Middle School Update

School for Student Leadership 

We welcome back our Year 9 students: James, Rory, Kallin, Yun and Deeksha from their Term away at Don Valley, School for Student Leadership. Students were able to engage with a variety of experiential learning opportunities that enabled them to grow into better citizens and leaders through increased self-awareness, social engagement, community connection and environmental stewardship. During their time away, students developed a Community Learning Project that will be implemented once they return to school with the aim to increase inclusion and a sense of belonging within our school community.  

We wish all our Middle School students and families a restful break over the holidays and look forward to seeing you at the start of Term 4! 

By Eleanor Smith

Head of Middle School Team 

Year 10 Highlights

Guest speakers – Jaryd Clifford (Paralympian; adversity and resilience)

Jaryd visited our year 10s to speak about his adversities and triumphs at the elite level of running.  Jaryd is legally blind and competes for Australia at the Paralympics and Para Com Games.  He spoke to our students about struggles in life, how to overcome with the help of others, and the importance of gratitude and empathy when setting out to achieve goals. We thank Jaryd for his time in visiting the school and delivering a wonderfully insightful presentation.

Ara C. – Team Vic U/16 Boys National Championships in Canberra

Our aspiring Soccer superstar Ara has been honoured with the opportunity to represent Team Vic in the upcoming National Champs held in Canberra later this term.  Ara will be joining students from across the state to hopefully bring home gold when the team faces off against Teams QLD, NT, ACT, SA, WA and NSW.   We wish Ara and the team the best of luck!

Youth Forum students: 

Hooria, Zoe, Lihan, Keira, Pema, Jerry, Harper, Nate, Anzhi, Naisha, Emily

Our year 10s were given the opportunity to attend the Whitehorse Youth Forum held at Box Hill Town Hall earlier this term. This event was run by the Whitehorse Youth Representative Committee and allowed students from all over the Whitehorse community to represent their school in attendance and receive valuable insight and knowledge into community issues that teens face. The day began with a briefing and welcome to all students. Students then split up and attended an array of seminars ran by people Vic Police, Headspace and more.  A lunch was supplied and finally a conclusion speech and photo opportunity in the main room.  We are pleased to have endorsed these students to attend and hope they valued the experience.

The Whitehorse youth forum was a definitely a well spent day and allowed us to delve into some of the issues that are common in the community at the moment, the topics that were covered throughout the workshops were cyber safety, bullying, the effect of unrealistic media representation of sex and respectful relationships. To learn about these issues in this time of our lives, when we are evolving into young adults is extremely important to spread awareness for the betterment of the future.  The forum also gave us a chance to interact with other students and learn more about our community through the connections we ended up making.  It was interesting to learn about these crucial issues that the young people commonly face, and the many ways people can tackle these issues by reaching out for help in our community.  I would recommend this experience to people who are keen on learning about ways to improve their community and want to be involved in an insightful and enjoyable experience.

 - Hooria S, Year 10

A few weeks ago, a close friend of mine and I took a day off school to go to Whitehorse’s Youth Forum at Box Hill Town Hall.  We spent the day in groups, rotating through different courses about certain topics of interest. Throughout the day, we learnt a lot about consent online, bullying, and sexual relationships. This experience was a really good one to have, and I think it is important that these topics are talked about for people our age. It was interesting to consider the outcomes of consent online, and to know the different rules around relationships over the phone. Learning about why people bully each other as well and how to respond to bad behaviour was also really helpful, and something we can all apply to our everyday lives. Additionally, learning about sexual relationships and how they can be perceived wrongly was also an important topic to know about, and I got a lot out of not only this session, but all three discussions, that I didn’t know much about before. I had a positive experience at the Youth Forum and definitely got a lot out of my time spent there. I would definitely recommend this experience to anyone who is passionate about important topics that can be common in everyday lives, and to people who want to learn more about certain issues we can likely face and how to handle them correctly. 

      - Zoe K, Year 10

State Schools: Kelvin & Amiya

Kelvin W and Amiya C are representing our school in the upcoming State Schools Spectacular held every year in the CBD. Kelvin will be on Percussion and Amiya is on backing vocals. We will have two staff attending to watch their acts and see them performing their amazing talents. We are immensely proud of these students and are excited to see them perform on the big stage of John Cain Arena.   Well done to you both!

Monash Young Scholars: Hooria, Victoria, Jia

Congratulation to Hooria, Victoria and Jia who were selected to take part in The Monash Scholars Program.  This provides high achieving students with an exclusive opportunity to engage with Monash University.  Students attend on-campus events after school hours and during the holidays throughout the year.  Scholars who successfully gain a place at Monash University after completing Year 12 will continue to receive benefits including leadership and ambassador opportunities.  Students explore a range of events focussing on enhanced learning, exploring career ambitions, defining personal aspirations and building networks. 

Students representing school at zone aths: Katrina, Lachie, Ava

Congratulations to the following students who made it through to the next round of School Athletics:

Katrina C, Lachlan W and Ava W. We know you have worked super hard in getting to the next round and cannot wait to hear how you go!

Middle School weekly activities

This term we have started facilitating some events throughout the week to encourage students to connect with each other and strengthen a sense of community within the Middle School cohorts. 

A few days throughout the week, we have hot chocolates available to students before school and during the breaks. This provides students some space to meet others in their cohort while having a nice hot drink during these winter months!

Our Y10s have recently had the opportunity to get involved with Mr Barnett’s E-sports tournament and Just Dance lunchtime activities. It has been great to see so many students getting involved and having fun with each other. 

By Jake Barnett

Year 10 YLC

Year 9 Highlights

Year 9s have had an exceptionally busy time working their way through subject-selection and course advising this term as they make their preparations for the move into their senior years of schooling.  Thank you to all the parents and teachers who have helped our students navigate their way through this stage and we hope that you will all have a lot of fun in your 2024 subjects! 

We were very impressed this term to see our Year 9 Assembly planned and led by our class captains and we look forward to seeing what they will come up with in Term 4! Congratulations to Ivy H. and Atoosa W. who gave an outstanding musical performance. We are also looking forward to welcoming back our Year 9 students from the School for Student Leadership and cannot wait to see the project they have been planning implemented across Term 4 and into 2024.  

Year 9’s have also been involved in a large variety of events across the last few months and congratulations should be given to all our students who have taken on co-curricular activities including The Write A Book In A Day Competition, Interschool Debating, BHHS focus groups, interschool sports, chess competition, music recitals, dance competitions and more.  

We are looking forward to an exciting Term 4 with our Year 9s, especially on the upcoming City Experience! 

Public Speaking 

Debating 

This year has seen a huge increase in the number of Year 8-12 students participating in the interschool debating competition. As always, the preparation has been intense, the competition fierce, and the passion from our students immense.  We’ve had some tough topics and some tough opposition but every round of the competition has been exciting and entertaining.  

This year has also seen multiple other schools within our competition continue to give feedback on the positive manner in which our Box Hill debaters conduct themselves, and the energy that they bring to the competition.  While our D Grade Teams unfortunately just missed out on the finals this year, it has been a privilege to see so many of our new and our experienced debaters continue to grow in their confidence and in their public speaking skills. We hope to see as many of you as possible return to the BHHS Debating Team in 2024 where some new and exciting opportunities will be offered.  We especially want to thank Tebb Kusserow for his ongoing support of our C Grade Team and welcome more parents to get involved as volunteers in 2024.  

We look forward to our Term 4 Year 7 debating competition which will be taking place at Box Hill High School, and will include a number of our Year 8-12 debaters in the roles of adjudicators.  

MUNA 

On Saturday August 19th, Nelini G. and Eshani A. both of Year 11 represented Box Hill High School at the Model United Nations Competition. After a few weeks of preparation, the girls took to the stage representing Australia. Although the competition can be extremely nerve-wracking, the girls spoke beautifully and defended and debated each resolution successfully throughout the day. The highlight however was the opportunity for the delegates from each country to mix and talk with one another during the breaks, and meet with their sponsors. Thank you to our sponsors at the Rotary Club of Forest Hill without whom we would not be able to compete. Congratulations again to Nelini and Eshani who were outstanding representatives for Box Hill High School!