Across Campus

MRC

READ GROW INSPIRE – Book Week 2023 Competition Winners

Another Book Week has come to a close. It was fantastic to see the students getting involved in the competitions and the daily activities. The author bracelet making, bookmarks and Pictionary was very popular.

Congratulations to 12 Green who are the winners of the Mentor Group Quiz.

Congratulations to Sophie La Terra 8 Red, the winner of Guess the number of pages Competition. Sophie's guess of 1,961 pages was closest to the correct answer of 1,939 pages. And Sophie Nikolarakos 8 Blue is the winner of the In fifty words or less story writing competition.

Ms Anne Chowne & Ms Cathy Bennett 

MRC Co-Learning Leaders 

EARTH at ACADEMY: Frock Fest

Earlier this year two enterprising Year 9 Earth at Academy students, Zoe Dafnias and Mira Russo, helped to secure a $2000 grant from the Yarra Council to highlight young people’s reliance on fast fashion and its detrimental effects on the environment. Harriet and Hannah from Year 11 took the baton and the novelty cheque to Rose Chong in Gertrude Street. The celebrated costumier allowed the lucky students upstairs to view her secret stash of vintage ballgowns. The excitement was palpable as they grasped at the dresses, each one more gaudy than the last. Finally, they narrowed it down to fifteen frocks and posed in the window just for the fun of it. 

Earth at Academy ran with the project and the parade was held on 16 August. The whole school was invited to the fashion extravaganza (and most came!). We even had past Earth at Academy students Yasmin Pitisano and Ruby Hoare as well as one of the founders of the sustainability group…the inspirational Christa Hubrik. The depth of teaching talent at Academy was on display during the parade with John Andritsos and Olivia Hamilton acting as the MCs. The depth of past fashion crimes was also on display as teachers opened shoeboxes filled with polaroids of themselves in the 1980s and contributed these to a wonderful whole-school guessing game. Let’s just say some of them owned a lot more taffeta, and in some cases hair, back in the day. 

The ‘models’ came from across the year levels and were particularly well represented by the Year 12s. The College Captain Rahel and the Deputy and Social Justice captains (both passionate Earth at Academy students) set the tone. Learning Support teachers Maggie Murphy and Monica Ni cast a critical fashion eye over the ‘models’ creating a little 80s magic as though they had actually lived through the era. Zoe Dafnias ventured out first in an outfit made by her grandmother in the 1980s giving the vibrant red satin rouched tube a modern twist with white sneakers. The models came out thick and fast trailing ill-fastened wigs in their wake. The winners were deemed to be Harriet and Hannah who had a routine involving sashaying, twirling and generally hamming it up which was a crowd favorite! 

We presented the results of our Academy community survey and key findings were that we felt we needed to: 

• educate ourselves and each other 
• support brands who are trying to be more sustainable 
• borrow clothes from friends (and mums!) 
• develop our own style which is not reliant on ‘micro-trends’ 

Thanks to Mara Atkins for bringing along some lovely homemade outfits, the Justice group who researched some impacts of the fast fashion industry and all who attended this event which could only be described as absolutely fabulous!

Amy Prendergast Earth at Academy