Secondary School

Upcoming Events

SEPTEMBER
10/9	Year 10 Talk Money Incursion
10/9	Year 11 Fit 2 Drive Incursion
14/9	Indonesian Tour Departs
16/9	Year 9 Leadership Week
19/9	Footy Day Free Dress
19/9	Finals Fever Community Market
20/9	Staff vs Students Soccer
20/9	Last Day of Term 2:30pm

Head of Secondary

Spring Time

Have you noticed some small changes around you as we say goodbye to August, the winter season, and welcome the month of September, spring time, and not to mention, the AFL football finals fever? There has been lots of debate and discussion this last week at school on who will go deep into the finals this year and win the premiership cup for 2024. Personally, I’m thrilled to have my team back playing in September after a seven-year hiatus. Let’s go, Hawks!

By small things I mean that the mornings are brighter as dawn gets earlier, the daylight hours are getting longer as we head towards daylight saving time, the air is losing its chill factor, and the smell of pollen is in the air. (Sorry to those who suffer from hayfever, I feel your pain).

Suddenly there are only three weeks left of Term Three. There is mixed emotion when we think about our Year 12 cohort, the class of 2024, who only have twenty-four more days of class time to complete their subject responsibilities plus a few extra days to celebrate their educational journey at Bayside.

For some, the Bayside school environment is all they know, having been here since Kindergarten or Prep. We will recognise these students at the end of the year but for now, there is still much work to do and if you are completing the VCE pathway, exams to study for and complete.

Several key events occurred across the school calendar last week that had cause for much optimism, celebration and an opportunity for renewed focus. On Monday 26 August, we assembled one of largest teams to compete at the SIS Athletics event at Casey Fields. The day was a huge step forward for our sports program at a College as we won several age group pennants and for the first time took home an age group shield! Congratulations to all competitors for their endeavours but especially to our Year 11 and 12 students for winning the senior shield. May we win many more in the years to come.

Week six was also a wonderful time for teachers, parents/carers, and students to reconnect at the recent conferences, to discuss current academic progress for Semester Two and provide constructive feedback to help further equip our students to maximise their learning and take responsibility for their classroom demeanour.

I encourage parents and students to continue to have dialogue in these spaces across the rest of the year as we partner with you to achieve success. Please reach out to your child’s subject teacher if you would like to have further discussion or their year level coordinator for more pressing matters.

Finally, to all our Year 10 and 11 families. Confirming that there will be a Bayside 2024 Year 10 and 11 Formalon Wednesday 30 October at the Settlers Run Golf and Country Club! Please make sure to thoroughly read through the event information letter that was emailed on Thursday 29 August and to book your ticket using the link provided. We look forward to seeing these students dressed to impress, share a meal, and dance, as they socialise out of school hours together.

To conclude, the next time I write to you, I may or may not mention the AFL finals series again, depending on results. Take care and God bless.

Mr James Kumnick, Head of Secondary

Yad Vashem Youth Historian Award Winner: Who’s Your Hero?

Ciara Feeney’s achievement as one of four global winners of the Yad Vashem ‘Who’s Your Hero?’ prize was celebrated at our assembly on Tuesday. Ciara’s project was recognised for the creative means through which it told the story of Abba Kovner’s courageous leadership in rescuing one hundred Jewish people on the day the large Vilna ghetto was liquidated.

Ciara was awarded the prestigious prize along with a student from Mexico, a team from the United States of America, and a student from Hungary. She presented her project at a Yad Vashem conference in November, 2023. Ciara’s project provides us with inspiration to have the courage to care for those around us, and bring an offering of peace to areas of conflict.

Mr Sam Waldron, Secondary Teacher

SparkLit Australian Christian Teen Writer of the Year: Second Prize

Alvoli Anderson has been awarded second prize for SparkLit’s 2024 Australian Christian Teen Writer award for her poetry ‘Reflections on Rain and Reason’.

The judges wrote concerning her work, “looking for purpose, Alvoli Anderson pokes, probes and ponders history, Scripture and popular culture. Her instinct and curiosity is rewarded with some pleasing connections”.

Alvoli’s poetry will feature in Issue #19 of The Overcoat. Congratulations to Alvoli for thoughtful, faithful and inquisitive writing! We hope to read more and more of your work.

Mr Sam Waldron, Secondary Teacher

Talk Money Incursion

On Tuesday 10 September, Talk Money is visiting the Year 10 students to discuss 'Money Lessons in Life'. This free financial education program teaches young people money lessons for life, helps students be confident when talking about money and to make informed financial decisions.

Delivered by trained facilitators, the workshops are aligned to the Australian curriculum and the National Consumer and Financial Literacy Framework. If you would like to know more, visit their website www.talkmoney.org.au

Mr Chris Alley, Years 10-12 Coordinator

Units 3&4 Chemistry

The Years 11 and 12 Chemistry classes have been working on their glassware technique. There is an art to how to rinse glassware correctly and completely, to ensure the best accuracy is possible while saving resources.

The year 11s made up volumetric flasks with coffee and diluted them accurately, with all the calculations that followed in calculating their different concentrations of coffee.

The Year 12s were practising their titration skills by seeing if they could get the perfect shade of orange from their acid/base reactions. This can be a challenging thing to achieve as it is very easy to overshoot the reaction, which starts as yellow in colour and concludes as a pink or red. The perfect colour is a more yellow shade of orange, to which Owen Matthews and Ethan Reeves achieve the best one in that day’s class.

Miss Amy Partridge, Secondary Teacher

Year 12 Inter-Home Room Competition

As our time together is swiftly coming to a close, the competitions heat up. Our school captain, Ryan Hooper, ran an ingenious idea of a Bingo Competition. With the dulcet tones of coffee jazz in the background, the mood was set and the game was had.

After this round, and a solid win from the green team, also known as the 12B home group, this leaves us with a total winning tally of 7:8 of green to pink in the overall scores. Well done to pink, also known as 12A, for remaining ahead.

We have one more round before our finale rounds. Who will be the ultimate winner of the Inter Home Group Competition Trophy? Who will be the team to ‘get their name in lights’?

VCE VM News

Pantry Plus Food Drive

Our Year 12 VM students did a wonderful job running a food drive for Pantry Plus as they struggle to have enough food to supply to local people in need. The students promoted the program, made wonderful signs and collected the food from classes. The Bayside community generously donated food from the ELC to Year 12 and this will be a great blessing for the Pantry Plus team.

Fathers Day Activities

Year 11 VM working with Years 1/2 students

The wonderful Madura Nadarajah again invited our students to work with her class on animal diorama and Father’s Day gifts. The Year 11’s were very hesitant to work with young children but have grown to thoroughly enjoy these experiences.

Winter Shelter

The Year 11 VM class did an awesome job packing up the winter shelter space in a record time of 35 minutes. They put away beds and mattresses and even vacuumed the hall at Peninsula City Church ready for Youth the next day. The students worked efficiently and as a team to achieve this wonderful work to bless our local community through the winter shelter program.

Bianca Meo VM Community Project Wheelchair Basketball

Bianca organised a wonderful workshop at the Frankston Basketball Stadium for the rest of her Year 12 VM class. We participated in Wheelchair Basketball and had a blast learning about the skills required to play this demanding game. The students loved the challenge of playing Basketball with only your upper body and it certainly opened our eyes to the challenges of living in a wheelchair. A huge thankyou goes to Bianca, her mum Carmela, Tanya and Seth at the FDBA and to our intrepid learning assistant Judith Kruiskamp for being a part of this wonderful workshop.

VM Café

The Year 12 VM students are running the Café in the North Campus trade centre every Tuesday during lunch and recess. Please feel free to come and try some delicious treats and barista made coffee. A huge thank you goes to Ulli Austermann for running this wonderful program to give our students real life and employability skills.

Moonlit Sanctuary

Our Year 11 VM students were blessed to be able to spend some time at the Moonlit Sanctuary. They weeded in the Echidna enclosure with some students working in the Café. We are so blessed to have this community partnership with the Moonlit Sanctuary.

Congratulations Charlie Stamp (Alumni Class of 2023)

Charlie is just about to head to Italy for the world championships in “Street Scooter”. Charlie has been training hard since he was 10 years old and has represented Australia once before. He’s won multiple awards in Scooter riding and it’s so exciting to see him recognised for his ongoing commitment to his sport. He’s had many injuries along the journey and we pray that he has a successful competition in Italy in late September.

Mr Ken Berry, VM Coordinator

SIS Girls Netball

Bayside’s Senior Girls Netball team finished their campaign at home putting up a very strong all around team performance. They won 33-2 with each player contributing well in their given role. The effort was made even more impressive given due to injuries early in the week there were no subs available. The team finished the season with 3 wins and 2 loses, coming 4th in the 9 team division.

Mr Josh Goschnick, Secondary Teacher

SIS Athletics

Well done to this year’s SIS Secondary athletics team. It was great to see our largest team ever attend Casey fields and represent the school with pride. This year was our most successful year with our school winning five out of the twelve pennants including the U13 Boys, U16 Boys, U17 Girls, Open Boys and Open Girls. As a school we also were the overall winners of the senior shield. Congratulations to all students who performed to their best. Below are the results for those students who placed in the individual events.

Mr Pete Zwiersen, Secondary Teacher

1st Place – B. Swales – Discus

1st Place – J Blashki – 400m, 800m

1st Place – A. White – 400m, 800m, 1500m

1st Place – D. Okoronkwo – 100m, 200m

1st Place – J. McMaster – 100m

1st Place – K. DeHaan – Long Jump

1st Place – J. Hooper – 100m, 800m, 200m

1st Place - R Pearce – 100m, long jump, shot put, Javelin 1st Place - J Gaskell – Triple Jump

1st Place - M Hooper – 800m

1st Place - D Judd – Triple Jump

1st Place - Relay – U13 boys