Compassion- 

Killester College

At Killester College this year we undertook to embrace the theme of Compassion with the tagline, Compassion; Moving to Action. As a community we articulated the move to action as a way of ensuring our values are not only inherently present in individuals, but that we recognise our collective call to action. Thus our year of Compassion began with staff and students reflecting on how we can be compassionate to self; to other; to our school community; then the world beyond the gates of Killester.

In our Wonder program (an inquiry based learning program for Years 7 to 9) students explored the ways they could enable compassion by recognising our need to care for our beautiful God-given earth; they looked at introducing sustainable practices at school and in their own homes. Additionally students in Wonder explored ways they could help each other with the development of specialised resources aimed at engaging all levels of diversity in our College.

Senior students undertook to embrace the call to action by bravely addressing all staff about the issues they identified as lacking compassion; at school and in the wider community. Sadly, many of the students at Killester have experienced some form of exclusion; based on disability, gender or cultural background; in acknowledging this with students we identified the need to show staff the ways in which our students from diverse backgrounds experienced the challenges of their diversity. Following student forums on the topic, we collaboratively decided to create an opportunity for staff to learn about the lived experiences of many in our community. Students bravely delivered their personal stories to give witness to their experiences. This in turn created a huge impact on staff and increased our awareness of how we need to be more explicit in engaging all members of our community. One direct outcome was the development of the Strive for Excellence Evening which will be delivered to families in Vietnamese, Sudanese, Arabic, Punjabi, Nyanja, Somali, Thai and Burmese. 

Additionally the College community continued work with the Building Bridges Program designed to embrace an understanding of our multi-faith context; students took to the streets to rail against the injustice of the treatment of refugees in Australia and in protest about climate change; they worked as volunteers at a local Primary School to help students with their homework in situations where families are unable to offer this help; they spent hours at a local specialist school helping with computer literacy; volunteering with a local homeless and housing provider for women, families and children. 

From a Learning and Teaching perspective the College undertook to develop our Learning and Teaching Framework. The Framework is informed entirely by the Living Justice Living Peace Charter and specifically is framed as being JUST PIE; this 'tag' informs all we do at the College and insists that everything must be Just; Informed; Purposeful and Engaging. 

Capital Works Project update - The Atrium

A very plain piece of asphalt enclosed between our main buildings has been transformed into a beautiful, landscaped and covered area.

With Covid restrictions and having no outdoor learning spaces we embarked on a mission to cover a 240 square metre area with a waterproof PVC custom made barrel vault installed above the height of the 2 story buildings on 3 sides and an overhead walkway on the 4th.

Landscape gardeners were invited to propose a design for a space for 3 outdoor learning areas along with a beautiful sheltered area for students to enjoy recess and lunchtimes. With the successful design agreed upon after consultation with students, the landscape architect provided a concept plan, mock up, materials schedule and planting plan. It included the many planters, seating, artificial grass, podiums with electrical power points, and aggregate pathway.

The College recently welcomed families to their VCE Fashion Parade which was a hugely successful event. The asphalt quadrant is now deserving of the title of The Atrium.