School Community

Standout

In the last week of Term Two, members of the Coburg High School Standout group were lucky enough to have two members of Victoria Police attend our weekly meeting. The two police members from Brunswick were; Leading Senior Constable Josephine Imrie, who is the Youth resource Officer for Moreland and Senior Constable Travis Kinghorn, who is the GLLO (Gay and Lesbian/LGBTI Liaison Officer) for Brunswick. The officers were invited to speak to the Standout group about how Victoria Police is committed to serving and being responsive to, the needs of all sections of our community, including the LGBTI community.

The officers introduced themselves and then followed an engaging question and answer session. The officers explained that every police station in Victoria has LGBTI Liason Officers (GLLO's) who are available to members of LGBTI communities to help access police services and assistance when needed. GLLO's have specific knowledge of LGBTI communities and are sensitive to the issues each community faces. More information about LGBTI liaison officers can be found at: http://www.police.vic.gov.au/content.asp?Document_ID=30300

As one of the students said: 'It was really to good to hear how they got to be doing their job and how they are supporting the LGBTI community as police officers.'

The Standout group meets every Tuesday lunchtime in the Broadcast Studio. The Standout group is really important way in which Coburg High School is striving to be a safe and inclusive place for all LGBTI members of our school community. Any students who are keen to be a part of Standout can speak to David Snaddon in the Student Wellbeing Team. For information about the Safe Schools program, refer to: https://www.education.vic.gov.au/about/programs/Pages/safeschools.aspx?Redirect=2

Year 9 Big Day Out

On Friday 20 July, all of Year 9 travelled to the city for a range of activities.

In the morning, students participated in one of four themed excursions: Sport, Fashion, Law and Order, Art.

• The sport group played games in Docklands Park and then went behind the scenes at Etihad Stadium
• The Fashion group undertook a walking tour of famous fashion establishments from Dolce and Gabbana to vintage stores before completing some shopping themselves
• The Law and Order group completed inquiry tasks in the Victorian Police Museum
• The Art group wandered through the NGV, with some seeing the touring MOMA exhibition, before checking out some of the laneways of Melbourne famed for their street art.

After some lunch, all students went to the Career Expo at the Convention Centre. Throughout the afternoon they asked questions and learnt more about a range of employers, TAFE and Uni providers both here and interstate. Most  took home show bags full of information (and free lollies and water bottles and stress balls!)

Well done Year 9 on a great day out!

Year 9 Student Support and Home Group team

Writers' Challenge

In Term Four of 2017 we held a school-wide writing competition with the theme of 'Things That Live in the Shadows'. Students from all year levels interpreted the theme and submitted their short stories and poems. What you are about to read are the pieces that were shortlisted by the panel to be considered for year-level and overall awards. The judges were impressed by the range of interpretations and the quality of writing overall. Congratulations to all who were involved, and a special thank you to our winners:

Nat  - Year 7 short story and Overall winner

Eva  - Year 8 short story winner

Gabe  - Year 9 short story winner

Karla  - Poetry winner

We look forward to seeing what our students produce for 2018's upcoming competition.

Alpine School Community Learning Project

The former students from The Alpine School (School for Student Leadership) in the second term of 2018 are holding a sausage sizzle, one of which that will be held on the 24th of August this semester so we can help fundraise money for our soon-to-be-refurbished school library. We are also holding a book drive to support this initiative. Students who have any unused adolescent books that are appropriate for our school library can donate them by placing them in a box at the bottom of Building A near the front office. Students will have the opportunity to donate books from the 13-27th of August.

Student Leadership Camp 2018!

 ‘To me, leadership means to guide others as an equal, to be the one who makes changes that benefit everyone’ Student Leadership Camper, 2018

From Friday 27th-Sunday 29th July, 29 students from Years 7-10 attended a 3-day camp at Flinders, Victoria with the intention of developing themselves as young leaders.

Activities focused on both improving themselves as individual leaders, then working in teams to develop their leadership in teams as communicators and conflict resolvers. Some active workshops included Tree Surfing at Arthurs Seat and the Student Leadership Camp’s Amazing Race. In our spare time we enjoyed games of Camouflage, table tennis and watching the lunar eclipse!

Students reflected:

‘I once believed that winning was everything about leadership, but now I know that losses can help you rebound as a leader and a team.’

‘I once believed only powerful people affected leadership, but now I know anyone can.’

‘I once believed that leadership was one or two people taking control of a situation and telling people what to do while they just supervised, but now I know it’s about helping everyone work together.’  

Huge gratitude, acknowledgement and respect to the co-facilitators of the camp Chloe Tayler, Kate Bradbury and Dominic Brash who supported these brilliant student leaders all the way through.

The greatest acknowledgement goes to the students who attended. Our campers worked outside their comfort zones, often outside their year levels and beyond friendship groups to develop resilience, independence and many more strengths which they identified as personal areas of improvement. Well done and congratulations to all of you.

World Challenge

We are the students going on World Challenge, or as you might know us, the students going on the Costa Rica and Nicaragua trip in 2019. World Challenge is an organisation that works with schools to take students on the trip of a lifetime to various countries around the world. We have a lot money to raise by then and we have one big exciting fundraiser coming for you.

We are planning the “Coburg High Trivia Night” which will be held on Friday 14th of September. This will be in the 9th week of this term.

For this event to happen we will need your help. We would be highly grateful for any donations to be prizes for the night. Some examples of this we would be happy to have donated would be: food baskets, artworks, photography or token lessons at various businesses. We need all your donations by August the 31st, at the latest. More information on tickets to follow, but if you can support this event with prizes, please call Reception or email Kate Bradbury, Thomas Fehervari and Mietta Robertson. So grab friends and hope to see you there!

The World Challenge students.

Careers News

All Victoria students over 15 years old are entitled to take Vocational Education and Training (VET) subject. These courses are undertaken off campus at various schools in our cluster (Northern Metropolitan Vet Cluster -NMVC). These subjects are 'hands-on' curriculum and focus on the skills and knowledge required to for specific industries.

All the courses count as VCE subjects, some serve as pre-apprenticeship and others as scored VCE subjects. Of the scored subjects some can be counted as top four ATAR scores and others as increment subjects (not top 4). Each course has a small materials fee (like TAFE courses).

Below are some flyers for courses in our cluster. 

2019 VET HANDBOOK - is now available with plenty of hard copies in the careers and pathways office (top of building C). 

For any queries or specific information see, call or email Blake Stanfield.

Year 10 Formal

Bike Club

This semester the bike club is happy to announce that we have been awarded a $2000 grant from Bank First (formerly Victoria Teachers' Mutual Bank) to commence a student run small business venture. Basically the monies will go towards consumables, such as lanolin based lubricant, rags, inner tubes, patches, glue as well as aprons, gloves and natural cleaning agents so that we may commence a repair service for our community. The project is called the Coburg HS Bike Coop and students will be training as mechanics and servicing bicycles. Anyone interested in having a service can make enquires to Rafael Pasion or Mietta Robertson. Once completed, small service fees are payable to Iona in the front office. The funds raised will go toward charities, project development and end of year activities for members who have volunteered consistently. As the weather is slowly starting to improve its time to get fresh air and oil for your bicicletas!

Please Volunteer! 

This Sunday 12 August, volunteers will be paving a path and also working in the school's garden (see the item under sustainability). If you would like to help with some paving, please join up via the link. It's cheaper than joining a gym, a great deal more social and you get the chance to see your school principal doing some hard manual labour! Our Year 12 Students are organising lunch so no need to worry about being fed.