Student News
Year 9 Primus | City Experience
Going to the city on the first day was nerve racking for many people, or at least it was for me. Where will my class be? What if I get on the wrong train? What if the train closes the doors with only me trapped inside (a very legitimate fear)? These fears however, soon dissolved into excitement as I found out what we would do during the next three days.
We got to see many different places in the city. At the MCG, we learned about the history of cricket in Australia, and try our own hand at different sports. We found our way through the city in the Hoddle Waddle Tour, learned about more history of the city and got a chance to explore new places. In the laneways tour, we learned about art in a different form and got a tour of Melbourne’s famous laneways filled with beautiful graffiti. We were also introduced to more serious topics, like homelessness.
We further explored the idea of homelessness at The Big Issue’s office. We learned that homelessness and poverty aren’t just imaginary concepts, they’re real things that can affect anyone. We heard from a guest speaker who has had experience with poverty, and overall, I think it was a greatly eye opening experience for all of us.
I would say that this city experience definitely strengthened our friendships in our class. We had to work together with everyone and got to know each other better. Through arguments over bubble tea, figuring out clues together and introducing each other to new places and restaurants, we made plenty of new friends and built stronger bonds with old ones!
Overall, I’m glad that we had the chance to explore the city and make new friends. The tours were incredible and we all made new friends and new memories!
Kairavi S (K2)
Avalon Air Show 2019
On Friday the 1st of March a group of Year 9-12 students attended the 2019 Avalon Air Show. During the day, students had many opportunities to learn about different fields of career paths relating to aviation, military and much more. We attended a conference where people from different fields of work talked about what they do and how they got to where they are now. It was interesting and educational to hear how every different person’s experience was different and exciting.
After this we were able to go out and look at all the different aircrafts, on land and in the air. We sat out in the hot sun and enjoyed the very loud noises coming from the fighter jets for some time and then explored the three different halls. These halls had many exhibitions and displays of specific parts in their career. There were simulators and robots for us to play around with which was very entertaining. The students were also able to personally talk to members from the military, army and the navy, which was amazing. Overall the experience was a one-of-a-kind and everyone had a good time.
Israa K (Year 11)
The Student Wellbeing Counsellor Team
2019 will be a big year for many, so it’s important remember that support is available for those who are interested in it. There are two Student Wellbeing Counsellors, Ms. Paye and Josh, who are available throughout the term. Come along for a confidential chat about overcoming any challenges that might be getting in the way of your academic achievements and future goals. This might be stress, worries about studies, feeling low in mood more often than usual, and issues with friends and/or family.
No problem is too big or small, so please don’t feel that an issue is silly or not worth talking about. Everything discussed remains confidential, meaning your information will not be shared without your consent. There are occasional exceptions to this, but we like to discuss these with students in more detail when we first meet.
You can arrange to meet with us by:
• Visiting us directly at our offices which are located opposite the curriculum office.
• Sending either one of us an email through Compass or at wellbeing@suzannecoryhs.edu.au.
• By talking with your Home Group teacher.
• Making an appointment online (click here).
Parents/Guardians are encouraged to contact us directly if they have any concerns about the wellbeing of their child by calling the school directly, or sending us an email at wellbeing@suzannecoryhs.edu.au.
Take care and have a great 2019!
Mr. Josh Whelan and Ms. Lina Paye (Wellbeing Team)
Breakfast Club | Tuesdays, from 8am
Having become accustomed to that frantic rush in the morning to get ready for school, it’s not unusual for many students to skip breakfast in order to make that 7am train. And with the term getting busier and busier, it’s essential that students have a nutritious breakfast in order to give them the energy to make it to the end of Period 7.
To help address this, the students and staff of Suzanne Cory run the weekly Breakfast Club. Pop by at 8am every Tuesday morning for a range of free breakfast treats, including toast, tea, and hot chocolate! Breakfast Club is set up in the Agora, outside T8, so we hope to see you all there!
P.S. If you would like to help out, have a chat to Ms. Paye or Josh!
Wellbeing Captains
Author Visit: Toni Jordan | Year 12 English
On Friday the 8th of February, the Year 12s had the honour of being spoken to by Australian writer, Toni Jordan. Jordan is the author of ‘Nine Days’, the text we are studying this term. It was incredible to hear about what inspired her tragic, cross-generational family saga; which follows the Westway family and the suburb of Richmond which both experience major changes throughout the 20th century.
What’s more, we were provided with strategies on how to craft our own narrative pieces. Some of the best advice included avoiding boring adverbs that support lazy verbs and to form dynamic characters with distinctive voices.
Ms Helen Bradwell (VCE English)
Valentines Day Rose Fundraising
The school community flocked all over the school to participate in the first Citizenship Captain run event forthe year, Valentine’s Day Roses. During the week leading up to Valentine's Day, the Citizenship Captains ran a lunchtime stall selling roses for $3, with the proceeds going towards the Heart Foundation. Overall, we had a huge success and over 300 roses were sent to friends, boyfriends, girlfriends and even some declarations of love were made! Thanks for everyone who contributed to the event, we raised over $700 for the Heart Foundation, all while having some fun with sending roses to each other!
Noah and Mehar (Citizenship Captains)
High Notes! News from the Music Department
Dear Folks,
Welcome back to Music for 2019. I do hope that all of our students and their families have had a had a relaxing break. I am happy to report that all instrumental tuition and ensembles have commenced earlier in the term and we are all working on new repertoire for our upcoming events.
Meet the Teachers Night
One highlight so far was the Meet the Teachers night held at School on Tuesday February 19. Music performances from our students in music classes in year 10 and our VCE Music Performance students were a highlight if the evening. It is great for parents and the rest of the school community to be able to see and hear the work that goes on in our music classes. I would like to thank the students and teachers, Mr Hart and Ms Scott for their assistance on the night.
2019 Musical - Cinderella
Work has commenced on our 2019 Musical Cinderella. This is a great show and this year will feature a full Orchestra accompanying the show. After an extensive audition process, the new cast have commenced their rehearsals under the direction of our new Musical Production team of Jack and Grace, with Ms Wu and I assisting with the singing and music coaching. The new team is a treat to work with and we are all looking forward to the results of the show in term three. I will be calling for expressions of interest for the orchestra for this musical towards the end of term one.
What’s On
House Chorals
Our House Chorals competition has commenced with the House Chorals Boot Camp, which took place on February 21. Our Music Captains Chloe Tuazon and Damien He have written a short piece for this newsletter that will accompany this brief in more detail.
Prospective Parents Evening 2020 | Tuesday March 26 | SCHS Agora
Our next Musical event will be the Prospective Parents Evening 2020 and will be held here in the Agora. This event will again feature our Year 10 Music Classes and our VCE Music Performance Students.
Staffing
We have two new staff members here on our Instrumental Music Staff. I would like to welcome Ms Christine Tung, our new singing teacher and accompanist and Mr Nelson Woods, our new brass teacher. Both of our new staff bring a wealth of International professional performance expertise as well as being experienced teachers.
Mr Tony Paye (Director of Music)
Music Captains
Suzanne Cory is known for its tremendous house pride and insanely spirited house competitions, after a tense and tedious process preparing for house athletics and swimming carnival, the biggest house competition of them all is brimming to life and is just right around the corner – House Chorals.
Chorals is the biggest house event and arguably the grandest event for the school year. It involves all four houses – Blackwood, Cottrell, Kororoit, Rothwell in a massive house mass sing off with a set song that is set by the musical director of the school, Mr Paye and Miss Wu. Each house will also be able to show off their own uniqueness and individuality by choosing their own house mass song, a vocal and instrumentalist soloist and assemble a small choir, an orchestra and a small team to create a canvas of beautiful house art.
This year’s set song is Do You Hear The People Sing? From the musical Les Misérables and this year’s art theme is revolutions. Don’t be mistaken, each house can create their own theme or storyline but the set song and art theme seems fitting for a school filled with aspiring students with opinions and voices they are so eager and willing to share.
Chorals season officially started on the 21st of February where each of the houses Chorals captains invited 9 others to create a team of 10, to spend the day planning and preparing for Chorals. Every house looked enthusiastic and well organised signalling to us music captains, Damien and I that this year was going to be a fun, tense, thrilling Chorals season.
Finally, we’d also like to acknowledge a bi-weekly event put up here in SCHS which is open mic which occurs every Thursday lunch, week B. In the agora, we open up T8 to performers of all kinds – singers, musicians, magic and comedy acts to perform in front of an audience and in an atmosphere that is chill, supportive and most importantly, joyous.
So, keep out for the 7th of June, which is 2019 CHORALS DAY and watch compass or announcements for other events such as open mic for your chance to be involved and create music in your time here at Suzanne Cory.
Chloe T and Damien H (Music Captains)
House News | Rothwell Update | Term 1, 2019
2019, the year of improvement for Rothwell as many new ideas have been introduced to the House of Rothwell. The first being the Rothwell Rewards, a new system where students earn points for their homeroom through participation in the Rothwell community. Rothwell rewards has been implemented to encourage an increase in participation within the house and make verticals homerooms more effective. As part of the new vertical homeroom system, homeroom vs homeroom activities are organised within Rothwell in order to promote forming new bonds amongst various year levels in the new homerooms, thus creating a connected Rothwell family. The Rothwell leadership team has also introduced a new House Instagram account as students today uses Instagram as their preferred social network. By creating an Instagram account, the students are able to get more involved with the house and the leadership team is able to build a stronger connectedness between Rothwell and the students.
This year, swimming carnival was held at MSAC, where Rothwell made a massive improvement in this year’s swimming carnival. Rothwell placed second this year and this was the result of an increase in students participating this year. Many Rothwell students were sporting fun yellow costumes or at least a yellow t-shirt, representing their house with pride. At the start of the year the year 9’s experienced the Primus Program which is program that helps them fit in, they created posters, competed in a small sporting competition and even had the City Experience. 2019 was also the introduction of VCE Sports where all 4 houses competed weekly in various sports. On Friday the 22nd of February, Rothwell were victorious against Kororoit in a game of basketball.
Later this year, the Rothwell leadership team aims to organise various house ran fundraising activities as it allows Rothwellians with a variety of different talents and skills to get involved and participate in these fundraisers. As a house, we appreciate all that the community has done for us students and in return would like to give back to those in need. By holding these charity events, students will hopefully be influenced to be involved in the house Rothwell and the school community.
Rothwell House Leaders (2019)
House Captains: Amelia L & Aiman M
Vice Captains: Jay D R (Yearr 11) & William T (Year 10)
Domain Captains
Sport: Martin Khoa N
Chorals: Cameron T
Initiatives: Sharon R
SRC: Kate P (Year 12), Michael C (Year 11), Alice D (Year 10)