The last formal College Assembly for the 2017 Year 12 class on Monday 23 October gave the school leaders a few moments to reflect and share on their six years at Mentone Girls'

Rachel Butler - College Captain

When I was in Year 6, I was so excited to come to high school. I thought finally something that matters. High school, it’s really important.

But when I got there, the Year 8s were like “Year 7 doesn’t even matter, just learn your way around the school, wait till you get to Year 8. Bridge to Wiseman’s Cove, that’s what really matters”. So I thought okay, Year 8. Finally, something that matters. But the Year 9s they said, “Nup, Year 8 doesn’t matter. You have to wait till you get to Year 9. City Project, that’s what really matters”. So I thought okay, I’ll wait till Year 9. So I got to Year 9, it was all same-same, and then I reached Year 10. But nup, Year 10, it doesn’t matter. Those Year 11s they lied to me, and then they said, “Nah wait till you’re in Year 11. VCE, that’s when everything really counts”. So I got to Year 11, and the Year 12s said “Nah you just have to pass all your subjects. Wait till you’re in Year 12. That’s when it all matters. Your ATAR defines you”. So I got to Year 12, ready for the big year, ready for it all to count. But then the teachers said, “Nah Year 12 it doesn’t even matter. There’s always another way into your course. There’s always a way to do what you want to do”. So I thought either there’s something really wrong with our education system or there’s another reason for opening up VCAA website in December to reveal your ATAR.

And that’s when it all hit me. School isn’t about one certain event or that the things you learn will be exactly what you need in the future, it’s about the collective.

It’s all the people you meet - all the friends that you will keep in your heart forever. It’s learning how to manage having Food Tech and Sport on the same day and learning the meaning of stress over the years. In Year 7, it was trying to write your drama diary the night before it was due, in Year 9 it was cramming as much information onto your Maths cheat sheet for the exam. And Year 10 and 11, it was forming a second account, maybe even a third and for Ashleigh Burt it was a fourth. And in Year 12, it was stress eating so much that when term 4 started you couldn’t fit back into your summer dress. But through the stress of it all, we have to give a massive ‘bless up’ to our teachers. They have been through thick and thin with us. Putting up with us handing in our work late, for believing in us when we didn’t believe in ourselves and for talking in the quiet zone of the VCE Centre. They protect, they mark our SACS, but most importantly they’ve got our backs.

For the past 13 years of my life, school is all I’ve known. In 2005, we all started off as little preppies in oversized dresses and wide-brimmed hats. You couldn’t leave the eating area until you had finished your lunch. 13 years ago, I didn’t know what 1+1 was or how to spell my name. I now know how to spell my name but sadly my mathematical abilities have not changed.

Each day of these years felt so important as it was happening, but as I look back, it just a big mush of happiness, sadness, stress and all different emotions. There are so many things that have happened. In 2005, YouTube was founded, Guitar Hero was released on PlayStation and Kanye released Gold Digger which is still a banger to this day. In 2006, High School Musical was released. That was 11 years ago. In 2007, we were in Grade 2, the final Harry Potter book was released and Apple Inc. announced the first generation iPhone. In 2010, Apple introduced the iPad into our lives.

I mean, all this technology is spiralling around us. We have so many different ways to communicate. Kids in primary school don’t even know what an iPod Nano is. They don’t understand the challenge of spinning that wheel until it landed on the exact song you wanted to play. They already have their own 6S. When I was in primary school, I prayed that I would get an iTunes voucher for my birthday so I could purchase the latest So Fresh album. We rely on social media and technology to communicate, Facebook is getting so crazy now it tells you what you did in the past. You know how you were just online shopping on boohoo.com and then an ad for that same dress you were looking up turns up on your feed? And it’s not just the past, it tells the future too. When it was SAC attack week, I was scrolling down Facebook instead of studying and Vic Uni came up on my feed. Co-incidence? I think not. It’s hard to think that the generation before us grew up without the internet, Siri or spicy memes for dark teens. How did they do their makeup without Michael Finch tutorials?

This school has provided me with so many opportunities and ways to build who I am. School matters, no matter what year you are in, whether you do General Maths, Maths Methods or Specialist Maths, because whatever you are doing at a certain point in time, it matters. Even if you look back at this past year and wonder why you stressed so much about a certain test or exam, you learn something from every experience.

We are all different. We have all gone through our childhoods with different circumstances, different challenges and different obstacles. These things don’t have to define you. Your ATAR doesn’t define you. You define you.

To the most amazing class of 2017, this is it. You have made it to the last day of your schooling. Yeah boi.

Tara Graves - Vice College Captain

By now, you all understand how much I love my Nan, how much I love to talk about her and how much her life reflects my own. She recently went through a change in her life, and though it was a small change, it can relate to all of us.

My family comes from England and when they moved here to this beautiful country, they found Edithvale beach and a small café. For 40 years, my Nan and my Grandfather visited this café every morning, had coffee, did the Sudoku and chatted about last night’s episode of Downtown Abbey. A month ago, that café shut down.

In a month, I will no longer have to wake up at seven in the morning, drag on my uniform that never suits the weather, brush my teeth and walk into these school gates to brave the day ahead. My last exam is in a month, our last day is today. I say it, but it does not seem real yet. How am I going to survive without Compass telling what is on for the day!

Like my Nan however, I must move on from the place I truly love, the place I’ve called home for the last 6 years and find somewhere new. But I can’t leave without saying goodbye. So, this is my love letter to Mentone Girls’ Secondary College.

To my dearest MGSC, it’s no secret that you and I were made for each other. All that I am and all that I’ll ever be is because of you.

The first time we met, the first time I stepped through the gate I knew you were something special. Your dingy asbestos-filled portable classrooms, the crowded hallways and the out of order toilets, oh how my heart swooned. I was out of area when I applied MGSC, but you gave this Aspendale girl a chance. You gave me my first friend dressed in grey owl jumper and accepted me for who I was, a headband lover in purple Converse sneakers. You make me feel safe MGSC, so warm and fuzzy inside.

Oh MGSC I’ll never forget all the memories we have shared together. Remember that time in the Year 11 methods exam when I interrupted the whole test with my gigantic sneeze. Ahh when haven’t I interrupted a class with my elephant sneeze? What about the time at city camp where 9D got lost going to the MCG? Good job we had our English teacher to lead the way. Good times. Ah, MGSC. I will always remember the rap about GHB we made in Health class, and the Malaria rap we made in Science, and the angle rap we made in Maths. Damn, you’d think this love letter was to Eminem, not a secondary school.

MGSC, you’ve given me so much, and all I did was take. This was a one-sided relationship that I knew wouldn’t last forever.

You gave me support. The teachers I had here were as inspiring as they come. Though my title as the teacher’s pet never wore off, MGSC you made sure my peers didn’t laugh at me, but with me. The effort and time you put into to me and all the students here, I cannot be thankful enough to the entire staff. You are our role models, our rocks when the world comes tumbling down. Thank you for always being there.

You gave me opportunity. Without you I wouldn’t have tried wearing Lycra leotards and dancing to the Ghostbusters theme song. I could not have dreamed of coaching softball and soccer teams, co-choreographing an entire musical, going to band camp, getting lost in the mountains of Japan, geeking out at nerd camp or even speaking in front of people. MGSC you helped me find my voice. MGSC you have helped define who I am as a person.

But the best thing you gave me MGSC was friendships. I cannot express in words how much I love the people here. You have all helped me achieve so much, in so many ways that I cannot begin to describe to you, in so many ways you haven’t even realised. Being my friend, my classmate, laughing with or at me and even those smiles as we passed each other in the hallway have gotten me through each day. All of you sitting here thanks for listening to me ramble on; it has been an absolute honour to be one of your captains.

I am so proud to be a Mentone Secondary girl. I am so proud to know each and every single one of you up on the stairs; you are all so talented and so gorgeous. Whether it’s creating a beautiful art piece, excelling in Methods, playing an instrument like a beast, parking your car in the 2 hour zone and not getting a ticket, each day you guys have wowed me. I don’t know how I will get though each day without you all; I don’t know what I’m going to do without you MGSC. But what I do know is that the passion you all have within you will take you far in life and though it saddens me to say that I won’t see some of you again after tomorrow, I have no doubt in the world that you all will only do great things. I am so proud of how far you have all come and am so excited to see where life takes you next.

I hope whoever you find to replace me loves you as much as I do MGSC. I hope they appreciate the opportunities you give, the memories you’ll make together, the support you offer and the lifelong friends that come out of it. An education is only a piece of this school, and it’s only now that I’m putting the puzzle together and seeing its complete picture.

MGSC I don’t know how I am going to live without you, but it’s my time to move on. This isn’t a goodbye; this isn’t the end and although we will be worlds apart, know that you, all of you, have a special place in my heart.

Because I couldn’t have imagined how good my life would be, from the moment I started at MGSC.

Tara Graves

Vice College Captain

Taylor Dawson - SRC President

What can I say; somehow Year 12s? We’ve made it through six years of high school. That’s 15 English books, 4540 classes and for my Japanese class four different teachers this year. Despite this, I couldn’t decide what to say today. How could I possibly sum up the past six years of sick memes into two minutes? I thought that this speech would be a great procrastination tool to avoid Maths. Turns out they were both too hard and ‘How I met your mother’ became the best option.

But at the end of the day, I had to start, just like I had to start high school back in 2012. Let me tell you, for me the first day wasn’t pretty. For starters, I knew no-one in my class, I was the only Aspi G kid to join a band form, and secondly, small socks were not at our disposal. Five minutes before leaving for my first day, I had a breakdown. The first of many. The ladies at Costume World fooled me into believing I had to wear knee length socks. My trouble was, I didn’t know how to wear them. Was it scrunched? Was it up to the knee? Was it folded? I simply did not know. It was such a change to roll your socks into little sausages around your ankle. I came to school that day with socks that looked like scrunchies around my ankles, and not only found others with socks like mine, but befriended Emerson Rawlings who didn’t know what the go was with the socks either.

Life went on after that. I transitioned from long socks to normal socks. Just like you move up from junior school to middle school, from middle school to VCE and how we Year 12s now have to move on to post high school life. This time in a month, it will be my first day of freedom, the first day I won’t have to study, and probably the first time I’ll be able to have a decent sleep this year. My recycling bin will be full of school essentials I no longer need and my time at MGSC will be but a memory.

To the SRC girls this year, you’ve been a pleasure to work with, and you’ve made this year so enjoyable. Ms Peach you’ve been the absolute best, and I don’t think there’s any other way to describe you other than ‘a legend’.

To every teacher, thank you for all your hard work. You’ve supported us and helped us grow in so many ways, I’ll always appreciate that.

I’ll treasure everything that’s happened throughout this time, the friends I have been able to make, spending four years in Tara’s class, the school productions I was involved in, every sport I joined just to get a day off school and the row of tables along the left wall in the VCE Centre. I’m thankful to everyone that has made these years what they have been. Year 12s, thanks for making this year one that I’ll never forget. I don’t think I could’ve survived only one microwave in the kitchen with anyone else. I know that you are all going to do amazing things and I can’t wait to hear where life takes you.

MGSC, it’s been an absolute pleasure to have spent my past six years with you. Thank you.

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