Secondary School

Upcoming Dates

Secondary Presentation Evening

Please save the date Tuesday 5 December, for our end-of-year Secondary Presentation Evening, commencing at 7pm in the K-Block Gym. More details will be emailed to families in the near future by Mr James Kumnick.

Head of Secondary Update

Suddenly there are two and half weeks left before the end of the school calendar year. For our Year 10 and 11 students they are in their final week of HeadStart before spending the day at Melbourne Cable Park on Monday 4th December as a fair reward for all their efforts across 2023. 

For our Year 7-9 students, their year concludes on Wednesday 13th December after enjoying a three-day activity week, from Monday 11th December. Classes for Years 7-9 conclude on Friday 8th December. Details about all of these arrangements will or have been communicated to students and families by Year Level Coordinators. 

Over the next few weeks, we will be celebrating student achievement at the Secondary Presentation night on Tuesday 5 December, commencing at 7:00pm in the K Block Gymnasium. We ask that the Secondary community make this time a priority as we come together to acknowledge the various gifts and talents of our students. Communication will be sent home this week if your child is receiving an award across Years 7-12. We will also use this time to farewell our ‘Class of 2023’ one last time as a community and will invite each of our departing Year 12’s on stage to receive their final graduation gift. All students are reminded to wear full summer uniform at Presentation night. Please refer to the letter emailed home on November 8th for further details.

As the end of year weariness is well and truly being felt by many in our community, I’m reminded of one of my favourite verses in the Bible. I would like to leave this scripture verse with our students as the 2023 school finish line fast approaches. 

“Dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.”

Philippians 3: 13-14 

May God continue to bless our final few weeks together before the summer holiday period.

God Bless,

Mr James Kumnick

Secondary Assembly Awards

The Secondary students who applied for a 2024 Student Leadership role have gone through a rigorous process, which involved completing an application form, and then being selected out of the applicants in their year level to attend an interview with a panel which included teachers from the Secondary leadership team. One-on-one feedback was then provided to each applicant with the aim to help them grow by going through this experience. We want to congratulate each student who applied for leadership and those who were interviewed. 

The 2024 School Captain and School Vice-Captain positions will be announced at next week’s Secondary Presentation night.

Along with SIS and Year Level Sports Awards being presented, we also presented Community Service Awards. The following students are being recognised for their service within the school community by helping in running North Canteen throughout 2023. The Community Service award were presented to:

Emma Anderson, Sarah Lough, Samara George, Bella Lucas, EeWen Chia and Anke Hattingh. 

Year 8 Science

On Friday the 18th of November, the Year 8 students visited the Melbourne Museum to explore their fantastic rocks and minerals displays. This excursion was planned to enrich their final unit of the year, “Active Earth” which includes learning about the different types of rocks, the rock cycle and plate tectonics. Some students were sceptical as to if they would enjoy a visit to the museum to look at rocks of all things, however most were won over after taking in the unbelievable variety and complexity of the exhibit. While we were at the museum students explored other displays and overall it was a fantastic day. 

- Ulli Austermann and Paris Farr

Student reflections: 'We really enjoyed the rock exhibit at the Museum. It was very interesting to learn about the different types of rocks and how they are formed. Something that really helped us get a better understanding of rocks was the scavenger hunt worksheet that we got to fill out, it had a variety of rock types which we had to find all over the exhibition. Overall, it was a great experience and was a fun day out.' 

- Chryssa Papas and Eliza Dale. 

'The rock excursion was really fun and we thoroughly enjoyed and liked learning how rocks worked during history and how the different rocks are formed. It is also interesting how there are 4400 current minerals discovered and how there are constantly more being found. Overall it was a fun and worth-it excursion.' - Dylan Knoop and Alexander Smith

Year 9 Shared Recess

Year 9 students took their elective time this week to prepare for a shared recess with their peers. The students were provided with two bags of ingredients in which they were able to create platters to feed the year level. 

Students showed creativity baking cookies and slices, homemade dips and fruit and fruit plates. It was wonderful to see the year 9’s serving and enjoying each other's company as we head towards the end of the school year. - Ms Laura Scouller

VCE Biology

During HeadStart, our new Year 12 Biology Students participated in their first experiment of Unit 3. They attempted to extract the DNA from strawberries. Although it was not as successful as we had hoped as we couldn’t lift the DNA out of the mixture, the students were able to see the DNA inside the test tube and had fun. - Ms Paris Farr

VCE Chemistry

In VCE Chemistry, the year 11s finished off their year with the topic of gases, by using the glass syringe to measure the amount of gas produced in a chemical reaction.

In HeadStart, the Year 12s have started learning about fuels, the stuff that power our lives. Moreover, we made some biodiesel from oil, which will be burnt to see how much heat energy it releases. We used a separating funnel (i.e. really cool looking glassware to do this) to help us extract the biodiesel we needed.

For the Year 11s, we are igniting our passion for Chemistry by learning about the chemistry behind the flame tests and hands-on activities to help us learn the complexities of shells and subshells configurations.

 All in all, a lot of fun and practical practice in the chemistry lab. - Ms Amy Partridge

Pantry Plus Working Session

Our Year 11 VM students worked hard to complete the community garden beds for Pantry Plus. A massive thank you needs to go to Mr Justin Mason for driving the school tractor to Pantry Plus to move the massive quantities of soil. - Mr Ken Berry

Moonlit Sanctuary Working Session

Years 10/11 VM students participated in half day working sessions at the Moonlit Sanctuary. They learned valuable life skills and the positive power of volunteering. Mr James Siede worked with the Year 10 group, and I worked with Year 11. The students planted out garden beds and then helped to clean out Ronny the Tasmanian Devil’s enclosure and recycle the mulch for the new garden beds. These sessions were very successful and we will continue these in the future. - Mr Ken Berry

Lunchtime Basketball

During Term 4 students have had the opportunity to compete in a lunchtime basketball competition. The standard of competition was high and some fierce rivalries developed over the course of the competition. 

Well done to all who competed and to those who came along and supported their favourite team. Overall, six teams were selected to enter over a five-day tournament but there could only be one winner. Congratulations to the Bayside Baddies as the winners for 2023. A big thank you to all those who helped out, especially Mr Wells for controlling the game as an official ref.

Years 7/8 Girls Volleyball

The Years 7/8 Girls Volleyball team played their last game of the season on Thursday the 16th of November against Cornish College. In what was a close match on all 3 seats played, all 13 available players rotated through and produced a great win. There was a good level of comradery between the opposing teams after the game, with players from both schools participating in a brief student-lead “Just Dance” session as we waited to be picked up. All in all it was a fun and positive experience for the team to conclude a season in which they won 3 of their 5 games. The Year 8 girls in particular look to carry the momentum into next year as Year 9/10 Girls Volleyball is an SIS option in Term 1 of 2024. Year 7 players will have to wait until Term 4 of 2024 to compete again. - Mr Josh Goschnick

Intermediate and Junior Boys Basketball

Congratulations to the Years 9/10 and Years 7/8 Boys Basketball teams on winning this year’s SIS pennant. Throughout the competition both teams played some excellent basketball both offensively and defensively to be crowned this year’s champions. It’s a credit to both teams on how well they played, especially during some of the close games. 

The members of the team were: 

Intermediate Team 

• Brock Thompson
• Ashton Murphy 
• Adam Flemming 
• Levi Withey 
• Oliver DeHaan
• Thomas Hughes 
• Benjamin Nennstiel 
• Maison Darmakis 
• Oliver Hallam 
• Joel Berry 

Junior Team 

• Tyler Zwiersen 
• Isaac Hughes 
• Noah Beeching 
• Mitchell Hooper 
• Clay Levey 
• Reed Watson 
• Noah Meyer 
• Will Unwin 
• Aiden Binu Varghese
• Aiden Snow Cole 
• Thomas Trewin