College News

Multicultral Week 2017

At Melton Secondary College we recognise how diverse our community is and how many cultures are represented within our school. Adolescents are the future, and helping them grow and develop a more multicultural mindset could help future generations in accepting difference and encouraging an inclusive, safe environment. To celebrate this diversity, VCAL has been working together to organise a Multicultural Week.

Multicultural Week will be running from the sixteenth of October to the twentieth of October 2017 and has a range of activities and performances planned for the occasion; including an Umu, different foods and a range of dances, songs, performances and dress. This week will help support the idea of a more multicultural society through food and events to enable students to teach others about their background and be proud of where they have come from. This week is trying to celebrate everyone’s differences and cultures throughout the week, and how even though everyone is different we all get along and learn together.

The week will commence with an assembly Monday morning with various performances in front of junior and intermediate students. These performances include many different dances and hakas from many cultural backgrounds and countries. The groups include: A traditional African dance, Hawaii, Fiji, Samoan, Tonga and Maori. All of these dances are being performed by students at our school and have been practicing already in preparation, to ensure that everyone knows the dance and that everyone enjoys the performance. These dances will also be held during lunchtime on Tuesday (17th October), Thursday (19th October) and Friday (20th October). We invite parents to view the performance at Assembly Monday, 16th of October at 9 am.

The food during Multicultural Week is far from your ordinary canteen menu, with a group doing an Umu, a Samoan cuisine which involves both parents and students to prepare and cook a variety of meat and vegetables on a bed of hot rocks. An Umu is a traditional Samoan style of cooking food, which students and families are allowed to purchase or pre-order (through students or teachers whom are running the event). Years 8 and 9 will have an opportunity to watch how they prepare and cook the food. This is running from morning to lunch time, Tuesday the 17th of October 2017. Other food being served are Easter Biscuits that are Greek (that do not contain Easter eggs…just to let you know) but they still taste nice. The Greek name for it is Koulourakia and it is a traditional Greek recipe that is usually made for Easter Sunday but is a recipe that could be made anytime of the year really.

We hope to see everyone coming out and participating in these student led events. Most importantly we hope to see everyone appreciating and celebrating our differences together.

Kayla Henderson

Yr 11 VCAL Student

Learn a New/Existing language

We are seeking expressions of interest from students in the Melton area who may be interested in learning a language other than English on Saturday mornings. This is not part of our school language program but an opportunity for people to study a range of other languages. Some of these languages may include Hindi, Punjabi, Swahili and Dinka, Amharic, Persian and Arabic. If you are interested, please s send an email expressing your interest to the front office.

MSC Free After School Soccer Program

Melton Secondary College has a newly inaugurated soccer program called “Football Empowerment”, which runs every Tuesdays and Fridays from 3:15 to 5pm, as a free after school soccer program. The Soccer program was recently initiated and created in partnership with the Football Empowerment program, supported by the Student Support Services (SSSO), Melton Council and MSC Leadership team to engage young people within our school with this soccer program. The Football Empowerment program is delivered by a number of active coaches from CALD community, as Not-for- Profit organisation. These coaches are part of group who helps in engaging young people through their soccer clinic and programs in areas such as Melton West Primary School, Sunshine and St. Albans targeting western regions. The program engages young people from diverse cultural backgrounds as mean of social cohesion and inclusive approach.

The above group photo shows a snapshot of students and their Football Empowerment coaches. Research shows that, young people who are actively participating in an organised sports and physical activity are more likely to benefit from healthy development, growth and wellbeing. In addition, providing an extra curriculum activities for young people promotes teamwork, networking and tolerance among their peers as they being guarded and supported by their mentors who are their coaches. The program currently targets all year levels, but most preferably year 10's and under.

The above photos illustrate that students are following instructions from their coaches and being actively involved in their soccer clinic while working in the team and individually through the process. There has been high number of interests so far from a number of students who would like this soccer program to continue as they progress. All the students who are part of this program has their permission forms obtained from their parents.

More importantly, all Football Empowerment coaches have their Working with Children Check obtained.

Chess Club News

On Friday the 18th August we hosted our second Interschool Chess Tournament for the year. Our Team Captain Ben Akok led by example, winning six of his seven games. Everyone on our team were great ambassadors for our school.

The results were:

Open Secondary Division

1st Melton Secondary College

2nd Kurunjang Secondary College

Congratulations to Ben, Aden, Payton and Lachlan who have qualified for the State Finals!

Middle Years Division

Alamanda College
Melton Secondary College
Kurunjang Secondary College

Team MSC:

Ben Akok 12C
Payton Afuie 12C
Aden Buhagiar 10B
Lachlan Jepson 10C
Jordan Culliver 9G
Junior Bagula 7A
Zachary Collins 7A
Bailey Kershaw 7A
Aodhan Heath 7A
Jaxon Townsend 7A
Vu Nguyen 7A

Very Proud,

Miss Damianos and Nathanael

State Chess Finals

Last Friday morning we ventured out to beautiful Brighton to try our luck at getting the coveted State Chess Final (Open Division) Cup (see picture 4)… Whilst we did not get the cup, we came back happy with the knowledge that everyone on our team put in 110%… Altogether there were 28 schools represented… Our State Finalists were: Ben Akok 12C (Team Captain), Payton Afuie 12C, T P - 12E, Aden Buhagiar 10B and Zachary Collins 7A.

The results were:

Ist: Melbourne High School

2nd: Mazenod College

3rd: Brighton Grammar Senior School

16th: Melton Secondary College

A big thank you to Nathanael for coaching our students (they have all grown in confidence and skill), organising the community bus and for driving us to the venue and back to school.

Miss Damianos