ALUMNI
ALUMNI REPORT
ALUMNI
ALUMNI REPORT
Callum McCombe graduated from Sandringham College in 2013 as the Dux of the year level. Studying Year 12 Psychology in Year 11, and Literature, Maths Methods, Specialist Maths, Chemistry and Physics in his Year 12 Callum achieved an amazing ATAR of 99.3 a score that would get him into almost any course of his choice - he chose Science at Melbourne University.
Having always had an interest in how things worked he relates stories of adding water to his father’s car to make the petrol go further and almost setting fire to the deck at home in his endeavours to clear the back yard of leaves!! Similar to many young boys who have a fascination with trains thanks to Thomas the Tank Engine, Callum wanted to be a train conductor but as he progressed into the upper grades at Primary School his interest in science was ignited through Primary Science taught by Sandringham College teacher Andrew Wilkinson, fondly known as ‘Wilko’. Callum recalls a highlight of the program was creating an egg safety device to protect an egg dropped from the height of a crane that Wilko had “borrowed” for the day! Whilst Callum had a ‘strong interest in science and enjoyed it his real passion was Mathematics’.
At Melbourne University Callum’s Science degree enabled him to major in pure and applied maths – he loved that there were set perfect answers unlike the of unpredictability of science and pracs that could go wrong!! After finishing his course Callum started his Masters of Maths which would lead him into academia - lecturing in Maths - but decided this wasn’t quite right for him - he didn’t want to spend every waking hour fixated on maths, ‘maths was losing its magic’. Enjoying the tutoring at the Holloway Rd Campus Homework Club during this time Callum found he ‘loved the interaction with students’ and ‘enjoyed seeing the progress they made’ -following the advice of a number of people he changed from his Mathematics Masters degree to a teaching degree. After 6 years of study Callum was ready for the workforce.
Started teaching at Sandringham in 2020 Callum enjoys working with people in general and in particular assisting students in their Maths journey, he is excited to be working with many of his former teachers. His favourite part of teaching is ‘seeing the satisfaction in his students when they achieve success’ and their ‘joyous reaction’ when they are able to work hard and succeed in completing complex tasks. Callum sees himself teaching for many years to come, he enjoys classroom teaching so much he has no aspirations to climb the ladder into leadership roles.
Sandringham College students are extremely fortunate to have this passionate teacher
guiding them on their Maths journey!