Around the School

Duke of Ed - Plenty Gorge

On the 19th of May the year 9 Duke of Ed students and a handful of year 10's set off to Plenty Gorge for the State Orienteering Championships. On the day, there were many other school who also attended the competition.

The first heat started at 10:30am and students completed a range of different courses according to their age group. Some of the highlights were getting to see some wild life such as kangaroos and getting to interact with other school students.

There were some outstanding results and achievements with Jasmine Lacy and Kaylee Odegn both winning their age groups and Angela Infanti coming second. Everyone had a great day and put in an awesome effort with the end result awarding Ringwood Secondary College the Best Government School.

All Duke of Ed students should be proud of their efforts on this day!

Tarni, April and Charlotte

Year 10

Reconciliation Week

Reconciliation Week, from the 27th May to the 3rd June, is a time for Australians to commemorate the anniversaries of the 1967 referendum and the High Court Mabo decision. These important dates were major turning points for Indigenous Australian’s rights. 

Three weeks ago, the years 9’s had an assembly in recognition of Reconciliation Week, and we learnt all about Australia’s journey to reconciliation, and the steps we have taken and must take to complete this journey. We watched a number of important speeches, including Kevin Rudd’s Sorry Speech. We also watched some interviews with Indigenous Australians who experienced first-hand the trauma that was caused to their communities and families.

Reconciliation week is a time to reflect, and a time to recognise that there are many events in our countries’ history that we are not proud of, and to remember the importance of reconciliation and focusing on shaping a positive and integrated future. This ties in with this year’s theme of Let’s Take the Next Steps. On behalf of the year 9’s, our eyes were opened to the traumas and wrong doings done to Indigenous Australians, and we understand the importance of reconciliation and taking the next steps to help shape our future.

Year 9 Year Level Leaders, Tarni and Jasmine

United Youth Media

Alannah Simpson shares her article for United Youth Media as a part of the Respectful Relationships work.

It is a quality representation of the key ideas behind the policy and includes  some criticisms of it and deals with those concerns ably.

Agatha Fedrizzi

InterGREAT

For this week’s Year 9 InterGREAT assembly we had Beck Fletcher and Marcelo Calderon from Interchange Outer East come and speak to us. Interchange is a non-profit organisation that works with children with disabilities and their families.

Marcelo began by asking us what we do at the moment to help in our community and informed us of all the help and support we could be if we started voluntary service.

They talked about:

• what Interchange Outer East currently does for children and their families and how this affects the wider community.
• how volunteer work with any organisation is beneficial and told us about what they do and how we can help.
• all the fun activities and outings we would be given the opportunity to participate in and how volunteering could help us in the future.

Their talk was really eye opening and motivating and inspired quite a few of us to sign up at the end when we were given the opportunity, which was great to see. Overall it was great to have an organisation such as Interchange come and speak to us about their role in our community and how they ‘Make A Difference’, which a lot of us might not be that exposed to, and offer to us the opportunity to help.

Matilda Wilson and Richa Sarah Aji – 9C

Indonesian News!

On Thursday June 1st, the Year 10 Indonesian class, accompanied by Bu Lundie, spent the day at Monash University with other senior students of Indonesian from across the state. The Festival Bahasa dan Budaya (Indonesian Language and Culture Festival) was run by the Victorian Indonesian Language Teachers Association (VILTA). There were many interesting and engaging seminars and workshops for students to encourage them to continue their studies in the language. A highlight of the day was the traditional Indonesian dance workshop as well as the free Indonesian lunch!

Overall, it was great for the students to use their Indonesian language skills in an authentic setting as well as spend the day together bonding over their passion for Indonesian language learning.

“It was good to meet other students of Indonesian from different schools and to share our experiences with them” Patrick Cottin

Jessica Lundie

Head of Languages/Indonesian Teacher

Visual Arts

Ringwood Secondary College was given the opportunity to produce sketches to be published in a book titled ‘Heathmont Sketchbook 2017’. This book, collaborated by the Heathmont History Group, as part of the Ringwood & District Historical Society, will feature sketches of various current Heathmont sites and landmarks and include a page of text to support the history of the location.

With the involvement of convener Gerry Robinson, an ex Ringwood Secondary College staff member, students selected were given guidelines and a photographic reference to aid with the construction of their drawing and were asked to exhibit their own personal drawing style within the composition.

 Nelson White from year 11, Angie Symon and Lara Stretton both from year 10, have been working hard to produce these realistic representations of local areas within the Heathmont vicinity.

Nelson White: Wieland Reserve

Lara Stretton: Heathmont Railway Station

Angie Symon: Heathmont Scout Hall

This book will be published and printed by Bill Ellemor’s Penfolk Publishing and will be launched at Heathmont Uniting Church on Sunday afternoon, October 29th, where the original sketches will be on display.

Congratulations to these three students on their artistic talents, achievements and contribution to the local community.

Kayla Whitfield

Visual Arts Coordinator

Bounce – Term 2

This term has been a really busy one in Bounce!

Year 7- 10 have been exploring and practising the concept of Mindfulness through many different avenues such as colouring, origami, meditation, yoga etc. Students are encouraged to find the activity that they most connect with and practise it. There are many mindful meditation apps available also and students are encouraged to use these regularly.

The Year 11 and 12’s have been participating in a ‘Life Hacks’ program which included how to choose and buy a car, changing a tyre and basic car maintenance, credit cards and budgeting and planning a budgeting for a holiday. We know these lessons are not only highly enjoyable for students but really useful too!

Kati Recinos

ES PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT – TEAMBUILDING WORKSHOPS

Ringwood Secondary College held a Teambuilding Professional Development Day for 26 Education Support Staff. The day was opened by James Barut (Assistant Principal). Gail Ackroyd introduced Vision Boards so there was lots of chatter in cutting out pictures and words and pasting on to our boards to reflect events passed in our lives and our dreams for the future followed by a sharing of our visions. The exercise reflected the importance of sharing experiences and communication on a different level, beyond just the discourse of the workplace. So many connections were shared based on relational trust.

The afternoon session saw the culinary expertise of Mellissa Strachan, Chef, as she took us on a journey on the heritage and history of the humble pasta. Master Chef had nothing on the group with their demonstrative Italian cooking, sprinkled with exuberance, banter and good will.

Working in pairs allowed many to create fantastic pasta which was made from scratch – as adult learners, we were the best class Mellissa had ever had! To the cries of ‘Bellissimo’ and ‘Come and get it’,we finally retired from the kitchen to the dining room with our meatball pasta & spinach and ricotta cannoli followed by Lemon Curd Meringue. Suffice to say, there was enough to take home to share with families and loved ones!  

Jannin from Happy Being completed our day with positive thoughts, reflection on our day and the art of breathing. I would like to thank all the staff involved and all the positive feedback on the day…your kind, encouraging comments were really appreciated – so many are looking forward to next instalment.

Thank you to Michael Phillips, College Principal, for allowing the idea to come to fruition.

Sheryl Vasey