Around the College
2021 Student Planner Artwork Competition Winner
Congratulations to Kaitlyn L (11D) for designing the winning entry for the 2021 Student Planner cover artwork competition!
Using inspiration from scenes around the College, incorporating our school colours and featuring Ziggy and Bowie, Kaitlyn created a colourful and vibrant design that we are excited to feature on the cover of next year's planner.
We hope the fun new-look planner, together with additional features such as divider tabs and extra room to write notes, will encourage more students to use their diaries for their daily planning and organisation. Thanks to our SRC and the hundreds of students across the College who gave their valuable input on how to improve the planner.
Congratulations again to Kaitlyn on her thoughtful and eye-catching design.
Thank you to all our wonderful entries and to our Art Department judges. We hope you will enjoy your freshly-styled diaries in 2021!
DSC Annual Short Story Competition – Winners Announced!
2020 has been an unusual year and over 250 of our amazing students at Doncaster Secondary College have been inspired by a range of unique images to write their submissions for this year’s Short Story Competition.
Teachers in the English faculty have been reading these spectacular entries over the past couple of weeks, selecting the top stories from each of their classes to pass on to a second panel of judges.
It is always hard to separate the best from the best and whilst it was difficult to pick our finalists we have all thoroughly enjoyed the chance to discover the amazing creativity, not to mention the quality of the writing, that our students have displayed.
We have laughed, we have cried, and we have debated back and forth, and now we are glad to announce the following students as our winners of the DSC Short Story Competition for 2020!
- Year 7: ‘Captain Tory’ by Escha R (7F)
- Year 7 SEAL: ‘Captain Tory’ by Ian M (7E)
- Year 8: ‘Uninvited Guests’ by Charlotte K (8D)
- Year 8 SEAL: ‘Uninvited Guests’ by Gabriella H (8E)
- Year 9: ‘Uninvited Guests’ by Jessica D (9D)
- Year 9 SEAL: ‘The Harp’ by Scout P (9E)
- Year 9 EAL: ‘The Love Birds in the War’ by Amirreza R-T (9F)
- Year 10: ‘Archie Smith: Boy Wonder’ by Angel W (10I)
- VCE: ‘Just Desert’ by James I-P (11B)
- VCE EAL: ‘Captain Tory’ by Lewis C (11H)
Congratulations to each of these amazing authors!
There were so many great entries in this year’s competition and I would like to encourage each and every student who entered to keep writing.
It was a pleasure to read your stories and I look forward to reading another entry from you all next year!
Fiona Cowan
English Learning Area Leader
Tournament of Minds
This year a team of seven highly motivated and inspirational DSC students from years 7 and 9 has come together to plan and present a submission for the 2020 Tournament of Minds (ToM). The ToM is an Australia-wide problem-solving program for teams of students.
Each ToM team is required to work together on a ‘Super Challenge’ for six weeks without assistance from teachers, parents or peers. They are encouraged to explore possibilities and experiment with ideas as they endeavour to produce their best solution to the challenge whilst working within predefined parameters such as limited materials, complex challenge criteria and the deadline of Tournament Day.
This year, the Tournament of Minds is running completely online and, our team of students has been using Microsoft Teams to meet three times a week to solve their challenge. These students are currently in the process of creating a five-minute video to present the product of their ideas - their challenge solution – that will then be assessed by a panel of judges.
Congratulations to the following students for taking on this extra challenge over the past five weeks and for demonstrating incredible leadership skills as they work together to plan and prepare their response to this year’s ‘Super Challenge’.
Danny K (9G) Abbey M (7E)
Berry E (9E) Nikola P (7E)
Ruby D (9E) Soumavo P (7E)
Brandon L (9E)
Judging will occur on Saturday, 12 September and we wish our 2020 ToM Team ‘Bermuda Septagon’ the very best of luck with their entry!
Fiona Cowan
High-Ability Program Leader
Debating News
On Wednesday, 26 August Dylan S, Oliver D and Lauren S competed in the first round of the Junior round of the DAV interschool debate competition.
Their topic was “That schools should punish students for striking” and they were given the affirmative position to argue against Ouyen P-12 College. This was our junior team’s first interschool debate and our first time competing in the online competition which did present some additional technical challenges, but with a very supportive adjudicator both teams were able to present their cases.
I applaud these students for all of their efforts. They have gone above and beyond to represent the school and further their learning while also preparing for their Student Led Conferences on the same night – a busy day indeed!
Although officially the debate was awarded to Ouyen School, the battle was a nail biter with a draw on points and a hair’s breadth between the teams overall.
The next round of debating is Wednesday, 9 September and we wish the debate club students well in their preparations.
If you are in year 7 or 8 and would like to be involved in this competition please contact the debate coordinator, Mrs Martin.
Mrs Martin
Debate Coordinator
What's Happening in STEAM Club?
STEAM Club has been very exciting this term! We have undertaken a variety of activities including a Science Week scavenger hunt, watching different experiments, coding and some Kahoots.
This Friday some members and I will be joining a Zoom hosted by RMIT. We will be taking a workshop online relating to science and physics. It is an amazing opportunity and we will definitely enjoy it.
As always if any of this interests you, feel free to email Ms Purches to join STEAM club which runs on Tuesdays at lunchtime.
Betty Z – Student STEAM Leader
'Lap of Australia Challenge' - Our Winners!
We are thrilled to announce that DSC students in years 7-10, together with staff, have successfully met the challenge to complete a virtual lap of Australia!
Our competitors ended up completing a full lap and then got all the way to the top of Queensland again. This distance is also further than a trip from Melbourne to New York and roughly half of the circumference of the world. It is such an incredible effort, and we congratulate the following top competitors.
Top female runners:
- Kate McQ, 9G - 156 km
- Sarah C, 7E - 145 km
- Mia D, 8H - 110 km
Top male runners:
- Archie W-W, 7D - 138 km
- Pete M, 7E - 78 km
- Gabriel K, 8F - 67 km
Top female riders:
- Elizabeth B, 8F - 243 km
- Rebecca R, 8H - 196 km
- Ruby T, 9J - 136 km
Top male riders:
- Kush D, 8F - 242 km
- Callum M, 10J - 220 km
- Max C, 10G - 128 km
Here is the final leaderboard for classes and year levels.
Congratulations to everyone who took part in the challenge. You should all be incredibly proud!
Mr Eugene Pring
Head of Health & Physical Education