Senior School News

German Exchange

In November 2017, 18 adventurous students headed off for a four week adventure in Europe as part of the German Exchange Program. Our journey began with 3 days in Amsterdam where we cruised the canals, explored the many different neighbourhoods and of course climbed windmills, ate cheese and wore clogs!

From Amsterdam we headed to Germany. Berlin was our first city and we explored the vast history, visiting many museums, Berlin Wall Memorials, churches and our first Christmas Market, we even managed to catch an ice hockey game. From there we travelled to beautiful city of Dresden, visited Munich and the Dachau Concentration Camp and spent several days in Nuremberg experiencing the history of the preserved buildings and monuments as well as delighting in the food and culture of the most famous Christmas market in Europe.

As our travelling came to an end, the exciting home stay and school visit started. Students met their hosts and soon became ‘part of the family’. We spent two weeks at Schafersfeld School Lorch, attending school each day. There were several excursions to local sights, lunch with the Mayor and a quick trip to Strasbourg France. It was an amazing highlight for the travellers, especially to visit another country just for the day! Our farewell party made a lasting impression on everyone – we spent the night together in a lodge in the hills behind the town of Lorch and woke to a pristine blanket of snow. It was so beautiful and for many the first time they had been in the snow.

It was very hard to leave as we had been made so welcome and felt that we had truly become part of our new family. Lifelong friendships had been born and memories made that will last forever.

The exchange runs in a 2 year cycle, we visit every second year and Schafersfeld School travel here the other year. So in October this year our sister school will visit us for 2 weeks. We are looking for families who would like to host an exchange student for 2 weeks. You do not need to go on the trip to Germany to host a student. It is an amazing experience and I highly recommend it.

Please see Miss Cavey or Mrs Ford if you are interested.

Senior Science Excursion:

The Science and Ethics of Genome Editing

Over 50 of our Y11 and Y12 Biology students were very fortunate to attend an excursion to a Special Event at The Exhibition Centre in Melbourne where they, along with an audience of over 2000 scientists and members of the public, were able to hear about the latest techniques in gene editing.

Professor Doudna and Assistant Professor Kevin Esvelt spoke about gene editing and the ethical considerations. These are scientists at the forefront of this emerging technology. Many students found the question time afterwards to be very interesting as there were questions put to the Professors by students, Professors and concerned members of the public.

Four of our students were able to attend the private reception afterwards along with our Principal, Mr Dan Dew. Aaryan Kulkarni, Georgia Newman, Harrison Wain and Matthew Williams were the lucky students. As well as enjoying a lovely meal, they received signed copies of Prof. Doudna’s book and were able to meet many scientists that work in the Biological sciences.

Thanks to Mr Chandra for organising this and Ms Woodroffe, Ms Mackenzie, Ms Cavey and Ms McDonald for escorting the group.

Midsumma Festival

On the evening of Monday the 5th of February, we as members of Patterson River Secondary College Respect group attended the Jason Ball presentation at Frankston Library as a part of the Midsumma festival.

Prior to the event our Respect group was invited to design and created a poster to showcase at the event. We as a group decided to decorate coloured hands to represent each member, add personalised messages as well as adding our Respect group logo in the centre.

Jason Ball is best known as a pioneering LGBTI advocate who after coming out in 2012 used this platform to launch a campaign to challenge homophobia in sport and drive cultural change within the AFL.

Jason Ball is an ambassador for BeyondBlue and was the first and only regional football player to come out as gay. He spoke about his life growing up in community full of stereotypes and how he came to terms with his sexuality.

He mentioned the importance of having allies around him and the benefits of a supportive community. He felt he was unable to talk about his relationships with his footy team mates until one day they asked him who his lucky man was!

In the past few years he has had a role in fighting for LGBTI rights in football history and in significant moments in history such as the marriage equality debate. His story growing up and his role in politics fighting for LGBTI rights is inspirational to all young people.

We were able to speak to Jason at the end of the event. He asked us about our Respect group and said how great it is that our school has established the group and that we are creating a positive legacy that will grow and develop for future students.

 It was a great opportunity for members of our group to attend.

Written by Beth 9B, Kim 9B & Callum 12C

Respect Group meet every Tuesday lunchtime in room S11 – everyone is welcome.

For more information please see Sam Hazlehurst – Student Wellbeing - Room T8