Library news

While the holiday season is almost upon us, the library has been bustling with events, activities and our fabulous patrons, all of which make this space a wonderful place to be. 

Writers Club was Launched!  

When Year 9 Coordinator, Tim Dobson, came to me early in Term 4 and explained the concept of National Novel Writing Month and discussed the possibility of launching our own Box Hill High School Writers Club, I wasn’t sure it would take off. While I knew we had incredibly keen writers (Write a Book in a Day had 173 participants this year) I wasn’t sure how we would promote a new club in Term 4 when exams were on and announcements could not be made. 

However, I am pleased to say that I have never in my life been so glad to be proven wrong! The Box Hill High School writing community turned up and each week, as word spread, the numbers have continued to increase. This wonderful group of creative humans meet every Wednesday lunchtime and write, share, collaborate and thrive and we are so excited to be on this creative journey with them. We hope this continues in 2025.  

Knitting Club  

Our wonderful, creative and dedicated Library Technician, Ying Yu, continued to run Knitting Club this term and teach students who wanted to learn. 

A massive thank you to the staff who have attended group sessions on Friday: Jamie Moshman, Carly Urquhart and Ben Davies, and supported our students to learn and create. This wonderful, creative group of students loved coming together to eat, create and learn and we hope that this is something they continue to do in 2025.  

After posting a message on Instagram and in Out of the Box earlier this year for experienced knitters to create beanies for babies, we were so grateful when we began receiving bags of beautiful beanies for babies in hospitals. Thank you so much to the wonderful Box Hill High School community for knitting hundreds of beanies and delivering them to school. These were delivered to a very grateful St John of God Hospital in Berwick and the Royal Children’s Hospital. 

Crocheted, Remembrance Day Poppies, created by our wonderful, creative Year 12 student Beth during her Duke of Ed Volunteer service in 2023, were again sold to the community at the front office. All money raised was donated to the local Box Hill RSL. A massive thank you to our community for your support.  

Christmas Charity Appeal  

The library teamed up with Year 11 Vocational Major to run our annual Christmas Charity Appeal, and we cannot thank our wonderful Box Hill High School community enough. The impact of your generous donations is greater than you can imagine. 

To promote this, we decided to reward the House that donated the most items with Zooper Doopers for every member of both houses. A big congratulations to Chang and Freeman who donated the most items in our charity appeal.  

For the fourth year in a row, we supported the charity FARESHARE - a charity which has been cooking free, nutritious meals for people doing it tough since 2001. To support this charity, we asked for donations of pasta and rice.  

The charity selected by the VM class was BACKPACKS4VICKIDS  - to support this cause, we asked for stationery, pens, pencils, rubbers, rulers, sharpeners etc. This charity provides School Essentials packs to children and youth in out of home care, ensuring engagement in education, and a feeling of equality.  

Adobe Film Workshop 

On Monday 11 and Tuesday 12 November, the library was transformed into a creative wonderland as 80 students worked in groups to develop their visual storytelling skills and their editing skills by creating a 1-minute short film. This film was planned, scripted and storyboarded on Monday 11 November and students were supported by the incredible Media and Art teachers at Box Hill High School. 

On Tuesday 12 November students worked with Dr Tim Kitchen, Adobe's Senior Education Specialist for the Asia Pacific, where they were taught how to use the editing software, Adobe Premier Pro.  

A passionate advocate for creativity in education and a well-recognised thought leader in Australia, we were honoured to have Dr Kitchen join us for this event to support our students in their creative endeavours.  

Author Visits 

The library has been so fortunate to welcome a range of guest speakers in 2024 to promote literacy and creative writing and this term we welcomed two authors into the space.  

Alli Parker

Alli Parker, the author of At the foot of the cherry tree came to BHHS to speak about the writing process and the historical significance of this story.While not a specifically a YA book, this is a powerful story about an Australian solider who was sent to Japan at the end of the war and fell in love with a young survivor of the atomic bomb - despite the strict rules that were in place not to fraternize with the locals. This soldier then returned to Melbourne (Ringwood) and spent years challenging the Australian government on the White Australian Policy.  

The two individuals on whom the story is based are Ally’s own grandparents. The park in Ringwood is named after her grandfather and her grandmother was the first Japanese war bride to come to Australia. This is a powerfully moving novel about faith, trust, and the power of a love that altered history. 

Mark Smith  

Author Mark Smith, the author of five books including the Road to Winter trilogy, presented creative writing workshops where he shared practical writing tools and techniques. Mark also supported the development of students’ creativity through discussion and practical writing activities. 

Mark discovered reading and writing while healing a catastrophic neck injury that put a pause on his surfing and biking life as a teen and his compelling life story inspired our workshop participants. Year 7 and Year 9 groups are pictured below. 

Interschool Chess Tournament  

At Box Hill High School, we have a very keen and dedicated group of chess players who love to connect with people from local schools who share an interest in chess. This year we invited five local high schools: Doncaster, Doncaster East, Ringwood, Ashwood and Koonung for our Term 4 interschool tournament. We had an exciting day where students played chess, made and reconnected with friends and celebrated their love for this game. 

Ashwood High won the tournament after a close game with Doncaster. After such a successful event, we have locked in an interschool chess tournament for both Term 1 and Term 4 of 2025.   

Library Loyalty Card

Earlier this year we launched our new Library Loyalty Card program.  Borrowers are offered a loyalty card in the colour of their house and each time they borrow a book, they receive a special stamp. Once they have borrowed five times, students go into a prize draw to win a prize. A massive congratulations to Karen in Year 7 and Nat in Year 8 who were the lucky recipients of the draw and earned IRWIN house an additional 100 house points from both of them. 

While every time a student borrows a book, they earn five house points, all students who complete a ‘library loyalty card’ earn an additional 20 house points which is noted in a green chronicle on Compass.  HAPPY READING EVERYONE!

Halloween fun

The library and many of BHHS' staff and students celebrated Halloween by supporting the SRC dress up day. We saw wonderful costumes from many literary worlds and we all gave gold coin donations to support the SRC's World Vision sponsor child, Narim.

We wish you all a wonderful, safe and fabulous Christmas!