the 22nd of May we joined a group of other St. Helena students in attended the Nillumbik Youth Summit. Here, along with other students from across the shire – we took part in discussions surrounding areas that impacted Youth in our community such as Mental Health, Drug and Alcohol Use, Sport and Recreation, Bullying, and Environmental Sustainability. At the end we had the opportunity to presented potential solutions that we had brainstormed from these issues to various local change makers, including Vicki Ward MP (State Member for Eltham), Kate Thwaites MP (Federal Member for Jagga Jagga), a representative for Lauren Kathage MP (State Member for Yan Yean) and members of the Nillumbik Council, and Nillumbik Youth Development Team. One of our Captains, Niamh Coffey, also had the honours of MCing the event as the Nillumbik Deputy Youth Major. Overall, we each learnt a lot about the challenges that people in our community face, and are excited to see the positive changes that will come to Nillumbik in the future.

Upcoming Student Forum

Similar to the Youth Summit, St Helena will be running a Student forum on the Friday the 7th of June. The goal of this forum is to discuss problems that students face within our school and brainstorm potential solutions. A wide range of students from across all year levels and with differing interests have been invited by their mini schools to attend. Throughout the day, ten groups will be working on different topics, including transition to high school, events and activities, student wellbeing, and the VCE experience. We hope that by uplifting student voice, this will lead to positive change within the school community!

A Message from Tech Captains

On the 7th and 14th we ran an extended laser cutting session, learning how to design files for the laser cutter, and then using the laser cutter to produce students creations! Future skill-up sessions are in the making and we invite anyone with an interest in IT, design tech or art to come along or submit their requests for a session (to the Technology.Captains@sthelena.vic.edu.au)

Software Installs

Due to the lack of information about this, we thought we had better inform everyone:

There is an avenue to get non-educational software installed on your school laptop, for the sake of personal use. Available on the school website: in the Learning -> Digital Learning -> 1:1 Tablet page is the “Family request for additional software install”, a basic form for you to request any software (within reason).

“A student can request for something to be installed on their laptop, but they must agree that if the software is misused in class or poses a threat to the school systems, then we will remove it from their device without warning, and we will then notify the family (and student) that we have done this and why. 

Once we have a copy of this form signed by the parents/guardians and the student then we will happily assist in getting the program on the laptop. 

This was specifically put in place to help students use their devices for whatever they want to, and not be so rigid in the stance that the device must only be used for school work. 

We appreciate that students not being able to install software themselves is frustrating, and we would prefer not to have to have that in place, but for duty of care reasons we need to have some management of the devices to ensure students are safe, their device has the required applications installed and they are protected as much as we can from viruses and malware.” (IT Management)