WHSC Newsletter

Assistant Principals' Page

Mulgrave Country Club Scholarship

Thanks to the generosity of the Mulgrave Country Club, a scholarship valued at $2000 is awarded to a Year 11 selected from each of the 13 Secondary Colleges in the Monash area.

The deserving recipient from Wheelers Hill this year was Jasmine Sweeney.

The award ceremony took place on Monday 15th October at the Mulgrave Country Club. The award was presented by Mulgrave Country Club President, Leon Ross and Monash City Councillor, Robert Davies.

Year 8 STEM Project – War On Waste

 

The basis of STEM learning is to find solutions to real-world problems. For the past fortnight, the Year 8s have been given the challenge of finding solutions to deal with waste at a school, local and global level.

 

Starting with a whole school rubbish audit, the students have worked on identifying a waste issue, researching and coming up with a broad range of solutions. The Year 8s have also had the opportunity to build a model from recyclable materials. The project concludes this week with the students presenting their solutions to teachers and students.

 

We have been excited by the level of enthusiasm and interest this has generated. The following email captures the thinking that such a project encourages.

 

"I had a great idea for stopping the waste problem that we are studying in our stem inquiry!

1 day a week is a rubbish free day where everyone brings their lunch to homeroom and you count how many scraps and plastics are in the classes’ lunches then you can tally it up and at the end of the week the class with the least amount of rubbish gets a prize. This is a great way to persuade people to bring reusable containers and drink bottles.

My other idea was to have a bin free day at school instead so you have to take your rubbish home with you and then it won’t be an issue at school!"

 

Both great ideas!

 

Monash Technical School

 

Wheelers Hill Secondary College is excited to announce that it will continue (and improve) its ongoing relationship with the Monash Technical School.

 

Having trialed programs for Years 7, 8 & 9 at the temporary facility in Chadstone, all students in these Year levels will have the opportunity to participate in the permanent facility based on the Monash University Clayton campus in 2019.

 

The College is also currently in negotiations with Monash University Graduate Program and the Monash Tech School to formalize a program of Pre-Service teaching which will further integrate the programs offered by MTS with the curriculum taught at the school.

Robotics Workshop

 

On Friday 12th October, our college hosted a workshop “Introductory Robotics Workshop Coding Made Easy with LEGO® Education EV3” provided by James Dwyer from Modern Teaching Aids (MTA).

 

The teachers who attended this workshop were introduced to the EV3 hardware and programming/coding using the introductory level of the EV3 software.  They were able to see how STEM and robotics offers students a highly engaging medium designed to help them develop 21st creative thinking, problem solving, teamwork & communication skills.

 

Our recently appointed STEM Learning Specialist, Kim Hewlett, was personally asked by the organisers to use Wheelers Hill as the venue; a recognition of her excellent work in this area.

Student Achievements

It is always wonderful to hear about the achievements of our students both within and beyond the classroom.

This week, we have a received news of two outstanding achievements that we wish to recognise and share with our school community.

 

Blake Teunissen

Blake, who is a member of the Heany Park Scout Troop, has recently earned the extremely prestigious “Australian Scout Medallion”. This is a significant milestone in a youth members Scouting journey.  To attain the top award in each of the five sections in Scouting reflects initiative in tackling this challenge, sustained effort over many months and years, self-discipline, team work and leadership. Only a small percentage of Scout’s achieve this level- these are the top achievers among Scouting’s 47 million members globally. 

Kara O’Gorman

Kara practices artistic roller skating and has been performing at a National level since 2015.

Recently Kara competed in the 2018 Artistic Roller Skating Championships. This event was held in Perth over the July school holidays. This is the 4th Nationals event she has competed in and this year she received a Silver medal in the “Juvenile figures” and a Bronze medal in the “Juvenile Solo Dance”. 

Kara’s success is attributed to her strong commitment towards her training (approximately 10 hours each week) and working with her coaches. Kara is to be congratulated on winning two medals in this years National competition which contained a strong field of skaters. Kara’s future goal is to represent Australia in the Oceanias and then Worlds competitions.

On behalf of the WHSC community, we send our sincere congratulations to both Blake and Kara on their outstanding achievements!

WHSC Alumni 

As well as keeping up with what our current students are up to beyond the school grounds, we are also extremely interested to hear from our existing families about their children who have gone through WHSC and what they may be doing now in terms of study / employment. We are looking towards creating a WHSC  Alumni that we can then share with our College Community. We encourage and welcome families to contact the general office if you have any news to share!

 

We have recently received news from the Zonnios family, who have updated us with respect to what George, Emily, Louk, Magdalini and Gregory have achieved since leaving WHSC.

 

George Zonnios

Atar: 96.4

Achievements:

Double Degree at Monash University;

  • Commerce Degree
  • Honours in Chemical Engineering
  • Was in the experimental group, (cohort 3) of Teach For Australia (only 200 final chosen out of 2000 applicants from all over Australia)
  • He has worked as a VCE Chemistry and Maths Methods teacher at many schools in Melbourne, including Melbourne High School.
  • He has had job offers from WPC Accounting and as a full-time teacher at Melbourne High School
  • George has chosen to pursue his interest in education and has been developing a software program that will be revolutionary in our learning methods as adults and children.

Emily Zonnios

  • Achieved her entry into primary school teaching course at Deakin Burwood

Louk Zonnios

  • Achieved entry into RMIT in mechanical engineering and has since changed his preference and is now undertaking Civil Engineering at La Trobe.

Magdalini Zonnios

  • Atar: 89.6
  • Double Degree at Monash University
  • Bachelor of Science (Physics major)
  • Global Arts

Magdalini also volunteered as a helper for homework groups that assisted children in lower-economic circumstances for several years.

As her part-time job while at uni, Magdalini is the recruitment and training officer for ‘Embrace Education’ as well as playing an integral leadership role within its organisation.

 

Gregory Zonnios

  • Bachelor of Science at Monash University
  • Gregory has also spent one year in Greece serving in the Greek army.

 As parents, we are happy with the school and the opportunities our children have had through receiving a good education at Wheelers Hill Secondary College.

SWEP widget 

If you haven't already, please take the time the look at the "SWEP" widget at the bottom right of our website.

This widget monitors our water and electricity usage and compares our results to other participating schools. It is pleasing to see that our water usage indicates that as a college we are extremely water wise! 

Mobile Phones

It is pleasing to note that all students have adapted extremely well to the "mobile phone free" classrooms. We are now into the second week of the trial and will continue to evaluate its effectiveness over the coming weeks.

Contacting students during school hours

Please be reminded that if parents/guardians need to make contact with their children during school hours, this needs to  go through the general office. The general office can facilitate the delivery of any items that are dropped off or arrange for the passing on if any urgent messages. If students need to leave school unexpectedly, parents are also asked to contact the general office to arrange for the early dismissal of their child. 

Supporting Our Children with Responsible Use of Social Media

Given the high volume of students who utilise the plethora of social media platforms, it is timely to remind parents that if their child is experiencing any issues via these platforms, parents and students are encouraged to familiarise themselves with the following websites:

https://www.esafety.gov.au/

https://www.thinkuknow.org.au/

These sites contain a range of resources for both parents and students, along with security and reporting information.

Given the 24/7 access students have to social media platforms, as educators and parents, we need to make every effort to ensure our children are using these platforms in a responsible and respectful manner.

Please report any concerns regarding inappropriate social media usage to the college so that we can work with families in this space as appropriate.

WHSC Coding Club

Wheelers Hill Secondary College, in conjunction with the Innovate Academy (https://innovatetechacademy.com/whsc/), offer a Coding Club every Wednesday and Thursday at lunchtime (1 – 1:40 pm).  Fees  apply.  If you have any questions regarding this program, please contact our General Office.

 

Mrs Judy Anderson & Mr Andrew Dixon   

Assistant Principals