The World's Greatest Shave

Early this term we had some extremely generous and brave students participate in the World’s Greatest Shave, raising money for the Leukemia Foundation.

Students raised over $1500.

Congratulations to Gayathri and Sargun for organising this extremeley worthy fundraiser and to their team “The Bold Stars”.

Take a look at the team in action:

HealthCove

The past month has seen a commemoration of a number of different awareness days and milestones, including Nurse Recognition Week, Medical Lab Professionals Week, Speech Pathologist Day and National Hospital Week. All of these people we recognise and celebrate are absolutely crucial to our healthcare system and make a considerable difference in our community. It is also important to note, however, that the celebrations like Autism Awareness Month and Mental Health Awareness Week also posed significant opportunities for progress in the equity of our system.

So, to contribute to achieving that equity, we ran the Butterfly Relay for autism awareness! We raised over $600 for Amaze Australia, a charity that supports people with autism, both with mental and emotional support as well as with social security and stability.

Get ready for a fun-packed Term 3! After a successful period of fundraising, we will be shifting our focus toward awareness projects and getting students involved with public health issues that they personally are passionate about!

Signing off, Keerthana (C5) and Siddarth (R8) :DD

Staff vs Student Week

Staff vs Student - Year 10

Staff vs Student Week kicked off with trivia in the auditorium on Monday May 15th. The students consisted of Minoo Djalalian, Meet Shah, Akshya Ajbani and Sherine Anand Asir and the teachers had Ms Goodridge-Kelly, Ms Kline, Mr Malone and Mr King. The five topics were animals, countries, riddles, guessing the movie by the emoji and rebus puzzles. It was a heated match with the teachers in the lead by quite a few points. There was high energy and anticipation emanating throughout the entire auditorium, as the students attempted to beat this lead. It almost seemed hopeless, but in the end, in an unexpected triple and 1000-point twist, the students caught up with the teachers and ultimately got the win. It set the stage for the entire week of fun staff and student competition, putting students with a secured head start! Looking forward to next year’s battle for Staff vs Student Week.

Your Year 10 SRCs

Staff vs Student - Year 9

The second event of the week was the staff vs student debate, held on Tuesday the 16th of May. Our staff and student teams debated intensely against each other on the topic of whether there should be global funding for the development of a means for human immortality, with the staff team arguing for and the student team arguing against. After a fierce debate, filled with Shakespearean quotations and lion king references, our staff team were declared the winners, and best speaker was awarded to Aaditya Thakur from the student team. Well done to both teams for an amazing debate!

Staff vs Student - Yr 12 SRC

On the 18th of May, SCHS staff and students alike competed in an intense netball match organised by the Year 12 SRC. Filled with excitement, exclaims and sighs, in the final minutes, as the clock was about to strike, with 6 on the scoreboard on both sides, a stellar student scored a point, leading to the Students Win! Thank you to all the teachers and students who participated in this event!

Follow @src.cory for more information about SRC events!

Your Year 12 SRCs

Staff vs Student - Yr 11 SRC

The Year 11 SRC’s have had the privilege of organising the highlight of staff vs student week this year - the lip sync battle! We had many heartfelt performances ranging from romantic (and slightly creepy) Taylor Swift hits, to amazingly dramatic Titanic re-enactments, to promposals! We would like to give a big thank you to all the performers who participated, the audience, and also the staff who helped make the event happen.

If you missed the show, you can view the highlight reel on our SRC instagram page :)

Rama Ghosh (B8), Trisha Vinesh Vijayan (K3) Sofia Selimi (C3) Zahara Nazir (R3)

You can watch all the videos here.

Plain English Speaking Award

Hi, my name is Meet Shah and I’m a year 10 student at Suzanne Cory High School.

This term, I had the opportunity to be a speech timer in the Plain English Speaking Award (PESA), a prestigious contest that showcases the best of public speaking. I was impressed by the quality and diversity of the speeches that I heard, which touched me and the judges with their powerful messages and delivery.

The PESA event challenged each speaker to give two speeches: one prepared (5 to 6 minutes) and one impromptu with only 4 minutes of preparation and a 2-3 minute duration. It was a thrilling and inspiring experience to witness all these speakers in action, and I’m proud of our representatives (Sophie Parnham and Taha Kamran) who did a great job even though they didn’t advance to the next round.

I want to thank the organisers, the judges, and the speakers for making this event possible and memorable. Also thank you to Mehwish Khan for acting as a host for the event.

I learned a lot from being a speech timer and I hope to apply some of the skills and insights that I gained from this experience in my own future endeavours.

Meet Shah, Year 10

About PESA

PESA is a public-speaking competition for students aged 15-18 years. It provides an excellent opportunity for students to build self-confidence and extend their skills in oral communication, speech writing and research.

The competition encourages students from government schools to speak to their peers from other schools on topics they are passionate about.

In Australia each year states and territories organise and conduct competitions at school, regional and state levels. State winners then go to the national final, which is held in the various states and territories on a rotational basis.

In Victoria, PESA is organised and conducted by the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority.

Global Issues Club

Hey SCHS,

These last few weeks have been a bit of a turning point for GIC, and we are very excited to have organised our first event, the ‘GIC Drive’ a term-long charity campaign, where we have collaborated with a local West Melbourne based non-profit organisation ‘West Welcome Wagon’. We are seeking any winter-items you may have laying around at home that you no longer need and are willing to donate to help out recently arrived asylum seekers. Anything from duvets, pillows, blankets, scarves, beanies etc is all appreciated.

There are donation tubs at the front office and in every house area in the school. As always, if you are interested in joining, we meet every Week A Tuesday in G18 and we always need new members.

Year 11 poetry incursion, Wednesday 10 May 2023

By Helen Jarvis, English teacher

On Wednesday 10th May, the year 11 VCE English cohort gathered in the auditorium to listen to some poetry. Although for many it was an unfamiliar experience to hear poetry in this way, the students were attentive and engaged. We hoped to inspire students to use poetry as a means of expression and reflection as part of the new ‘Crafting Texts’ unit at Year 11 VCE English. We wanted to give students a sense of how poetry can work as a way to communicate ideas, experience and emotion on their theme, which is the impacts of climate change. We are excited to read some of the poetry inspired by the incursion later this term.

Amanda Anastasi has just finished a three year residency with the Monash Climate

Change Communications Research Hub at Monash Uni, https://www.monash.edu/mcccrh, a university department that is researching how to build ‘climate literacy’ so that everyone is better informed about the issues facing us in this area. A link to her work for MCCRH is here: https://www.monash.edu/mcccrh/projects/climate-change-poetry

Amanda has had work published in numerous publications; she is the organiser of a monthly poetry reading, La Mama Poetica https://lamama.com.au/whats-on/past-la-mama-poetica/la-mama-poetica-poetical-worlds/ Her latest poetry collection is The Inheritors. For more information about Amanda, visit her website here https://www.amandaanastasipoetry.com/

Amanda explained how she aims to find a way to tell stories about climate and its effects by focusing on change experienced by individuals or by familiar animal populations, so that people can understand these overwhelming issues at a personal level. She explained some of her methods for generating and researching poems, and talked us through some of her one-line ‘monostich’ poems, which work like linguistic bombs to compress a powerful message or image into a single line.

Josh Cake has a background in education and in performance, working in comedy, drama, music and poetry. He started with a slam-style poem, hooking students with rhythm and rhyme, before moving on to outline six ways in which students could find inspiration for their writing on this topic. Like Amanda, Josh performed a range of different styles of poems, so that students could see the different forms that poetry can take, including verse inspired by artwork, and songs. Josh can be found here https://www.joshcake.com/

Here is a video of the poem "The Ashes"by Josh Cake

The following responses suggest the impact of the poets’ performance on our Year 11 students:

‘Amanda Anastasi and Josh cake created a bridge between climate change and poetry, one which I did not believe possible. The poets highlighted the severity of climate change through their powerful words and inspired me, as a student, to create change.’

‘Amanda Anastasi was very thoughtful with her words, creating many one line poems addressing climate change. Josh Cake was very playful and fun with writing incorporating many rhythms and music into his poems, also demonstrating multiple ways of writing poems and coming up with ideas.’

‘The poetry incursion was surprisingly helpful, exploring different styles/structures in poetry. I learnt about the variety of options when writing a poetry, such as storytelling, one line poetry and many more.’

‘The poetry incursion was very informative and interesting. It provided me with a better understanding of the different forms of poetry that can be written like the single sentence poems one of the poets wrote and the longer poems the other poet wrote. It has influenced my writing portfolio as it has given me a new perspective on poetry.’

‘I learnt that your moods and opinion can heavily influence your writing. It encourages my writing style.’

‘The poetry incursion was very engaging and exciting especially Josh Cake's performances which were both informative and fun. I learnt how songs can be considered poetry and it has inspired me to make my poems funnier.’

‘Amanda Anastasi was quite interesting in the way she writes her poems. What caught my attention was her one line poems. I found her other poems to be quite story like, instead of a poem. The guy, Josh Cake probably had the most interesting approach to a poem. His songs and beat was quite captivating, so when he was presenting, I think he caught everyone’s attention.’

‘I thought the poems and the songs that Josh created were very clever and striking- especially in the way that it was articulated. I learnt mostly about how to structure poems and make lines and stanzas coherent and blend in. This has influenced my writing giving me ideas to help guide me into writing my own prompts.’

‘Amanda Anastasi: I thought it was cool how she could encompass a whole concept within one line, how one line had so much that could be depicted. Josh Cake: I enjoyed the energy he brought to the room, the engagement with everyone, i really thought I learnt a lot about writing a poem, such as writing from just a story whether it’s your own, or someone else’s.’

‘The poetry incursion was an interesting experience - I learnt a lot about the process of writing poetry about climate change. I will definitely use some of the techniques that the poets discussed in my own writing - for instance, looking for media that elicits emotion and responding to it in my own work.’

Macbeth Incursion

On Monday 22 May, the Year 9 students had the privilege to watch Complete Works theatre company perform William Shakespeare’s Macbeth. This 400 year old play about the murder of the King of Scotland is the text that is being studied in English this term. As it is a play, seeing it live is essential to grasp its full magnitude. Murder, greed, prophecies and guilt are some of the thrilling themes the play explores.

It was incredible to see Heath, Andrew and Cassidy perform multiple roles each. The students were amazed by how they memorise all those lines! There was an opportunity to ask questions and the performers spoke to the students about the significance of the play then and now. There is no doubt that this knowledge will support them in writing their essays.

We hope to have the company back next year to perform for our 2024 cohort.

Mr Stefan Pavlovic

Year 10 Drama

On Friday 26 May, the Year 10 Semester Drama Class staged their devised piece in response to Gavin Yuan Gao’s poem ‘For the man on the bus who told me to go back to where I came from’ in his inaugural collection, At the Altar of Touch.

The students spent a term and a half devising and responding to various aspects of the poem and the wider world of the text. The culmination was a 20 minute performance in the auditorium that posed the question what does it mean when you say go back to where you come from? The piece looked at the Western world’s colonial past and present, discrimination within and from external communities and how Australia has progressed and not progressed.

The show had both levity and sombre moments to evoke and provoke thought around the question of – go back to where you came from. The students did a wonderful job at bringing the show together during Term 2, lead by pre-service teacher Mr Humphrey.

Thank you to the students and staff who came - you were such fantastic audiences! To all the Year 9s out there, if you want to make unique and thought provoking work be sure consider drama in Y10 2024.

Mr Woon

Rediscovering Othello in 2023

Year 11 and 12 Literature students watched a live televised Royal National Theatre production of Shakespeare’s Othello at Nova Cinema in Carlton. Students were creatively inspired and politically challenged by this new production directed by Clint Dyer.

They, as flourishing, critical writers, are now reconsidering their understandings of Shakespeare, creating deeper and more complex interpretations of this classical tragedy.

Ms Christine Lambrianidis

Suzanne Cory High School

Respect | Aspire | Contribute

Issue 3 · 29 May 2023

In this issue