Eagle Newsletter

Local Schools Convention 

‘Local Schools Convention 2019’

Lalor Secondary College proudly hosted the Local Schools’ Convention for the sixteenth consecutive year on Friday 21st June 2019.

 

This year we had staff and students from five other schools in attendance. The schools were:

  • Camberwell Grammar School
  • St Monica’s College.
  • Marymede Catholic College
  • Thomastown Secondary College
  • Whittlesea Secondary College

 

There were a total of 128 students involved in this year’s convention, including 71 students from our own Year 11 Legal Studies classes.

 

The topic for debate this year was “Does social media promote free speech or hate speech?”  Mr Jewell, the Principal of the school, officially opened the Convention and welcomed our guest speakers.

 

Our guest speakers this year were: Mr Andrew Giles MP (member for Scullin), Mr David Mould, Director of Second Strike specialising in resourcing Student Representative Councils (SRC’s) and Ms Ecehan Gulbayrak Humanities teacher at Lalor Secondary College.

 

Once the speakers put their views across the topic was then debated by the students. In the afternoon Mr Kotsopoulos KLA Humanities Leader at Lalor Secondary College conducted a plebiscite on the issue. He explained the electoral system that is used in Australia and how voting in referendums and plebiscites is conducted.

 

Photos and videos were taken of the proceedings throughout the day and students were informed about the State and National Constitutional Conventions held in State Parliament House Melbourne and Parliament House Canberra respectively.

 

The convention was held at Plenty Ranges Arts and Convention Centre which provided a spectacular and spacious venue to host this event. This was the first time the event was held outside of the school and it was very successful. Indeed, it was a very enjoyable and rewarding day for all of the participants involved. We look forward to student participation in the State and then National Constitutional Conventions.

 

Thank you to the many teachers and students involved in organising this event this year.

 

Special thanks must be given to the following people:

 

Sam Kotsopoulos, Amanda Cartisano and Ecehan Gulbayrak as organisers of the event who put in a lot of extra hours in the weeks preceding the event getting everything organised.

 

Corey Jewell, Andrew Giles, David Mould, Ecehan Gulbayrak and Sam Kotsopoulos as speakers on the day who gave interesting accounts and connected with our students.

 

Isaac Mercado and Maria Stipcevic for organising photographers and equipment.

 

Michael Georgiopoulos and Luc Labigang for IT support and advice on how to use our laptops at an external venue.

 

Debbie Boyce, Lachlan Hayes, Denis, Andrew, Dawn, Rebecca, Ellie and the Principals for administrative and logistical support.

 

Lana Siryani for booking the venue and encouraging me to ‘go big this time’ (and for allowing my thinking process to eventually evolve to that position).

 

Lastly, I’d like to thank our students for a very thoughtful, well-expressed and engaging discussion that they had during the Plenary Session and especially the Soap Box Session of the day.

 

A link to a video compilation of the day is included below:

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dRqRDojelmlVWVpF9X3Vm9sbcrnkGmBo/view?usp=sharing

 

P.Leos