NEWS FROM THE LIBRARY

One of Keysborough College’s longest serving teachers is leaving us, after over 30 years of service. Palak Arora, of Year 10 Acacia, has interviewed Ms Kildea, and shares her reflections here. Thanks Palak, and thanks Ms Kildea!

Ms Kildea is a significant member of the Keysborough Secondary College community and

soon she will be leaving after more than 30 years of working at our school. If you are unaware of who Ms Kildea is, she is currently a tutor at Acacia at years 11 & 12 VCE English & VCAL and teaches a year 11 Literature class. During her long career, she has taught year 7 to 12 English, Literature, Australian History and Australian studies, Greek and Roman History. She is an experienced VCE and VCAL teacher and was an English assessor for VCAA for many years and still marks the GAT every year.

Ms Kildea has been English KLA leader in both Keysborough College and Coomoora

Secondary and a year level coordinator at years 11 and 12. To think that she has been here

before the four schools, Coomoora, Heatherhill, Springvale and Chandler merged to make the

schools we now attend, Keysborough Secondary College Acacia and Banksia, is an

amazing feat. Ms Kildea has now decided that she is ready to leave and begin a new

journey.

After finishing at Keysborough College, Ms Kildea is unsure of what her future holds though

she has a few ideas of what she may decide to do. Ms Kildea says that she would enjoy a

break from teaching and maybe begin a new course (possibly to do with wine) or learn a

new language. Being at this school for many years, Ms Kildea has built several friendships and she looks forward to continuing these in the future.

When people think of Ms Kildea they remember her long standing role in this school but they may also think of George Clooney. Ms Kildea is a very big George Clooney fan and has a

cardboard cut-out of him in her study. (It was a gift from one of her year 12 English classes!) She has said that if she ever met him she would have an intellectual conversation with him as she finds him very intelligent. Throughout all of Ms Kildea’s years at this school, she has gone through many fashion trends and phases. Her favourite of these is the current and modern style she has adopted. She feels that now she has accepted herself but can’t help but look back at what she wore years ago and reminisce.

Ms Kildea’s hobbies include going for walks on the Mornington Peninsula, drinking coffees at cafes while people watching, her book club, watching European films, going to wineries and travelling. Her fantasy hobby is most definitely dancing with George Clooney.

Other than dreaming of George Clooney, Ms Kildea’s dream holiday is a prolonged stay in Europe. She has studied Italian and German and her dream holiday would consist of

travelling to a mix of European countries including Italy and Austria where she can practise her linguistic skills. Next year she is planning a trip to Berlin and France before ending up in Greece and she is looking forward to relaxing on a Greek island, eating calamari and drinking chilled white wine.

Ms Kildea has said that if she could live anywhere in the world she would live in Europe and the Mornington Peninsula. She loves Europe so much that she normally travels there every year, until the global pandemic intervened. She said that if she won tattslotto, ideally she would like to have a house in Greece, an apartment in Rome or Paris and use this as a base to explore more of Europe.

Ms Kildea has many wonderful memories from her time at Coomoora, Banksia campus and since 2015, Acacia. Her fondest memory of teaching at the school was when

she was giving a theatrical reading of Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat from Cats the Musical to her year 8 Literacy class. She remembers the spontaneous round of applause from the class when she finished reading this poem.

She has enjoyed the connections she has made with her students and the feeling of knowing she has taught them something. Ms Kildea also loved the many excursions she has been on as they gave students the opportunity to have new experiences and gave her the chance to interact with them in a different way. After such a long time, she knows that she will miss the people, staff and students, and the difference she has made in people’s lives. She was 22 years old when her journey began here and when asked about how she feels about leaving Keysborough Secondary College, she told me that though she will be sad, she knows it is time to move on and begin a new adventure. She relates to a quote that she once saw that said “Your second life begins when you realise you only have one life”.

Ms Kildea gave the students and new teachers some advice for the future. She stated that

being authentic and yourself is very important as well as being open with others. She feels

that learning your craft is crucial in life as well as evolving, always learning and making

connections with people. Her message to Keysborough College is this: “Thank you for making my career so enjoyable, challenging and rewarding".

Ms Kildea has been an integral part of our school so don’t forget to say bye!

Palak Arora

International students at Keysborough College

A shout out to International students who have chosen to make Keysborough College their school abroad. Your excitement to be at school to try your very best and to create and enjoy good relationships with peers and teachers, is wonderful to see.

We are immensely proud of the following students for the subject awards they earned this years. Congratulations on being selected by your teachers for a superb effort and results the whole year.

Year 10

Dennis Dang

Year 11

Thida Huot

Gecjing Taing

Meichou Te

Muninth Khun

Year 12

Vouchkim Tauch

Vandy Leap

Duy Nguyen

Danin Rath

Phuong Duong (International Student Captain)

awarded the College Senior Assistant Principal Award for Banksia

Ms Kim, Mr Phong, Ms Kieu, Ms Koustas and Ms V

Our Year 11 Banksia VCAL students recently took part in a community project called ‘Share the Dignity’.

The aim of the project is to provide bags and personal products to displaced or disadvantaged women.

Our students were remarkable. They emailed staff for donations, spoke at staff briefings, placed posters around the school and made the most incredible donation boxes.

We were hoping to put together 3 or 4 bags but ended up with 22!. Their motto was to bring a smile to a person’s face that they will never meet. The definitely achieved that.

The staff at Bunnings Keysborough were very happy with the donations and praised the students for their generosity.

We are so proud of our students.

Raelene Weir and Alison Parkes

Our 2023 sporting year finished with our Year 9 Boys (and Daniel Kamana from Year 8) competing in the Volleyball Victoria Junior Open, a competition open to all schools in Victoria. The boys have been practising their Volleyball literally every day this year. They have been in the Gym most mornings at 8am during our early morning free play sessions, they joined the Volleyball program and have pestered Mr Mann, Mr Htut and myself for even more practice after school on any meeting-less day.

The competition ran for four days at the Melbourne Sports and Aquatics Centre at the end of November, with Mr Htut giving up his Sunday to enjoy a delightful 7am pickup for their first game at 8.30am, followed by a lovely 8 hour wait before the second game. All in all, the boys played seven games.

Our results

We defeated Kew HS 2 – 0 (25-19, 25-15)

We defeated Girton Grammar 3 – 0 (25-12, 25-12, 15-6)

We defeated Eltham HS 3 – 0 (25-15, 25-16, 15-10)

We defeated Upwey HS 3 – 0 (25-11, 25-12, 15-10)

We defeated Tintern Upwey 3 – 0 (25-7, 25-15, 15-11)

We defeated Nunawading Christian Grammar 3 – 0 (25-13, 25-18, 15-4)

We defeated Melbourne HS 2 – 1 (23-25, 25-19, 15-7)

As we were undefeated, the team went straight to the Gold Medal match, which we went on to win.

Gold medal match

We defeated Kew HS 2 – 0 (25-17, 25-20)

The boys were incredible. They have developed into a team that is really skilful, athletic and team-oriented. What I like the best about this group of boys (and our students) is that, as people, they have the qualities you’d want in your own kids – genuine, humble, honest, responsible and caring.

It takes a village, so thanks to Mr Htut for giving up his Sunday, Mr McIntosh for giving up his Monday and more importantly, Jordan Svay from Year 12 who coached the boys for the last 2 months. Jordan was part of our successful Senior Boys Volleyball team who were inaugurated into our Sports Hall of Fame and he did a fantastic job teaching the boys the skills, formations and strategies required to be successful.

As school for the year comes to a close, the Year 12s have been settling into head-start. To kick things off, we visited Monash University on our first day for Year 12 Orientation Day. Having it hosted at an academic place like Monash, meant it set the tone for our entrance into a more adult learning environment. During the orientation, Alumni were invited to speak about their experience in Year 12. They gave us a glimpse of what Year 12 is like, their hardships, helpful tips on how to cope with these hardships and how to balance school and social life. We also had the opportunity to listen to Skyline, a tutoring program who gave us multiple tips on creating a study timetable, tips on coping with stress such as taking a walk or talking to a friend, tips on note-taking, and tips on different ways to study. This was an excellent way of clearing former myths and misconceptions our inexperienced minds might have had about Year 12 and VCE, allowing us to do our best and prepare ourselves for the year ahead.

Head-start has been an exciting time for a lot of us, and our teachers have done an amazing job in introducing us to Year 12, motivating us to strive for excellence and showing what we should expect for the coming year. We have started the official coursework for Year 12, and have been getting use to changes such as more study periods and new topics. While this may seem intimidating to some, we want to encourage all the Year 12s in their studies, and to enjoy a well-earned break.

Happy Holidays to all the Year 12s and to the rest of the College!!

Meychea Sen & Arthur Hingley

2023 Year 12 Acacia Campus Captains

While studying abroad is an exciting thing, having to spend almost 2 years away from home and family isn’t something that international students were expecting. Homesickness is not just for first year students; even myself: who has been studying in Australia for five years, have noticed that homesickness hits me at the weirdest and most unexpected times. Whilst I’m lucky to have my mum with me, others are here alone without the support of their parents. This summer holiday, a number will have the opportunity to rekindle their relationships with friends and families, the opportunity to enjoy dirt cheap food, and to just simply feel at home.

How exciting for us all to finally return home!! There are many things us international students are excited to do with family and friends. On some days, even though we may just stay home and do nothing, we will still feel complete with our loved ones. On other days, we will be spending time with friends, enjoying all different kinds of food not popular in Australia, like snails, or as the French call it “escargots”, and go out to breakfast and eat delicious grilled pork on rice, famously known as “bay saj jruk”. For those who celebrate Chinese New Year, they will be celebrating it with family and friends in late January.

So a message from me, as the Acacia International captain: enjoy the holidays, enjoy the food, and most importantly, enjoy being with your friends and family!

Venching Seng

2023 Acacia Campus International Students Captain

On Monday the 5th of December the Year 12 VCALS went to Banksia to take on a two-day Barista and Food Safe Handling course. These certificates will give us the skills and qualifications to make coffee and work in the hospitality field. On Monday we had theory and learnt food safe handling and about the different types of coffee. On Tuesday it was time to put the theory into practice by learning how to make coffees such as a latte, cappuccino, flat white, long black and hot chocolate. It was great to see everyone having fun and learning a new skill not many of us had.

These two weeks of Headstart has been a great, positive start to our final year as VCAL students, one that will quite possibly be the most challenging year in our entire schooling lives. As 2022 comes to an end I cannot wait to see everyone fresh and ready to go for 2023!

Omaid Farhad

2023 Acacia VCAL Captain