VCE Leadership Awards 2023

This term, students were given the opportunity to be nominated for the statewide VCE Leadership Awards. These awards recognise students’ important and innovative community work and highlight examples of exemplary leadership.

Ms Leheny had the very difficult job of reading through the nominations, all very worthy of the award, and selecting two individual nominations that stood out. These nominations were then sent through to VCAA for their shortlisting panel.

The nominations sent through for shortlisting were Aanchal Sharma and Ganika Shree.

I am pleased to announce that the VCAA has selected Ganika as one of eight VCE Leaders for 2023.

Next week, the VCE Leadership Awards Selection Panel will be undertaking interviews with the eight 2023 VCE Leaders of the Year to select an overall 2023 VCE Leader of the Year. We wish Ganika luck with this final stage.

Thank you to both Aanchal and Ganika for their outstanding commitment to leading projects both within school and within the community.

Congratulations Ganika on being named as a VCE Leader for 2023.

Intermediate Boys and Girls Basketball

The Intermediate Boys and Girls Basketball Teams competed in the Wyndham Division on the 24th of July. Both teams played with competitiveness, team spirit and sportsmanship.

The Boys Team pulled through three clutch wins, but unfortunately couldn't progress to the finals after losing to first placer, Hoppers Crossing Secondary in a tight match. Their overall size and outside scoring just couldn't be matched.

The Girls Team dominated their pool, finishing with a similar 3-1 record en route to the finals. Unfortunately fatigue got the better of them after playing 4 games in a row, ultimately losing a hard-fought game to The Grange.

Ameir Majur (K5) and Emmanuel Joice (C5) were definitely the MVPs for their respective teams showing incredible skills, leadership, poise and effort throughout the competition.

Congratulations to both the boys and girls teams on their dedication during their games and in training. Special thanks to Mr Juricevich and Mr Kelly for their leadership and guidance while coaching the teams.

Rafael Mausisa

Year 10 (B4)

Intermediate Girls Table Tennis

Victory was ours as the intermediate girls table tennis team defeated three schools; Manor Lakes, Tarneit Senior and Good News Lutheran College. There was some astonishing gameplay from all of the girls who played their very best and showed true Suzanne Cory spirit. Now we are off training very hard for regionals, wish us the best of luck!

Dinda Widya Murti

Yr 10 student

2023 Western Metropolitan Senior Boys & Girls Table Tennis

A few months ago, an incredible journey unfolded in the realm of table tennis championships. We commenced our table tennis journey at Eagle Stadium, where spirited players representing various schools in Wyndham competed. Coming 1st place, we progressed to regional finals. The battleground shifted to the Geelong Table Tennis Centre, where the air was filled with anticipation and fierce competition. Our team exhibited remarkable progress and resilience, emerging once again as the victors and securing our golden ticket to the next level: the State championships.

As we advanced, the stakes grew higher and the competition fiercer. We were against four schools in our pool. Despite some setbacks, our commitment and teamwork propelled us to place runner-up in our pool, advancing into the semifinals. In the semifinals, we all exhibited extraordinary teamwork, agility, and skill. While we didn't ultimately make it to the finals, the true essence of sportsmanship and camaraderie was evident.

The journey wasn’t just about wins and losses - it was about the shared moments of growth, collaboration, the joy of playing and the spirit of sportsmanship that transcends victory or defeat.

Aanchal Sharma R8

Intermediate Badminton Girls

The intermediate girls badminton team played in the Western Metropolitan Regionals competition at Altona Badminton Centre. Overall we played five schools; Alamanda, Gisborne SC, Matthew Flinders Girls College, St Albans SC in the semi-finals and finally Braybrook SC in the finals. Some of the matches were tough, but ultimately none of the other schools were able to win one match against us! The competition was an overall success with the team coming first in the tournament, advancing to the State championships.

Wish us luck!

Dinda Widya Murti K7

Intermediate Boys Hockey

On Monday 17 July, the year 9 and 10 Boys Hockey team played two matches in their Wyndham Secondary Division tournament. We took 15 students from our school, four from Year 9 and eleven from Year 10. We played against two strong teams, Tarneit P-9 and Manor Lakes. All throughout Semester 1 our team trained hard and strong, most of us showing up to nearly every training. Despite this, rocking up to our first game we were all pretty nervous. You see, when we got off the bus there was a team that we walked past. They were staring us down, and looked fairly intimidating. I mean they had like three huge dudes who looked like they were about to pummel us. But just five minutes into our game we had a shift in mindset. Our speedy wing, Vinh, (pretty easily) scored our first goal against Manor Lakes. As we were heading back to the halfway line we looked at the other and without saying a single word, we conveyed our message to them. We are here, and we’re here to win. As the game progressed, I’ll admit they managed to get through our midfield a fair few times. But with our star fullbacks Nubaid, Suhaan and Samuel our goalie Devesh didn’t even have to move, literally, he didn’t touch the ball the entire day. As the game progressed the other team was getting even more frustrated but we were just enjoying this like it was a training session against a couple of 2nd graders. As the game came to a close we finished with two more goals scored by the twins playing as the inners, Riley and Mitchell, who if I do say so myself, had developed a fan base from the Tarneit mixed team.

During our 5-minute break between our matches, we started strategising, thinking we were about to play a way better team in Tarneit. As you will soon find out, this wasn’t the case. After scoring the first three goals (two from Vinh and one from Riley), we just started to play for fun, doing things like trying to get our fullbacks to score. But after halftime, all that came of this was getting another two goals scored by our centre forward Jay. None of these goals would have been possible without our all-star halfbacks Akshya, Ryan, and Adi, as well as our superb wingers Vinh, Om and Jayesh and captain and centre half Abhijit. With three assists from Akshya, two from Abhijit and one from Ryan, Jayesh and Adi each. Now, I said we took 15 players, but I have only named 14. This is because Tanvir who was another centre forward “forgot” his mouthguard so he wasn’t allowed on-field.

But that doesn’t mean he didn’t contribute to the team. You see, at the beginning and halftime of every single game Tanvir and Tanvir alone picked up four masks from behind one goal and ran it all the way to the other goal, even though we never actually used them due to our amazing fullbacks. All in all, it was a great experience, and I hope we go on to win our Regionals games against teams such as Maribyrnong, Belmont, Footscray and Strathmore.

Akshya A., R4

Senior Boys Hockey

The 26th of July was a pretty big day for the Seniors; not only did we have to play against four teams throughout the whole day, but those teams happened to be Strathmore, Footscray, Maribyrnong Sports Academy and Belmont. To say it was a handful for us was a little more than an understatement. And to be honest, I was not feeling that great about our odds. For the past month of training sessions, not all of us came to many of them (I’m guilty as well), and I still couldn’t shake off the Seniors’ loss the year before. On the bus ride towards Geelong, all I felt was dread, believing I would drag the team down and get us all thrashed by the other teams, and kept wishing the ride would never end.

Having said that, I have never felt so happy to be proven wrong and am grateful that the rest of the team have played amazingly. The first half of our first game against Strathmore was way better than expected; though we were still building up momentum, we all knew that we had a chance at beating them.

For the next half of the game, we pushed forward with as much tenacity as we had. In the end, we lost with a disappointing score of 0-6, but that didn’t put our hopes down. It only made us hungry for more. In our match against Marby, we saw that our momentum from the last game was paying off, where the game ended at 0-2. I mean we still lost, but it meant nothing when you realise we only lost by two points against a school basically full of jocks, so we spent the rest of our time before the next game doing nothing but patting each other on the back. Once we started facing off against Belmont, the rest of the story went a whole new direction. Belmont was when we, for the first time that I’ve seen, scored our first ever goal, all thanks to Mahin’s superb attacking. We lost 1-5 in the end, tarnishing our spirit ever so slightly when we made the final push against Footscray with all our might and willpower (for real this time) ending with a tie at 2-2, a carry made possible by both Mahin and Srikar. As the exhausting day concluded, the whole team agreed we needed a well-deserved trip to Macca’s, which unfortunately never happened when the bus came to pick us up.

After all that, we managed to come fourth. Yeah, we didn’t make it into States. Yeah, we were all so damn tired, putting in all that effort for fourth place. But so what? It was worth it for all the fun we had, and the memories we made together, especially amongst the year 12s, and is something we’ll never regret doing. I’d like to thank Ramika for consistently being an amazing goalie, Tej and Metheshr for defending relentlessly with me, Rudra, Bibidh and Jordan for keeping the game moving forward, Mahin and Srikar for finally getting the goals we so desperately wanted, Raymond for being an amazing captain, Nivrut, Sam and Sachiv for keeping the ball moving up the wings and Rama and Liam for fantastic defence on the half line. But above all, thank you Ms Fenby for coaching us along the way, and getting us this far. And for the year 12s, I hope you’ve made the most of our last game.

Muhtasim A., R6

French Model UN

On Thursday 20th July, Andrea Rose-Thomas, Anirudh Sonti, Arya Meshkat-Hazrati and Aakriti Malhotra (Year 12 French students) attended the Model United Nations Conference in the French language. The event at the Victorian Academy of Teaching and Leadership is run annually by the United Nations Association of Australia, Victoria, and the Department’s Languages Unit and is supported by the Association of French Teachers of Victoria.

As delegates to the General Assembly the students had to research Argentina, the country they had been allocated, and its position on Climate Action. As the very first country to speak at the Assembly, they set a standard for the room they can be proud of. They presented a compelling Position Statement for their country, demonstrated a strong presence in every session and were actively involved during the Unmoderated Caucus. They were able to debate clauses and defend their positions in a very eloquent French, immersing themselves entirely in the language for the day.

Their efforts were recognised and celebrated by Christine Bozin, a Languages Support Officer for the South Western Victoria region, who was impressed by our students’ confidence and level of proficiency.

Congratulations to Aakriti, Andrea, Anirudh and Arya on their performance on the day. You have made Suzanne Cory HS proud.

Magali Bourkel - French teacher

Key Dates Term 3