International Students
It is another new year ahead, luckily, we welcomed a group of 9 new international students to our International Student Team. After nearly two weeks of adapting to a brand new life in Australia and experiencing study in school, they feel more familiar with the school campus and more engaged in school activities and events. We are so delighted to see their confident smiles around the school.
In order to help our new international students to consistently get along well with their school life, the International team started Homework club from 3:30pm to 4:30 pm every Monday. The first session was run on the 7th Feb. Students shared their experience of the first week in DSC and shared their reflection of the Orientation day. They felt more relaxed and warmer welcomed with their buddy’s help. The second session was run on 14th Feb. We have gone through some important information in our School Planner. Such as: College Rules, Expectations and Procedures.
We have also talked about not to take part in fighting, threatening, intimidating or racist behaviour or harassment of any kind towards other members of the school community; not to bring any dangerous objects to school; to respect the College property; We have covered the rules of College Uniform, College buses, Medication, attendance and punctuality and so on.
We also went through part of our International Student Handbook, emphasizing the importance of meeting their VISA Conditions and reminding them they must remain in a full-time course of study. They were also aware that what consequence would be once their attendance drops to the bottom line, lower than 80%. They have learned they must have a satisfactory academic result for each term or semester to fulfil Student VISA Condition 8202. They are also aware VISA Condition 8101 and 8105 of the permission to work.
We wish our new students a relaxing new school year ahead!
Harry BUI
Swinburne International Excellence Scholarship
A big CONGRATULATIONS to our International student Harry BUI! He is the recipient of the Swinburne International Excellence Scholarship. Harry would like me to pass his thank you message to the DSC community:
I want to express my gratitude towards Mr. Morris and Ms. McGee for providing me with recommendation letters for this scholarship, and Ms Huang and the International Student Team for supporting me throughout my whole study experience at Doncaster Secondary College. Also, I want to say thank you to all of my year 11 and 12 teachers who have always been the best place I can find help.
Harry Bui, Year 12 (2021)
2022 International Student Forum
The 2022 International Student Forum aims to help student leaders with their student voice and advocacy work to promote global learning and engagement at schools. Our school has been invited to participate in this event. Two local and two international students from DSC are expected to take part in all components of the program which includes a pre-forum school briefing and discussion (online), student mentoring and support and two student forums (part 1 In Feb and part 2 in May).
Berry Eain, Che Cai, Jazmine Lew and Jenny Le have been selected as our school representatives. On Wednesday 16 Feb they actively joined the pre-forum school briefing online and came up with lots of wonderful ideas and suggestions of how to strengthen international student voices at our school.
On Feb 24, we attended the first day of the 2022 International Student Forum. Our student Berry EAIN was the one and only student speaker at the forum and she represented DSC very well.
Please find their reflection below:
The international student forum was a very insightful event that allowed me to consider multiple issues under a different perspective. We were provided with papers and colourful textures to brainstorm ideas as a team and then individually given pens and notepads to take notes about the forum. There were over 10 schools altogether and each school had the minimum of 2 representatives, we had the opportunity to interact with them and gain more ideas about ways to combat issues that might be present in DSC as well. The event was overall very engaging and fun and thanks to all the staff members for taking care of us.
--Berry Eain
I had a great day at the International Student Voice Forum on February 24th. On this day, we communicated with international students and local students from other schools. We expressed our opinions and talked about a lot of positive ideas about how to make international students feel more inclusive and how to make the international student's voice be heard. My team members and I had a great brainstorming and presentation. And I have learned a lot from the presentations of students from other schools, it was a good experience.
--Che cai
Sally Huang
Director International Student Program