Around The College 

Notting Hill Neighbourhood House Project

The Intermediate VCAL class worked on the Notting Hill Neighbourhood House Project over the past few weeks. Our class worked in three groups to plan and organise the materials required for this project.

We had two projects we worked on which included building two garden beds and painted fences in a laneway not from the house. The garden beds will be used by the NHNH community to grow and harvest fresh produce and vegetables for the community to use. The fence was painted in blue and green for about 30 meters to add colour in the neighbourhood. It was overall a successful project and all of us learned a variety of employability skills.  

The painting group started off with a talk and what everyone was going to do, after that we packed the car with all the supplies then walked down to the fence. We started with green for the first day and had to start off with mixing it and getting all the paint brushes out. The first fence was finished at the end of the day. On the second day we used blue paint. On the third and final day we did a second coat on both fences and went back to the neighbourhood house and had a vote on who did the best and ended up with Heath winning the MVP award for this project.

During NHNH project, we experienced some challenges and lots to achieve. It was an honour working with the community and hopefully everyone benefits from our work.

Reece, Sam and Thomas

Intermediate VCAL students

Career Pathways to 2050 incursion

On Thursday the 10th of November, the Green Team and student leaders for 2023 attended an incursion run in the SLC by presenters from Sustainability Victoria and the Victorian Public Sector Commission. It included thinking, inventing, discussing and even getting a bit crazy! But nothing was turned down, ideas were embraced, and much was learned. Being designed to make us think, discuss and most of all learn, it impressed everyone who participated.

The incursion was made to make students wonder about their favoured futures and what the public sector needed to achieve them. However, crazy and innovative ideas were encouraged and plenty of new jobs, departments and objects were created in the process. Representatives of Sustainability Victoria visited Brentwood and some of its students, to explain the current Victorian Public Service and investigate the desired futures of students and how the Public Service support that. As an additional bonus, students could have found some jobs they wished to pursue in the future.

To kick off the incursion, we started with a drawing exercise, where we were told to imagine our best, worst and craziest futures. Naturally, most scenarios were bizarre, but with some modifications, help and discussion, they morphed into legitimate ideas that could be utilised in the future. After some chats around tables, people were nominated to voice their group’s best ideas. Some ideas included shoes that climbed onto your feet, a solar blind company, and air-purifying houses.

Next, we learnt about the Victorian Public Sector and how our lives and it were linked. This part was mainly discussed through a story and a PowerPoint. We then finished off with a writing exercise where we had to note down skills needed for jobs we wanted to do in the future. This was accompanied by a discussion about how you could use similar and different skills from job to job.

However, what students learnt from this incursion was much more. Some learnt that they had to be creative and learnt to go crazy, while some learnt to manipulate ideas to make them more realistic. Similarly, some found many jobs they would be interested in, while others learnt about their skillsets and assets that could be highly valuable in the future. But we were all more educated when it comes to the Victorian Public Sector.

Overall, we had a brilliant day, and all the participants were extremely grateful to both the presenters for running the day and to the Pathways team and school for organising such a mind-boggling but fun workshop. Everyone learnt a lot from the half-day and some discovered jobs they might be interested in the future. All in all, the day was a huge success!

Saadana SEYON

Year 7 student