Student News
Art, Design & Technology Week
During Week 10 Term 2, many students and staff took part in the annual Art, Design and Technology Week. The week celebrated the diverse range of ADT subject activities enjoyed at Suzanne Cory High School; ranging from Drama performances to Art installations. Students from different year levels and houses participated in a variety of creative competitions throughout the week. Beyond the competitions, the school community was also invited to enjoy the first screening of the House Short Films and an exciting performance from our guest musician Tony Gould.
The week started with an impressive ‘Chalk Art Challenge’ where house teams worked in small groups to recreate a series of famous ‘Portraits’ (pictures below). For the first time this year the ‘Chalk Art’ took place inside the Agora on the ‘pavement’. The event drew large crowds, who turned out to see the furious reproduction of the provided artworks. Starting with a simple grid and working from a coloured image, the student teams were able to work together to create strikingly accurate reproductions of the original artworks. The standard of the work produced shows the strong communication and drawing skills the students employed to create the artworks. Amongst tough competition, Rothwell was the winning team!
Monday evening the many large ensembles within the School performed in the annual Winter Concert (pictures below). The audience was treated to performance by the school Orchestra, Band, Choirs, Guitar Ensemble and other feature ensembles. The months of rehearsals was reflected in the impressive standard of the various performance items. Thank you to all the dedicated students, staff, and the many friends and family members who supported this concert.
On Tuesday at lunchtime there was a Theatresports competition (pictures below) that took place in the school auditorium. Inspired by the improvisational games that feature on the ‘Whose Line is it Anyway’ comedy show, house teams competed against each other to produce short skits. The teams featured our school’s natural comedians and actors showing their ability to think on their feet to create hilarious narratives. It was wonderful to see the creativity and team spirit that the students embraced in the activity. A big thank you to the students and staff who supported the contestants and played along in the audience. In a tightly contested final challenge, Blackwood came out on top.
During lunchtime on the Wednesday musician Tony Gould performed to a captivated audience (pictures below). Tony Gould is one of Australia’s most outstanding jazz pianists. He performed supported by our Director of Music Tony Paye and guest drummer Scott Lambie. After performing several jazz classic such as Autumn Jazz and Somewhere Over the Rainbow, Tony invited the audience to share any questions they had about being a musician. He spoke to the students about the importance of being orally trained to respond to peer performers and prioritizing being literate in music language.
On the Thursday a ‘Cooking Skills Race’ (pictures below) house competition took place. Students spread out in House teams in the school’s kitchen with a series of cooking challenges to complete. Working against the clock, each house was tasked with 1. Dicing an onion, 2. Separate eggs, 3. Whisking egg whites to form peaks & 4. Produce the longest apple peel possible. While all the house teams successfully completed the tasks, it was speedy Rothwell who won the overall competition. Thanks to all who participated.
Friday lunchtime was a special Media presentation of the House Film Competition and the Photography competition entries (pictures below). The films were screened in the auditorium to an enthusiastic crowd. Both the film and photography entries were of an exceptional standard. The stand out winners for the film competition being Nam H (12K1) and Jason F (12K1) for their interpretation of the topic ‘Epiphany’. The ‘Faces and Places’ photography competition winner was Nicolai Y (11C1) for his visually appealing colourful image that captured the brief.
A big thank you to the ADT staff for your work organising and running the activities throughout the week.
- Ms. Anna Tait (Visual Arts)
Wellbeing Week
We all need to remember to take care of ourselves, especially when things aren’t going okay (and even when they are). What we do to look after ourselves might differ from person to person, so it’s helpful to find something that works for you. The Student Wellbeing Leaders, alongside the Student Counsellor team, recognise this. To help demonstrate this, the wellbeing team ran Wellbeing Week, a week dedicated to highlighting the different things people might do to look after themselves.
With 875 lockers covered in positive affirmations, 400 hundred balloons popped, and over 300 cups of lemonade served, each day had something positive to look forward to. The smiling faces of both staff and students alike, was a testament to the hard work put in by our student wellbeing leaders, and the value everyone at Suzanne Cory places on wellbeing.
We’d especially like to thank all the other students and staff that helped make this week such a huge success. Wellbeing at Suzanne Cory is a team effort, and by working together we can continue to create a positive environment for students and staff alike.
- SCHS Wellbeing Team
Programming Challenge for Girls (PC4G)
On Thursday, 14 June, 2018, Year 9 students, Cindy C and Krystal T from our school participated in a workshop where they tried coding in an approachable, fun, challenging and educational environment using the program ALICE. They tried their hand in creating animations, building interactive narratives/program and simple games in 3D.
At the end of the school year, these students can look forward to an invitation to compete in the PC4G finale, where they put their coding skills to the test in the final competition.
Chemistry Excursion to University of Melbourne
On Aug 6th and 7th, Year 11 Chemistry students went to University of Melbourne for a Unit 2 Chemistry excursion. The eight classes were divided into four groups and assigned to four different 3-hour laboratory program at the University of Melbourne over two days. During the sessions, students were introduced to different areas of chemistry first, and then they had the opportunity to analyse water samples for salts or organic compounds using HPLC, UV/Vis Spectroscopy or Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy. They learned first hand how to accurately perform chemical analysis, polishing their basic laboratory skills. In the end, the School of Chemistry offered a tour around the Chemistry building, showing the students various equipment used for analysis in Chemistry.
Co-Curricular: "Young Artists & Entrepreneurs"
Earlier this year, I joined a new co-curricular called ‘Young Artists and Entrepreneurs’ (by Mr Yan). This co-curricular project is to combine your hobbies and passion together so that you can turn some ideas you have into something marketable – creation and entrepreneurship.
It is a really fun yet challenging co-curricular, as we have so many opportunities and the responsibility to run a project like this. It’s an extremely powerful co-curricular that gives us the chance to make a business plan and see it through the end to the finished product.
Again, it also depends on the students’ interests and passion. Most of all, you’ve got to work on it constantly. I am working on two projects, creating artworks for an art book and making illustrations for a book of poetry. Personally, I have wanted to create an art book for a while now. However, I didn’t have the resources or funding to do so. This co-curricular provides students an environment for creation and like-minded people to talk to. We also have funding to support us. With these resources available, I look forward to seeing the products created and commercialised by other members of this co-curricular.
I am proud to announce our art book titled “Side Quest”. It is a non-profit 36-paged full colour book with proceeds going to “Make A Wish” charity. The art book is themed around the adventure of characters from the series ‘My Hero Academia’ in a fantasy world.
Amazingly, we have many talented artists from around the world, who have designed illustrations and accompanying merchandise for the art book. Any sharing, pre-orders and support is much appreciated. You can pre-order the book here, and follow us on Twitter and tumblr.
- Catherine T, 11K1
Wyndham Environmental Youth Summit 2018
Recently, thirteen students from Suzanne Cory’s Eco Core Club were lucky enough to attend Wyndham’s Environmental Youth Summit, held on World Environmental Day.
Despite the cool, chilly morning, we all travelled together to Werribee Civic Centre, ready to partake in various workshops and learn more on the environmental issues facing our community and the world. The day began with brief presentations from each participating school explaining what their school is doing to combat various environmental issues.
Then, we split up into groups to begin the workshops. One of my favourites was the ‘spend an hour as a bay keeper’. The workshop informed students on the impacts of nurdles, which are micro plastics that have heavily impact our oceans and various sea creatures. We were encouraged to use our imagination to come up with new ways to combat this issue and were given various materials create devices to do so.
Overall, the day was enjoyed by everyone and we will take what we have learnt and apply it to create new initiatives to better our school’s environment.
- Andrea S, 10B1
Year 10 SEN Cup
Friday the 18th of May saw approximately 60 Year 10 students head out to all four of the Select Entry Schools (Suzanne Cory, Melbourne High, Nossal, and Mac.Rob) for a friendly day of competition. Students competed in Debating, Table Tennis, OZCLO, Badminton, Netball, Theatre Sports, Chess and Volleyball.
All students fought hard and were an honour to watch. The sportsmanship and enthusiasm for assisting on the day was extraordinary. Overall we did not walk away with any wins but already the Year 9s are talking about their opportunities for 2019.
- Ms. Kimberley Cunningham (Co-Curricular)
Year 11 History: Global Empires - Enlightenment Salon
“In Paris, and to a lesser extent in other cities, salons became fashionable. They were usually conducted in the homes of gifted women of wealth, where writers, clergymen, bankers, businessmen, and aristocrats met regularly for conversation, intellectual stimulation, or just to be seen. Much of the talk was little more than idle chatter; elegance of expression, malicious wit, and clever epigrams were more valued than profundity. Nonetheless, the salons brought together as equals men of different ideas and social origins, and inevitably they influenced one another.” (Blum et al, 1966)
While studying the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment, the Year 11 History: Global Empires class participated in an Enlightenment salon as a setting to discuss the new ideas which threatened the status quo and global power balance in the 1600s and 1700s. Sipping champagne (aka non-alcoholic Sparkling Grape Drink) and indulging in camembert and crackers (provided by Stephen), the students, including Benjamin who is visiting us from France, discussed whether the lower classes were fit to rule, if a revolution was imminent, and the effect of new ideas and inventions on their lives. The students enjoyed taking on various roles and serving each other cheese and champagne.
- Ms Raquel Fenby (VCE History)
Ancient History Excursion to the Hellenic Museum
On Monday 18th of June the Unit 3/4 Ancient History class went to Melbourne City for an excursion. We met in the morning and headed to the Hellenic Museum at Flagstaff to take part in a guided tour regarding the Ancient Greek society. Overall the tour was incredible. We saw many amazing artefacts including vases, heads of statues, bracelets woven from gold, and a bronze mirror. We also saw artefacts from later periods of Greek history, including a collection of handwritten religious texts from several hundred years ago.
Our tour guide also encouraged us to have a look at the ‘gods of colour’ exhibition, which consisted of a variety of different ancient Greek figures and how they would have looked at the time of construction. We also especially loved the part where our tour guide taught us about the evolution of Greek battle helmets, which started off as really impractical but were later revolutionised by the Spartans. The highlight of the tour was when we were allowed to physically hold real ancient Greek helmets and swords from 2000 years ago. The artefacts that we saw and held gave us an idea of what life was like back in that period, and it gave us motivation to do well in our studies.
Overall, it was a great day as well as a fun and educational experience, and all the students got a lot out of the excursion. We definitely encourage future students to visit the Hellenic Museum, especially if you are an English student who will be studying Medea!
- Sandra K and Lauren S
LOTE Week: Taekwondo Demonstration Competition
Wednesday lunchtime, our whole school came together to witness our Taekwondo fighters show off their skills! The friendly competition was a House competition with two representatives from each house. Kororoit once again managed to snatch up first place, with Cottrell falling just short with 2 points; Blackwood and Rothwell’s fight for 3rd place ended with breathtaking 1 point difference, with Blackwood rising to 3rd.
Congratulations to all fighters representing their house! It was an event that not sparked not only the House pride but our school’s spirit coming together to cheer for all fighters. Below are our fighters from each house.
Cottrell: Girish T / Tyson T
Kororoit: Khoi N / Jordan N
Blackwood: Carlos N / Mayank A
Rothwell: Vivian N / Sean A
- Mr. Sam Yang (Taekwondo Coach & P.E.)