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College Principal’s Report

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Well done to all students and their families for coming to the end of a long term  – for most it has been a successful one with lots of learning and engagement in a wide range of activities.

I am very pleased with the character traits being shown by our Year 12 students as they reach the end of their Unit 4 studies and start to prepare for their upcoming exams. The level of pressure which they have had to face over recent months is significant, however, they have shown determination, persistence and optimism to work through the heavy load of assessments and to stay connected with their teachers to do the best that they possibly can.

Next week during the first week of the Study Break all Year 12 students will undertake their trial exams. I know that the whole school community is behind them as they move into this final stage of the school year. I encourage all Year 12 students and families to think about how they will rest and recharge across the break, and to combine this with their revision and preparation to set themselves up for success in the busy period which is to come during Term 4.

Our Year 9, 10 and 11 students have selected their subjects for 2022 and teams across the school are working hard to ensure that we provide them with the best possible programs. I expect that these will be published to students early in Term 4 to allow for all students to be ready for their two-week Headstart program later in the term. I would like to publicly thank the Careers team and Year Level Coordinators who have worked hard across the term to support students to make informed and positive choices about their future pathways.

It has been really positive to see a range of extra-curricular activities occurring at the Middle Years Campus with our students attending recent excursions to Latrobe University and also the Zoo. These opportunities take a significant amount of organisation to get off the ground, but they are important for students to ensure that they have a sense of direction, that their connection to learning is authentic, and that they enjoy their time at school – it is one of our College values!

When reflecting on the term, all students should be able to identify areas where they have grown, aspects that have been a challenge and times where they have had fun and felt really positive about school. I know that for some of our students such as those involved in the Kool Schools project, or our champion Senior Soccer team there are definitely highlights. I encourage all students to think about what they will get involved with next term and how they are going to challenge themselves to that they get the most out of their remaining time here at the college in 2022.

I wish all students and families a safe and restful break and I look forward to seeing you back at school on Monday 3 October.

Tim Natoli

College Principal 

Senior Years Campus – Principal’s Message

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Mill Park Secondary College uses the Berry Street Education Model (BSEM) to help engage all students with their learning and maximise their learning growth.

“The Berry Street Education Model (BSEM) provides strategies for teaching and learning that enables teachers to increase engagement of students with complex, unmet learning needs and to successfully improve all students’ self-regulation, relationships, wellbeing, growth and academic achievement.”

30 Day Challenge – ‘Present, Centred and Grounded’.

As a way of reinforcing some of the Berry Street strategies, teachers will be assisting students to be ‘present, centred and grounded’ over a 30-day period.  

“To reset our physiological compass and prime our bodies to model a calm, confident, well-regulated person (remembering a large part of co-regulation is preverbal) we can practice a ‘present, centred, grounded’ meditation, asking:

  • Present — How much of us is here today? What may be distracting us?
  • Centred — Where is our centre? And what could throw us off balance?
  • Grounded — Where is our anchor today? What is giving us stability?

This is often done when students first come into the class from an energetic break or during the lesson as a ‘brain break’ when students need to refocus.

Preparations for Exams

GAT

The GAT ran on Wednesday 7 September with all of the Year 12 students and any Year 11 students doing a Year 12 subject in the gym. Attendance was very high with less than 20 students absent on the day. As the GAT ran for the morning for VCAL students and the whole day for VCE students, the Welfare team cooked a BBQ for the students. This was much appreciated by students and helped them relax and focus for their afternoon session.

Practice Exams

The first set in preparing for exams is the practice exams. Practice Exams were organised for the first four days of the September break. As there are public holidays on the first Thursday and Friday, the practice exams will run on Monday 19, Tuesday 20, Wednesday 21 and Monday 26 September. These exams will be marked during the remainder of the September break so that students can get feedback when they return to school. More important than their mark is the feedback on where they need to focus their revision time before their final exams.   

Lunchtime Sports

Although it is a very busy time for Year 12 students with many SAC’s and the prospect of exams looming, it has been great to see a range of lunch-time activities that have been organised and run by the students. Last week it was the student’s basketball team vs the staff’s team. The students came back in the last few minutes of the game to claim victory. It was a great atmosphere and there was even half-time entertainment by a group of dancers!

This week it’s indoor soccer. Lets see who wins this one!

Richard Dungey

Senior Campus Principal

Middle Years Campus – Principal’s Message

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Games, Cats, Careers and Catch-up

There are further details about the National Health and PE week in this newsletter but it was really satisfying to see students involved in a range of physical activities and others related to nutrition and personal or community health. Activities culminated in a face off between the winning student volleyball team and the staff team. It was a tight tussle with the first set won 22-20.

While the strong serving of Sayid Kolakovic and competent digging and setting skills of Elektra Massistas helped support a strong showing for the students, the value of experience paid off for the staff who won two sets to nil. I’m not certain the senior bodies will recover as well as the young ones though. The game was played in great spirit with an appreciative crowd.

Year 7 students enjoyed a day at the Melbourne Zoo on Monday 12 September and the feedback seemed overwhelming that the lions were the major attraction. While skies were a little grey at Mill Park, pounding the zoo pavement even prompted students and staff to take their jackets off. Thanks to students who were willing participants, families for your support with permission and payments and staff, including Ms Ferris as the key organiser.

“Everyone was given a booklet to fill out on different types of animals and things about them, such as if you needed to write about a mammal, you could write about an African Lion and write about its diet, habitat etc. Everyone was put into groups and when walking around the zoo you would see many different types of fascinating animals. The zoo was a great experience for the Year 7’s and everyone enjoyed it. I would like to thank the teachers, staff and students for being respectful and making this excursion happen, so a lot of people could have an enjoyable day out” – Aaron 7H

Our last Tuesday of term saw the majority of our Year 9 students attend Latrobe University and take part in a range of elective sessions covering forensics, podiatry, wildlife, nutrition and shampoo (chemistry). The level of engagement was wonderful and students also had the chance to look at careers-thinking and study skills. Thanks to Ms Ziajka for arranging this aspirational excursion.

With the holidays starting, I hope all students take some to recharge their batteries, catch-up on some rest, relaxation or the activities which feed their souls. Interim reports should provide a good guide as to how they are travelling and in some cases, supporting a bit of catch-up work, among the relaxation, will help students begin next term on a positive note.

Simon McRae

Middle Years Campus Principal

Language

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What are we learning in Italian?

This month in Italian the Year 7’s have been learning about family nouns and how to describe people in families. We have been playing Guess Who in Italian so if you are able to play this at home you can ask your Year 7 child to play using the descriptions in Italian! Students in 7B and 7E have played Indovinna Chi (Guess Who) and also had the Italian Dominoes challenge. It required students to recall the correct vocabulary and show their character strengths of perseverance! Well done to all teams who participated!

The Year 8’s are finishing up their stylist assessment. Students have been describing the outfits of different styled celebrities, practicing their new language skills to build complex sentences in Italian. Well done to the student for the excellent example below!

The Year 9’s have created a house of their dreams and are now preparing for the Mill Park Italian Poetry Competition with the Year 8 SEAL class! Below is an example of ‘una casa ideale’ completed by Jann – buon lavoro!

Students at the Senior Campus have been very busy as we move towards the end of Term 3. 

VCE students have recently begun a new topic for their final outcomes of Unit 2 and Unit 4 which is focused on L’Ambiente e La Sostenibilità. Year 11 and Year 12 students have been looking closely at the impacts of pollution on Italy’s environment, Italy’s waste management systems, and ways in which we can reduce our ecological footprint. Students have been building up their vocabulary in preparation for their final assessment in the unit and exploring persuasive writing in Italian. 

Year 12 students will be finishing their final SAC at the end of Week 10 this term, and shift their focus to preparing for their exams, beginning with their End of Year Oral Exam in Week 1 of Term 4. Good luck to those students with their preparation and Oral Exams!

Renee Colbey

College Italian 

English

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It’s an exciting time for the Year 12 students as they present their final SAC for the year. Congratulations team! They have all chosen an issue they are passionate about and will present a persuasive speech to their classes. This is the culmination of a year of hard work and they should all be very proud of their efforts. Just the exam to go now.

Engaging in issues is an important part not just of the English curriculum, but also in becoming an engaged and productive member of society. Some of the issues the students are looking at include homelessness, raising the legal drinking age, Australian foreign policy and the impacts of over consumption and rampant capitalism. We encourage all students to think about wider social issues they are interested in and inform themselves through researching both online and at the library. Talking to people and having respectful but also combative debates can further our own understanding of the world. Don’t forget to think about it from the perspective of other people and be empathetic. The impact of a positive consciousnesses can not be understated!

In other year levels across the College students have been deep diving into a range of exciting, challenging and interesting novels to further their understanding of language but also of the world. There has been a common theme of racism and discrimination being looked at – from the openly racist society of the USA in the 1930s through “To Kill a Mockingbird”, to the impacts of that very society on people today in “The Hate U Give”. Year 10 students have been studying the harrowing effects of racial prejudice when taking to its very unfortunate end point in the Holocaust through the novella of “Night”. If you have a Year 10 student at home, read the chapter about Juliek playing the violin as it plumbs both the heights and depths of humanity. 

The study of English and reading widely is one of our best ways to encounter our world and create a wider world for yourself. So encourage your students to keep reading over the holidays! 

Andrew Self

College English

Science

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It’s been a busy term for science staff in students across both campuses. VCE students have been working very hard to complete their outcomes for Unit 4, with a range of SACs going on for biology, chemistry, environmental science, physics, and psychology. Students have shown great resilience during this challenging time, and we are all wishing them luck for their practice exams over the school holidays, as they prepare for their final exams in less than two months!

Years 7-10 have been experiencing lots of hands-on and experiential learning. Year 7 students have dissected fish to observe the internal features that allow fish to survive underwater

Year 9 forensic science students have been planning and running their own crime scenes to demonstrate forensic technologies

Year 10’s have been creating DNA models to observe the structure of DNA as well as creating pedigree charts to track the inheritance of diseases through families.

Looking for things to do on the school holidays? Why not check out Science Gallery Melbourne! With a range of different exhibits, including “Swarm” – a new exhibit about human behaviour – there is plenty to keep children and parents entertained. See https://melbourne.sciencegallery.com/ to find out more.

Mairead Scanlon

College Science

Humanities

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In Year 7 Humanities, students are becoming town planners as they apply what they have learned about liveability to create their very own town. Working in groups, they will consider factors like safety, healthcare, education, culture and environment to design a community in which they would love to live.

On a similar human geography theme, Year 8 students are finishing their unit on megacities where they investigate the positive and negative impacts of urbanisation and what it’s like to live in some of the largest and most complex metropolises on the planet.

Finally, in Year 9, students are looking at the interconnections of our global system by analysing a modern product of their choice. They will choose a product like an iPhone and conduct research to explain the patterns and trends in production, consumption and waste of the selected goods, looking for the global connections required to create and sell it. 

So you can support your child over the holidays by discussing what it’s like to live in a big city like Melbourne, what makes it great and where our everyday products come from!

One of the Year 11 legal classes celebrating a solid term’s work. Dubbed as his ‘junior lawyers’, Mr Tonis and his class enjoying a class party in the Library. Thanks to Ms Quayle for offering the space and for setting up.

Liam McNaughton

College Humanities

Mathematics and Numeracy

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AMT Maths Competitions Results for 2022

Our results from the Australian Mathematics Competition are in and we are proud to celebrate the success of our students at all year levels. Students will receive their certificates at the end of year during the celebration assemblies.

Best in School – Bethany Yong 7H
Students of Distinction

Maths Puzzle Competition

Submit a solution to these problems on loose leaf paper to your teacher. If you’re correct get mentioned in the next newsletter and you’ll go into the draw to win a prize!

Junior Division Question

The architecture of Federation Square is Melbourne is based on metal frames shown in the image above. Each frame is composed of five identical triangles to form one large triangle. If the shortest side of one of the small triangles is 1 metre long, how much metal framing is needed to build the whole shape? Exact answer required.

Senior Division Question

The diagonal of a rectangular tile with integer sides is one-third of the length of the diagonal of a row of tiles, which each tile identical to the first one. If the perimeter of the single tile is 24 cm, how many tiles are in the row?

Tara Alexander & Michael Collett

College Mathematics and Numeracy

Physical Education/Health

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National Physical Education and Health Week

Monday 5 September – Friday 9 September 2022 (Week 9)

From Monday 5 September through to Friday 9 September (Week 9) Mill Park Secondary College conducted a ‘Physical Education / Health Week’ as part of National Physical Education and Health Day recognised across Australia on Wednesday 7 September. 

Across both Middle and Senior Campuses staff and students participated in numerous activities aimed at promoting and celebrating Physical Education and Health in schools including Yoga and Whole Body HIIT training sessions, Staff Vs Students Basketball match, Volleyball and Dodgeball tournaments, Chia pudding, fruit and muesli and Smoothie stalls, dance performances and classes, weekly sports quiz and concluding with a Footy Codes (AFL, AFLW, Soccer, Rugby league/union) Colors Dress day whereby students made a gold coin donation whereby all proceeds raised will go towards a Fight Cancer Foundation.

The theme of National Health and Physical Education day was Good for Children, Good for Schools and Good for Communities and will be celebrated on Wednesday 7 September 2022!

PE WEEK AWARD WINNERS

SENIOR CAMPUS

Monday Sport Quiz Winners – Logan Maxfield 10A 

Tuesday Sport Quiz Winners: – Kalena Stefanovski 12D & Heri Terolli 12D

Goal Kicking Competition:    Charlie Rouse 10A

Soccer juggling Competition: Anthony Opasinis 11H

MIDDLE YEARS CAMPUS

Monday Sport Quiz Winners –  Ella Rouse 8I

Tuesday Sport Quiz Winners: –  Shantelle Parsonage 9A

Thursday Sport Quiz Winners: – Sean Reid 9C

Longest AFL Kick – George Thalasinos 9H

Vertical Jump 

  • Nehan Wijayakoon 7C
  • George Younan 9I 
  • Claudia Mazzilli 9I

INTERSCHOOL SPORT 

NMR ATHLETICS

Congratulations to all students you were involved in the Northern Metropolitan Region Track & Field Championships at Meadowglen Athletics Stadium. All students involved either set Personal Bests or finished with better times & distances compared to the Whittlesea Division event. Congratulations to podium finishers Nour Taishouri (Year 12) who finished 3rd in her long jump event, Ashmitha Murugathas (Year 9) who finished 2nd in her discus event and Jack Williams (Year 11) who finished 1st in his Javelin event. Jack will now go on to represent the school at the State Athletics Championships which will be held on the 17th of October at Lakeside Stadium in Albert Park, good luck Jack!!

STATE SOCCER FINAL – SENIOR BOYS

The Senior Boys played in their first ever Soccer State Finals today. The boys fought hard all day and started off with convincing wins of 6-0 & 7-0 against Lavalla Catholic College and Ballarat High School. Going into their last group game a draw or win against Frankston High School would be enough to make the final, the boys did well and fought back on two occasions to level the game and end it 2-2, seeing them through to the final. They played very well against strong opposition from Lakeview Secondary College in the final. Unfortunately the chances didn’t fall our way and the game ended 1-0 to Lakeview. Well done on an amazing performance to finish second in the state and to represent the College at a very high level!!

Middle Years  Volleyball

For the last 3 weeks of term, the MYC have been fighting it out for who could be the volleyball champion. Seven teams went head-to-head, playing six games each on Mondays at lunchtime. Spectators and helpers ensured the matches ran smoothly and fairly, but ultimately only one team could win: The Kookaburras! The winner of the competition went on to verse the staff team but could not back up their success and faltered when facing their opponents.

Congratulations to the student winners and participators, and staff participators, and thank you to all those who helped run the event. Look out for information about Term 4 sport!

Year 9 Physical Education Classes

Over the past month all Year 9 classes have been participating in a number of fitness-based activities including whole body HIIT sessions, Circuit training, Interval training and Resistance and Continuous SPIN sessions at Mill Park Leisure Centre. The focus of these sessions was to implement and apply key knowledge and skills learnt in theory sessions based on training principles and training methods to improve both health and skill related fitness components specific to each student. All students who participated in the unit enjoyed the sessions.

David Maltby

College Physical Education

Careers

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Library

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Book Week

Each year since 1945 the CBCA has brought children and books together across Australia through CBCA Book Week. During this time, schools and public libraries spend one glorious week celebrating books and Australian children’s authors and illustrators. Classroom teachers, teacher librarians and public librarians create colourful displays, develop activities, run competitions, and tell stories relating to a theme to highlight the importance of reading. You will often see parades with students dressed as their favourite book character.

Upcoming exams and available resources

The library has a wide range of resources available for students preparing for their VCE exams. ATARnotes, Checkpoints, A+ practice exams and Decode notes are some examples of resources that are useful for exam preparation. Resources are available for most VCE subjects and students are able to borrow exam resources for a number of weeks.

The Senior Campus library will be available during the exam period for students to use for study purposes. We are open daily from 8am-4pm. Printing facilities are available for students wishing to print practice exams. Students can arrange to have exam preparation notes bound at no cost, advance notice is appreciated.

Visual and Performing Arts

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VET Dance Excursion

Students from the VET Dance class were invited to train at Kelly Aykers Full Time Dance School in Brunswick. They experienced a day in the life of a full-time dance student. Kelly ran workshops throughout the day and our students experienced the challenges as they were thrown into the deep end. They were able to join in on classes run by industry professionals along with the current full time dance students. All students worked tirelessly throughout the day and were very grateful for this incredible opportunity. 

KOOL SKOOLS CD Recording Project

 As part of the Performing Arts program the Music students, showcased their talents in this years’ “KOOL SKOOLS – Song writing and recording project CD titled “Back On Air”. Design students were also involved in the designing of the CD cover on Thursday 8 & Friday 9 September in the recording studios at the new Empire Studio in Heidelberg.

Students have been creating their original compositions as part of the music program and have been involved in rehearsals for the recording throughout Terms 2 & 3. The students involved were from Years 8 – 12 and were selected to participate in the project. The staff and students were delighted to be back in a recording studio as they have not been able to be involved due to the COVID-19 challenges of the past few years.

The music is a compilation of Pop, Rock, and Jazz and the students had an enjoyable day, learning about the music industry in a professional recording studio with sound engineers and photographer/designer. Some of the songs from the CD “Back On Air” will be featured as part of the upcoming Arts festival – Song & Dance Concert on Thursday 6 October and at the opening on Tuesday 25 October at the City of Whittlesea – Great Hall.

Congratulations to the Performing Arts Extra-curricular Coordinator

Mrs Nagel for managing the event and the Music teachers involved and students.

Music/Instrumental Music staff: Mr Gooding, Mr Pijpers, Mr De Leucio and Ms Claridge.

Victorian State Schools Spectacular

Year 12 Performing Arts student, Elizabeth Pardallis represented Mill Park Secondary College as she has been part of this year’s program as a Principal Vocalist. She auditioned earlier this year and was selected to perform at the Victorian State Schools Spectacular Concert on Saturday 10 September 2022. This was held at the ‘John Cain Arena’ in Melbourne along with 3000 other school students who performed to an audience of thousands.

We congratulate Elizabeth on this outstanding achievement, as she has welcomed the opportunity to perform with a live band and to a live audience once again. The Victorian State Schools Spectacular program is an invaluable performing arts opportunity for students in Victoria’s government schools.

The program showcases the talents of students from schools across the state. Its focus is to unite government school communities by encouraging everyone involved to work towards a common goal and to have more students reach the highest level of achievement in the arts. Through the arts, students build resilience, are happy, healthy and build pride in schools. It will be aired on Channel 7 later this year.

“The Victorian State Schools Spectacular has been key to my development, not only a musician but also, as a person. These past 7 years have come with challenges, joys and many new relationships. This year, I was fortunate to be in 9 songs – including 2 solos and each song was quite different. I love that variation as it allows me to show diversity in performance skills. It’s a priceless experience and I highly recommend getting involved” Elizabeth Pardallis

Year 7 – 12 Visual Arts

Students have been engaged in drawing, painting, printing, and design tasks in preparation for the upcoming Arts Festival – Art & Design Exhibition – Tuesday 25 – Friday 28 October.  The exhibition will provide the opportunity for students to celebrate their achievements in the visual arts with their teachers, friends, family and the wider community.  This will represent the creative and imaginative work created by the VCE studio Arts, Visual Communication Design, Year 10 Painting and Drawing, Media Photography, Interior Design and Architecture students, Graphic Design and the Fabric Design Technology and Product design students. The Year 7-9 artwork will be displayed in the library at the Middle Years Campus and will also represent the great artwork created throughout this year in the Visual Arts and Ceramics & Sculpture, Media and Visual Communication Design classes.

We look forward to the experience of viewing art and design work on display within an exhibition environment.

The Year 7 students have been working on developing ideas in Visual Communication Design unit on the effective use of the design elements and principles and have designed logos and packaging nets for breakfast cereal. The Year 8 students have also studied and worked on the effective use of design elements and principles and have designed cartoon characters and learned about one and two-point perspective. In early Term 4, they will focus on developing ideas and creating artwork in printmaking and painting.

The Year 9 Visual Communication Design students have learnt about product design and have designed Wooden Toy Designs for young children. They have also learned to render using media such as Copic markers used by Designers. They have also developed skills and knowledge in perspective drawing in floor plans for buildings.
The Year 9 Media students have analysed photographs and are currently working on digital photography projects.

Year 10 – 12 Visual Arts

Students have been focused on developing ideas in their Studio arts classes, for their canvas paintings for the completion of Unit 2. They have been involved in the analysis artworks of historical and contemporary landscape artists.

Year 10 Painting & Drawing

Year 10 students have expressed their ideas and learned about portraiture through an appreciation of the contemporary artist ‘Cherry Hood’ are also learning how art elements and art principles are used to communicate artists’ ideas and have used this to develop individual artwork on the environment for the upcoming Art/Design Exhibition in October.

Yr 10 Painting & Drawing Portraits below:

VET Fashion Design and Technology

The Year 11 Vet Fashion students have been working on individual projects, including crocheting, knitting, clothes making, soft toy making and macrame products. They have been enjoying and finding ways to be creative when developing their ideas to make the garments and products. The VET Fashion Design& Technology course and qualification is recognised throughout Australia and provides students with a broad range of skills and knowledge to pursue a career or further training in the fashion industry. These will be showcased in the upcoming Art/Design Exhibition in October.

Year 10 Fashion Elective

The Year 10 students have been engaged in learning about garment construction and have been making satin dresses and wrap skirts. These will be showcased as part of the Art/Design Exhibition in October.

Year 10 Product Design – Materials & Wood

Year 10 Product Design students have been putting finishing touches on their projects, which will be on display in the Art/Design Exhibition.

Year 7 Dance/Drama – Melodrama

The Year 7 Dance students have spent the past three weeks rehearsing and performing their Melodrama Assessment ‘Terror on the Tracks’. All students have worked on using their growth mindset to tackle new challenges they have faced while preparing a performance. It has been excellent to see the high level of success and accomplishment from all students trying new skills outside of their comfort zone!

Gina Palamara

College Performing Arts

Wellbeing

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The program isn’t just for newly arrived multicultural youth, those born here can also take part. Feel free to contact Carmela (Facilitator) on 0481 702 152 if you have any questions

Student Success

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Our Outer Northern Trade Training Centre VET Students of the week: