Principal's Report

Class of 2023  

 This Thursday our Year 12 class of 2023 finish their final classes with a series of celebratory activities planned for Friday to mark their final day and graduation from Brentwood. 

The Valedictory evening along with the big breakfast and assembly with our guard of honour to bid them farewell are long held and valued traditions at the school, and always elicit a few tears and heartfelt reflections as students come to the realisation that their time at the school has come to an end and a new chapter beckons. 

We wish all of our Year 12 students well for their upcoming exams which start on the 24th October. 

We know that they will take with them the knowledge that they have been well prepared for whatever the future holds and many happy memories of their time at Brentwood. 

Space Xplore Camp 

Over the September term break a small group of Brentwood students along with others from Wheelers Hill, Wellington, Highvale and Oakleigh South SC visited NASA at the Kennedy Space Centre in Orlando Florida to undertake a unique astronaut training program developed for students.  

The immersive experience included undertaking some virtual reality exercises, being placed in simulators that recreated take offs and landing of aircraft, driving rovers and completing repairs on equipment. The additional ‘Mars experience’ included botany experiments, robotics and a range of problem-solving communications-based scenarios. Students were also allowed access to areas of the Space Centre not available to other visitors including a tour of the range of launch sites including the new Space X area and viewing areas exclusively reserved for NASA staff. 

This camp was the first time our schools have offered this unique experience together and allowed students and staff to forge stronger connections and access incredible STEM based activities. These included in Los Angeles the ‘Physics in Motion’ program at Knottsberry Farm where students learnt about and then rode a range of roller coasters, a visit to the USS Hornet aircraft carrier that retrieved the Apollo 11 lunar capsule and Exploratorium in San Francisco.  

The group included Regina Prananto, Avani Kalanje, Lisa Arakane, Jamie Weinbergs, Sean Kim, Chinmaya Kalagotla, Emmanuel Kaleskopis & Kiarain Prum who were excellent ambassadors for the school. 

We hope to be able to offer this camp every two years as a network of schools. 

Details for the next camp in 2025 will be made available later next year. 

Sonja Ardley 

Associate Principal