Sydenham Campus Principal Message

Campus Principals’ Report

Sydenham

Welcome Back to all our students and families for Term 4. It doesn’t seem that long ago that we had our end of Term 3 assembly to celebrate all the great achievements and here we are already in week 4 of this term.

Thank you to our Campus Captains Suela and Jazmin who hosted their last campus assembly. Both of these young women have contributed so positively to our campus this year, always at the ready to host events, assist younger students and their peers as well as taking on a VCE subject as part of their Year 10 program. Thank you Suela and Jazmin and all the best as you transition to the Delahey Campus. Best wishes to all our Year 10 leaders; Koray, Hannah and Olivia for your support, leadership and ‘champion’ efforts this year.

Thank you also to Ms Martin and Mr Atherton for organising the assembly and for their care and support of the student leaders. The campus assemblies are always events that we all look forward to and the musical performances were once again a stand out. Thank you to Mr Le and Ms Conlan and the performing arts Team for preparing the students who sang.

At our assembly we had a wonderful cultural performance from 4 Year 8 students who have been part of the Pasifika mentoring group.

Sharing our diversity and successes has been a theme of our year and we had lots of success with our campus sports teams.

Thank you to Mr Riccobene and the staff who coached, supported and led teams throughout the year. Mr Riccobene’s summary for Term 3 is as follows;

What a great year it’s been so far. Term 3 was Sydenham’s most successful term yet, with multiple teams winning their Keilor division tournaments and progressing into the Western Metro Region.

We were lucky enough to have some amazing weather for our Athletics Carnival. It was incredible to see so many students dressing up in their house colours and giving their all in their events.

Some highlighted results over the term were

Year 9/10 Boys basketball coached by Mr Atherton winning the Keilor division and progressing into the western metro region

Year 9/10 Girls basketball coached by Mr Atherton winning the Keilor division and progressing into the western metro region

Copperfield College winning the Keilor division athletics carnival

9 Students represented Copperfield College (Sydenham Campus) at the Western Metro Athletics Carnival.

Term 4 will see our Cricket, Softball and Year 7 Futsal teams battle it out against our regional school’s early term 4. Good luck to our intermediate basketball teams who will be competing in the western metro competition later this term.

We love to keep in contact with ex Copperfield students. It is a testament to the strong relationships that staff build with students that our students want to share their post school successes with us.

Earlier in the term, Liana Prosia (ex Sydenham student) ably supported by music provided by Mr Le, held her first public art exhibition.

Liana graduated in 2018. She is now completing her last year at VCA (The Victorian College of the Arts.

Liana wrote about the night:

“On a lovely Friday evening 7th October at Temporalities Gallery, Tuan Quan Le, my former music teacher from Copperfield College and I, Liana Prosia showcased our combined story of music and visuals: All is Out. Tuan’s guitar piece: an eight- minute-long original classical composition, a deep and emotional piece that captures part of Tuan’s life and mind. My works: fifty expressive, abstract and symbolic paintings made in response to his music. All together the show was explosive with colour and symphonic in sound and gathered a beautiful crowd”

Our Year 7 students enjoyed a three day camp with their peers and their Home Group Teachers, in week 2. Thank you to Mr Atherton and Ms Chung who provided the leadership on camp and the Year 7 teachers who attended.

We have included two reflections from students;

Alayna (7E2)

This year in year 7 camp 2022, I had so much fun. There were so many different activities that we got to do in our activity groups. My favourite activity would either be the flying fox or canoeing. In the flying fox we would fly over a large lake, luckily, I didn’t touch any of the water. The view from the top of the flying fox was fantastic, I saw the lake glistening and acres of farm area in the distance. canoeing was also one of my favourite activities, I was partnered up with Jenny. We played games in the water in teams, and it was the highlight of my day, even a few people jumped into the water. The food at the camp was really good and I’m really grateful Jenny was there to make the experience 10 times better. The teachers were very supportive when I got a little

afraid or stuck on the rock climbing, or leap of faith. I thoroughly enjoyed my camp experience and would do it all again in a heartbeat.

Roman Barbaro 7E1

On Monday, 10th October, the year 7 students of both junior campuses, Sydenham and Kings Park departed for PGL Campaspe Downs for our long- awaited camp. As the year 7 cohort at Sydenham, we would like to thank Mr Atherton for making this camp possible and our teachers, Miss Chung, Miss Ramirez, Miss Browning, Mr Gibson, Mr Murphy and Miss Barry for joining us to create memories that will last a lifetime.

We left school a bit after nine, for an hour bus ride to the campgrounds. Once we got to the grounds, we were led to the main

room called the ‘Barn’ and given the rundown of the activities and eating times. Afterwards, we were put in our cabins and were given some free time. Later we were put in our activity groups and began doing some activities. We participated in a variety of different

activities such as the Flying Fox, canoeing, The Leap of Faith, archery, rock climbing, Orienteering and Challenge Course. Rock Climbing tested our physical and mental strength. The flying fox that went over the lake and got some people wet and was a personal favourite of mine. The Challenge Course got us muddy, but it allowed us as a group to put our teamwork to the test.

Orienteering which was a race to find the numbers and get back to the instructor. Canoeing that got everybody wet, and finally, the leap of faith tested those of us who were terrified of heights, where only a few people were brave enough to go to the top and jump off.

After two days of sunny weather, the rain got us and unfortunately, we were unable to do our planned activities on our final day . However, our teachers and camp groupie, Liv improvised and came up with an alternative program which allowed us to still have some fun in the gym and part- take in a tricky trivia, where the teacher team won! After an eventful three days of activities and a lot of sugar at night in our cabins, overall camp was a fun and enjoyable experience for everyone that went.

On Thursday 13th of October, we celebrated the Premiers Reading Challenge for 2022 in the library.

Thank you to our Librarian, Ms Fitzsimon who provided the following report.

Students had from January to September to read Choice or Challenge books.

9 students completed the 15-book reading challenge. Students received book prizes and showbags, as well as a pizza party. Congratulations George McFarlane, Deng Ayei, Odyesseus Pavlides, Eliza Lee, Banin Amini, Emily Axiotis, Bella Sandher, Olivia Martin and Carla Beeg.

Special thanks to Pamela Barbara who was a tireless supporter for a physical celebration from the start as we had not had the opportunity for some years.

We hope you continue to read widely and enthusiastically, and more students join us next year!

Last Thursday, we had the great pleasure of being in the audience as our Year 7 and 8 SRC students presented their project at the Brimbank Council Chambers. Students confidently discussed their findings on how student attendance can be improved. They had thoughtful recommendations based on their data and they looked wonderful too!

Students worked with Swinburne University staff over a series of weeks which culminated in the presentation. Thank you to Mr Mugam who supported, encouraged and led the students as they participated in the Young Researchers’ Project.

And one more success story to finish up on- Joseph Alkarra. Joseph is also an ex Sydenham campus student who gave the keynote address at last week’s Western Chances Good Business Forum. Joseph shared his story and how important his scholarship was and continues to be.

Joseph is currently completing his Masters in Engineering/Mechatronics as well as volunteering for Western Chances and telling his inspirational story.

Until next time, let’s continue to make 2022 ‘A year of Champions’

Mary Chiodo and Michael Gruis Campus Principals.

Ms Mary Chiodo and Dr Michael Gruis Campus Principals