VCE Offshore Conference

The Eighth Annual VCE Offshore Conference was held during the July school holidays in Haikou, on Hainan Island in China. Special thanks must go to Dave Macindoe, Effie Sgardelis and Nhan Do who attended and ran workshops for Chinese teachers and students, and Adam Coxsell who planned to attend - until a serious football injury got in the way of flying! Northcote High School helps organise this conference as part of “the G5” - a group of five Australian cross-sector secondary providers (with Firbank Grammar, Thomas Carr College, Caroline Chisholm College and RMIT Secondary), who collaborate together to mentor Chinese students doing the VCE.

The commitment meant several days of intensive teaching - with 65 students and over 220 teachers from Australia and China in attendance. The entire event – student master classes followed by a teacher conference, ran for seven days. The teacher component of the conference was preceded by lectures and seminars led by education leaders and academics from China and Australia. It was opened by Wang Lu, (the Vice Governor of Hainan Province) and other key note speakers included Brooke Hartigan (Minister-Counsellor Australian Embassy, China), Dr Gao Shuguo (Deputy Secretary General Ministry of Education), Dr David Howes (CEO, VCAA), John Molony (Pro Vice-Chancellor Deakin University) and Professor Libby Tudball (Monash University).

A highlight was a speech to delegates in English and Chinese by 18 year old Zhao Zixuan, one of the students mentored by Northcote High School staff in 2018, who is now studying a Bachelor of Science at Monash University.