SRC News

During the last term the SRC has been busy behind the scenes, working with the principal team on School Wide Positive Behaviours projects, planning upcoming Free Dress days – one in Book Week on September 13th and the other a football themed day on the last day of term 3 – and developing ways to better give the wider student population a voice to express their views. The Senior students are working on an endeavour that will support the mental health of students. Many hours have been spent on these pursuits, but two of our very dedicated SRC members even spent three days in the holidays working on student issues at the VicSRC Congress.

Student Leaders at Congress

Over the holidays, myself and Dylan Allan (year 8 student) attended VicSRC’s Congress (held at Ormond College, Melbourne University) for a second year. VicSRC is Victorian Student Representative Council, and Congress is a 3 day camp that allows secondary students from all over the state to come together to work with like-minded students, addressing issues in the Victorian education system that we believe need to be brought to the attention of central bodies, such as the Department of Education and Training.

Over the course of the three days, students pitched their ideas, and the top 11 ideas were made into action groups, of which the students nominated themselves to be a part of for the rest of Congress. The top 11 priorities of Congress 2019 included topics such as political education, mental health awareness, sustainability education/climate change action, Indigenous awareness, primary to secondary school transitioning, equitable funding, real life skills education and inclusive sex education.

These groups then formed the foundation of Congress: each group had to brainstorm why these topics are issues and how they can be solved. The final pitches of solutions were presented on the final day at the Open Morning, which external guests were invited to attend, such as students who were unable to stay at Congress, partnering schools of the VicSRC and members of VCAA and the DET. Parliamentary Secretary for Schools, Tim Richardson, was also in attendance. By having these people there, students’ ideas were directly brought to their attention.

After the pitches, each student then voted upon the issue they wanted as one of VicSRC’s top 5 priorities for 2020, meaning they will be the topics that will be worked upon over the next year.

I was a part of the Sustainability Education action group, and to give an example of what each group had to do, we discussed that sustainability is addressed a lot in primary schools and universities, but there’s a large gap when it comes to addressing it in high school, so the implementation is inconsistent. Our solutions included improving the integration of sustainability within all subjects and providing schools with mandatory accessible resources (such as a 3-bin system and a grey water system). Luckily, our group was chosen as one of the top 5 priorities for next year which is extremely exciting and comforting to know that other students agree with our point of view.

Dylan’s group, Fundamental Equity, was also chosen as a priority for next year, the second year his group has been chosen for a priority.

I came back from Congress feeling extremely empowered and motivated. It was definitely a highlight of my holidays!

Caitlyn Taylor, Co-captain and a VicSRC Ambassador

Milk bottle top collection

The SRC are also collecting milk bottle tops which will be used for the making of prosthetic hands. All students should look out for the collection boxes in their areas.