Whats New

New Venture

The Geelong 'Gift'  - Northern Bay College Race!

Congratulations students from the Track Club who ran their first ever 'Gift' what a terrific effort by the young men and women from Years 7 to Year 11. This of course is all thanks to the students and their passion - and to Stoofa for his constant drive to give our students these wonderful opportunities. The video is a compilation of 'stills' showing the race in its entirety.

New Values

2022 Our Values

It was very special to be able to roll out the new college values early in the year. These emanated from an approach to invite all of our students to tell us what values they thought were important. Our final outcome has broad and exciting values for our community:

We Value: Growth / Collaboration / Persistence / Kindness and have linked these very successfully to our School Wide Positive Behaviours matrix across the college.

New Trees

Planting Trees for the Queens Jubilee

Her late majesty is known for her unwavering commitment to her role over 70 years and was tireless in meeting people and celebrating their achievements and cultures. She visited Geelong twice, in 1954 and again in 1988. 

One of her passions that you may have heard in the media was a greener environment in our world. She established the ‘Queens Canopy’ to plant native trees. 

This year, the Australian Government invited community groups to apply for a small grant to celebrate the 70 year Queens Platinum Jubilee. We were fortunate to have been accepted for a grant and each campus now has a small area dedicated to her 70 year reign and her memory.

The weather and supplier delays has meant that we were unable to have the final part of the commemoration - a small gathering to launch the Gardens, however this will happen early next year when the Plaque arrives.

Each Campus has a tree and Goldsworthy's will arrive when landscape design is known in 2023.

New Cafe

Schoolyard Beans 

School Yard Beans 

In preparation for the grand opening of the VCAL cafe (newly renamed to School Yard Beans) students had to work on a range of tasks. They participated in the Safe Food Handling short course, where they learnt the OHS considerations required to prepare and serve food to their customers safely.  They have also been working tirelessly to renovate the coffee van, which has undergone a complete facelift! Excitingly, the students set up their van at the Goldsworthy athletics day, serving hot drinks and snacks. The cafe was open each Tuesday at the Goldsworthy campus. During the year the VCAL students continued to grow and develop their employability skills! 

Beautiful weather, delicious coffee and great service brought the people together one Tuesday at School Yard Beans. 

Our VCAL students also completed a barista training course and perfected their skills each week. They have just begun learning about social media marketing and updated  their journey, @schoolyardbeans on instagram.

New Camp Feature

 Mini Golf Project at SVOEC

We are excited to report that the VCAL mini golf project at our Staughton Vale campus is complete.  A huge congratulations to the students and teachers involved in this project.  From planning to consulting and a lot of persistence and hard work, the students were able to meet a number of work related skills outcomes in their VCAL certificate.  Watch this video to see their journey! 

New Camp

Inaugural Student Wellbeing Camp 

During the June / July holidays members of our college wide Student Wellbeing team hosted a camp for a group of our students at our Staughton Vale school camp site. This is a wonderful initiative which will be used to develop relationships with students across our college, further develop bonds across our campuses and support our students to focus on themselves and the further realisation of their own personal development goals.

Students were treated to three days of challenge, self-discovery and exciting adventure as they worked through a number of engaging and eye-opening sessions.

A huge congrats to our team on the camp and we certainly look forward to this being a staple of our overall program for NBC students.  There was also one during the September School Holidays

New Initiative

Melbourne Arts Camp

This was the culmination of 2 years of gaining understanding about multiple aspects of the Arts and the various pathways taken by people in the Arts Industry.

Particular thanks to Mr Diamond who drove the school bus to the city and stayed with us till after we had been to be audience members at the project on Channel 10 with a live screening. Mr Sapwell was terrific coming to get us and drive us back.

While we were in the city it was not the best of Spring weather - but wet and windy we still had a great time.The activities included a class at RMIT, attending Come From Away - a terrific live theatre show. We went to Acme and to the National Gallery and caught fresh air on Southbank. We had a sensational experience at Artvo and a bit of relaxed enjoyment at the Cats Cafe (yes it is overrun with cats)

Mr Marco Polo (or should I say Mr Diamond) also led us on a Scavenger hunt in the city art areas and a relaxing mountain HIKE!!! through the beautiful Botanic Gardens.

One of the highlights was of course Artvo with the amazing optical illusions

New Look

Cricket Tops from the Lords Taverners Geelong

Since we began our relationship with the Lords Taverners we have had a great focus on cricket. We were given funds by them for our professional quality crIcket nets at Goldsworthy and also some cricket tops with the Taverners Logo. Their generosity is terrific. One of the rotations in the Year 7 / 8 SEED program is cricke and the photos below who both the enthusiastic SEED students and the proud Cricket stars in their new tops

New Garden

Indigenous Garden and Yarning Circle

The VCAL Foundation students created a space where people can get together to talk in natural surroundings.  The space features individual rock gardens surrounded by native shrubs. Central to this is our yarning circle, which is a large compacted gravel circle with log seating and a fire pit for ceremonies.  We separated the area from the other vegetable gardens by adding some fruit trees. 

To complete this project, the students researched plants and liaised with Karyn at the GenU Nursery so they could create their own gardens which included many edible species of plants.  Kath Ozog and Barney were also on the team.  We were fortunate to be able to use some of the rocks from the school construction site and large branches from a tree that had to be cut down.  Barney’s trailer made moving them a possibility. 

We have been given permission from Judy Dalton-Walsh, a traditional owner of the Wadawurrung country, to use the word ‘Gobata’, which means ‘Hello’ as the name for our garden area.

Year 10 Art students are helping to create our sign and graphics.  Mr Ellson in the GITTC Engineering team, will work his magic to cut these out of steel.  We’re hoping to add some planter boxes for herbs and a mural in 2023. 

New Resource

NBC OurSchool Alumni

Here at the OurSchool Alumni Program, we have been busy connecting with Alumni from Northern Bay College and our foundation schools, to find out what they have been up to, and inviting them to be a part of our Alumni Program.

It’s been really impressive and exciting, to speak to these Alumni, and to hear their stories and the diverse career pathways they have taken. One theme that comes up a lot when we speak to Alumni, is the power of a great teacher.

Two such examples of alumni speaking on the teachers that shaped them is Samantha Wilson and Yolanda Estaban.

Please see the Alumni page on this and any newsletter to check in with Alison, the Coordinator

New Annual Competition

Refugee Week Art and Writing Competition

In June our EAL Team launched the Refugee Week initiative and the entries were displayed at a special event at Goldsworthy Library

The entries were collated (here a few only)

And the four winners were

NEW FUNDING

SATURDAY HOMEWORK CLUB

COLLABORATION – Saturday Homework Club

Berlthrand – our African Community Liaison Officer – hosted the final Saturday Homework Club of the year. Inclusive of many students from all Campuses and year levels the program has been a huge success in its first year supporting our students in all aspects of their learning. This was a wonderful celebration complete with an African Drummers presentation, a performance by a group of African Dancers, student speeches and the announcing of an ongoing partnership with the Burundian Community of Victoria for this program to continue through 2023. 

NBC staff involved in this program –  Belthrand, Pel and Irene along with the student leaders involved in this program are to be commended on what has been a hugely successful initiative. We look forward to seeing this program grow from strength to strength next year.