SCHOOL NEWS

2023 CULTURAL DIVERSITY WEEK

In the last week of term 3, we celebrated Cultural Diversity week at McKinnon Secondary College. During this week, students and teachers participated in many different activities to explore and appreciate other cultures. At both the main and east campus, we had a whole week of learning about our community.

The week began with the staff dressing up in different cultural clothes, Indian lunch boxes, Food Stalls, Karaoke, Origami, Greek Dance workshops, Bharatnatyam Dance, Henna Hand Painting, Trivia, Indian Samosas, World Songs, Scavenger hunts and Self Defence.

Here at McKinnon, we’ve celebrated Asia week for 23 years, and now for two years we’ve started Cultural Diversity week to be more inclusive. Led by Rekha Nayyar, we’ve set up a bunch of activities for these weeks and had lots of fun.

Cultural diversity week has been a great time to connect McKinnon as we share our cultures. There’s been many new experiences, food, clothes, and activities for the whole school to enjoy and broaden our knowledge of our community.

Monique Fleming

Year 9 Student

CHESS VICTORIA INTERSCHOOL STATE FINAL

On Monday 9 October the McKinnon interschool chess team took part in the Chess Victoria Interschool Secondary Open State Final held at Brighton Grammar School. This is the second year in a row that our talented chess squad managed to get to the state level after many years of non-participation.

Our 10-player team at the Final for 2023 consists of Steve Le 11H, Tim Nicolaides 11K, Gregory Wen 12M, Aryan Jayanty 12F, Jonathan Kui 11H, Aaron Todes 9B, Howie Nguyen 10L, Alex Do 9G, Ben Green 11E and Kevin Jin 11G.

This year at the Final, we were competing against 26 finalist teams, and over 260 players, some of which are state and national players. The state final itself was a long and gruelling contest, lasting over six hours. It was a real test of endurance and concentration, as well as chess skills and nerves.

The McKinnon team performed reasonably well with a total of 38 wins, 8 draws and 34 losses. The team score was 23.5 points on the day and was ranked 15th overall in the school standings.

The individual scores were (max 8):