Student Leadership

International Women's Day Breakfast

Inspiring Inclusion was the theme at the annual International Women’s Day Breakfast at the Box Hill town Hall. MASH Rotary sponsored Middle School Captains Issy Johnstone, Zarah Sheperd, Stephanie Coleman and Assistant Principal Allira Howe to attend the International Women's Day Breakfast. Women’s Health East organised the event. The women’s health promotion agency for Melbourne’s eastern region improves health outcomes for women across the seven local government areas of Yarra Ranges, Knox, Maroondah, Manningham, Monash, Whitehorse and Boroondara.

Women’s Health East delivers health promotion programs to disadvantaged and marginalised women. The organisation leads regional strategies, strategic partnerships, and training and capacity building initiatives to advance gender equality, prevent violence against women, and improve women’s sexual and reproductive health. Guest speakers on the day were -

Dr Niki Vincent, who commenced as Victoria’s first Public Sector Gender Equality Commissioner in 2020. She oversees the implementation of the Gender Equality Act 2020 and plays a key leadership role in promoting gender equality in the Victorian community and workplaces.
Leonie Valentine, who is a strategic advisor to CommandHub and Melbourne University's MATCH Project, as well as director of Save the Children Australia, and Board Chair of AOMedia (Tech) Pty Ltd.
Lanenie Mohgan – a qualified geophysicist who started her career in the mining industry before gaining expertise across the banking, consulting and energy sectors. She is currently an Innovation Product Lead at ENGIE, where she channels her passion for disruption to design products that help consumers decarbonise.

It was an amazing opportunity where we were able to learn more about the problems facing women and how they are being solved. We listened to the panel speak about their experiences within the workforce, their personal experiences and how they were able to overcome barriers. There were a variety of topics covered from information about the current situation in relation to gender pay gaps and representation in the leadership part of the workplace, to overcoming stereotypes and overall allowing yourself to become the person that you want to be. The overall takeaway from the session was that even in 2024, there is still a massive gap between the genders, many aspects of both workplace and personal life and it is our job to make sure that it keeps improving, through getting involved and making change."

Izzy Johnstone 9D

Middle School Leaders - Lizzy Johnstone, Zarah Sheperd, Stephanie Coleman, MASH Rotary Member Anne Treese, Assistant Principal Allira Howe

MASH Rotary Members, Speakers, and Middle School Captains, Allira Howe

Koonung Alumni attending and helping with the breakfast apart of the Rotaract Club. (Matt Tait, Amelie Storrar-Carey, Viraj Patel, Matthew Gibney, Alice Terrill, Assistant Principal Allira Howe)

Allira Howe

Acting Assistant Principal

International Women’s Day

To celebrate International Women's Day, the Parliament of Victoria hosted a special panel event, ‘Invest in Women’, at Parliament House, Melbourne. On Monday 4 March, Student leaders, Evelyn Heath, Chloe Shi, Chloe Cooper and Jasmina Le, and Assistant Principal Mrs Howe, saw the following panel members in action: Nicole Werner MP, Eden Foster MP, Professor Julianne Moss and Commissioner Jennifer Huppert, from the Victorian Multicultural Commission.

The key message was that women’s empowerment can drive change for the next generations. This inspired our future endeavours in leadership. It was an insightful experience to understand the difficulties in reaching fairness and equity, but overall to strive for our passions and interests. We learnt that it is important to keep putting your hand up and take initiative. We were further informed on the struggles women go to having to keep pushing boundaries, as well as making sure to bring men, boys and others along in the conversations. Topics discussed were the pay gap between men and women, male dominated work places and the old fashion views of women being the primary family carer were hot topics. This trip has taught us so much, but most of all, that women need to keep pushing through all of these barriers in order to flourish!

Jasmine Le

Vice Captain

"Life at High School" Box Hill North Primary

Four ex-Box Hill North students (Victoria Moar, Evans Sudyahardja, Zairah Baksh, and Vivian Thi) returned to their old primary school to rapturous applause from the current Grade 6 students. The Koonung Year 7s spoke to the older primary kids about what it's like to come to high school, preparing them for the biggest transition of their educational lives. Thank you to Evans, Zairah, Vivian and Victoria for being such wonderful Koonung representatives and speaking on their experiences with honesty and pride.

Peter Hodkinson

Director of Learning - Community and Agency