Wellbeing News

Refugee Week

It was an exciting end to term 2 for the student wellbeing committee at Cranbourne Secondary College. Earlier in the year, we held a committee meeting to decide what causes and initiatives we would seek to promote, and as voted by students, it was Refugee Week (19th – 25th June) which came out on top. Refugee Week aims to raise awareness about refugees and the contributions they make to our society. Given the diverse community of learners at Cranbourne Secondary College, it was encouraging to see students identify this as an important event to promote healing and acceptance within the school.

A special guest speaker was arranged in the lead-up to the event, with Maya Ghassali visiting Cranbourne Secondary College to speak to students about her journey from Syria to Australia. Maya, whose story featured on SBS, had some fantastic insights for students who were afforded the opportunity to ask questions and learn more about the experience of refugees.

It was decided that as part of Refugee Week we would raise money for Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, to support refugees and asylum seekers in Australia. Subsequent meetings were spent brainstorming ideas and planning activities, and we were thoroughly impressed with the suggestions put forward by student committee members and the enthusiasm they brought. To raise funds, we organised a ‘lolly jar guess’, a bake sale, and a raffle, with students working hard during the week to sell tickets, run stalls, hang up posters, and promote and raise awareness for a good cause.

We would like to thank the students from the wellbeing committee along with SRC and Multipride, who generously volunteered their time to assist with fundraising. Thank you to Anke MacLean for sharing and collaborating with us, to Barbara Cousens and the library staff for their Refugee Week display, to Katharine Seyler for organising our guest speaker, to Sarah Carr for generously offering her time to bake cupcakes for the bake sale, and to the principal class for their support of the initiatives. An additional thank you goes out to all staff who donated items for the raffle and to the staff and students who bought tickets.

Raffle winners were announced on the morning of the Colour Explosion Carnival during the last day of term 2, along with the closest ‘lolly jar guesser’. A big congratulations to all the winners! 

And just as importantly congratulations and thank you to the whole school community for their generous contributions – altogether we were able to raise $712.20 for ASRC. From the initial decision by wellbeing committee students to promote this cause, Refugee Week quickly grew in momentum and we are proud of the way the whole school came together to make it a success.

Martial Arts Therapy Program (MAT)

In term two a group of year 9 students completed the MAT program; the students who participated were all successful in achieving their goal of breaking the boards. Breaking the boards is a celebration of the students MAT journey, it recognises personal qualities and achievements. Students need to listen carefully and embrace the strategies and what they learn throughout the program to be able to successfully break the boards in their final session. The celebration lesson was fantastic to watch, the year 9 group should be really proud of their achievement and all students were successful in breaking the boards. 

In term three we have a group of year 7’s participating in the MAT program, it will be exciting to witness their personal growth throughout the term and we can’t wait to see them all successfully break the boards at the end of the program.