WELLINGTON JOURNAL – EDITION 8

Upcoming Dates

• June 29-July 14 – School Holidays
• July 15 – First Day of Term 3, School starts at 8:45am
• July 16 – Year 10 Immunisations

Attitudes To School Student Survey
I wish to thank all the students who completed the survey. The data collected from students provides valuable information on the areas where we as a school community are doing well, and also informs us on the areas for focused improvement.

Wellington’s Got Talent – Wednesday June 12
Congratulations to all of the students that participated in Wellington’s Got Talent. The semi finals were hotly contested, and the Final was spectacular. The talent of our students is amazing with fantastic dancing, singing and playing instruments.

You should be very proud of your performance as you were amazing. Well done also to the SRC and Performing Arts team for making this great event happen.

Winter Concert – Wednesday June 19
This was a great opportunity for our music students to showcase their talent on a live stage. It was a wonderful night and I’m looking forward to the Spring Concert in Term 3. Thank you to the Performing Arts team for their wonderful support of our students and also the Community Voice Team for running the canteen and raffle.

Push Up Challenge

The team from Wellington are participating in the Push-Up Challenge which is a mental health and fitness event focused on pushing for better mental health for all Australians. Participants complete 3,249 push-ups (or alternative exercises) over 24 days (June 5 – June 28), representing the 3,249 lives lost to suicide in Australia in 2022.

Last year, 31,200 school students around Australia collectively completed 1 million push-ups and raised over $1.1 million for mental health. Well done to our Student Ambassador Arushi Tandon for leading the campaign at Wellington. We look forward to hearing about the results.

Annual Report
The Annual Report will be presented to School Council and community members on Tuesday August 6. This will be held online via Microsoft Teams. If you would like to attend the presentation of the report, please send your name, email address, phone number and students name to our Business Manager, Sharon Graham (sharon.graham@education.vic.gov.au) and the meeting invite will be emailed to you closer to the date.

Assessment and Reporting
At the end of the Semester families have access (via Compass) to an end of semester report that is specific to their child. These reports provide students, teachers and parents/carers with a clear and concise picture of a student’s achievement and progress at a point in time. Teachers make informed and consistent decisions about student progress against the Victorian Curriculum achievement standards (Years 7-10) or VCE outcomes (Year 11 & 12).

I encourage parents/carers to read the report and have a discussion with your child. It is great to read the positives in the report on what your child has achieved. It is also important to look for ways to improve and make the most of the educational opportunities. Students are encouraged to set goals for the remainder of the year and continue to focus on their growth.

End of Term
I would like to wish you all a safe and relaxing term break. Take this time to rest, recharge, and enjoy time with your family and friends. I look forward to seeing you back in 2 weeks refreshed and ready for Term 3!

Mr Chris Knight
Principal

3 Day Volleyball Cup

Wellington had a fantastic 3-day cup volleyball tournament with all teams competing against the best state, Catholic and private schools across Victoria. I was so proud of all the teams’ efforts showing incredible grit and determination in each set of every game and there were a number of remarkably close sets that could have gone either way.

Four Wellington students made the Victoria State Teams. Those students are Jacinta Ug (Year 8), Leanna Hoang (Year 8), Nathan Van (Year 7) and Jeffrey Kaing (Year 10). Congratulations to those students, it is a huge achievement.

The Year 7 boys’ Division 1 team coached by Ian Chow and Boramey Khieu in Year 10 finished 9th overall, winning their finals playoff game against Monbulk in 3 sets. The Year 8 girls’ Honours team coached by former Wellington student Daniel Truong finished 6th overall and lost a very close finals game against McKinnon in 4 sets. The year 8 boys’ honours team coached by former Wellington student Toan Nguyen narrowly lost their finals playoff game against Braybrook to finish 10th overall. The Year 9 girls’ Division 1 team coached by Jess Elms lost a close game against Eltham for the bronze medal to finish in 4th place overall.

Last but certainly not least, the Year 7 girls’ Division 1 team (this is the highest division as there is no Honours in Year 7) WON their gold medal match against The Grange P-12 College in three close sets – 22-25, 25-16 and 15-13 in the final set! The team was coached by Mr Kim Durrant with assistant coaches Jeffrey Kaing, Phuong Nguyen, Tam-Nhu Le and Tim Doan.

The girls narrowly lost to The Grange in our pool game and showed incredible resilience after losing the first set and being down early in the second set. At one stage the team was down 4-10 (set to 15 points in the third set) until Alycia La stepped up and served. Alycia was incredible under pressure and The Grange struggled to get any of her hard-hit overarm serves back over the net. She and the team won the next 8 points in a row to totally change the momentum of the set and put Wellington in front.

It was an absolute pleasure to be involved in coaching this outstanding team. Well done, girls.

The Year 7 boys’, Year 8 boys’, and Year 8 girls’ teams have their Regional Tournament on October 28. We look forward to hearing more about this event later in the year.

Thank you to Ms Pauline Xie, Ms Jess Elms, Mr Cat Nguyen and Ms Breanna Doyle for helping coach the teams during after school training and at the tournament, as well as Mr Matt Maggs for filling in last minute.

Mr Kim Durrant
Sports Teacher

Winter Concert

The annual ‘Wellington Winter Concert’ was held in the School’s MJP Theatre on Wednesday June 19. The Winter Concert included a full program of music featuring all the ensembles from the Instrumental Music program including the Percussion Ensemble, String ensembles, Junior and Senior Concert bands, Guitar and Bass ensembles, Choir as well as many talented soloists and duos throughout the evening. There was no shortage of talent and requests from students to perform as a Soloist or Duo who gave high quality performances.

The annual Concerts are a fantastic opportunity for our young performers to gain experience performing in front of a large audience and I congratulate all our Music Students for performing on stage and their preparations. Learning an instrument has numerous known benefits and development of life skills such as self-discipline, focus, perseverance, reflection, coordination, critical listening and teamwork. For many students, these concerts are the first time that they have performed on stage in front of an audience, a character-building experience. For parents and families, a proud moment to enjoy hearing the fruition of all the practice or perhaps a time to reflect on the need for a little more.

Thank you to the Performing Arts Captains, the Tech Crew, Performing Arts staff working behind the scenes with sound, lighting, backstage and logistics, Charli Pilkington and the Community Voice Volunteers along with Jade Li. Importantly I wish to promote and thank the WSC Instrumental Music teaching staff who are highly skilled and trained professionals who make available this great opportunity of learning an instrument. I encourage all our students to take up the opportunity whilst at Wellington Secondary College.

For enquires or if you would like to enrol in Music, please contact Mr. John Oien. For Volunteers who wish to support the fund raising or join Community Voice, email your contact details to the College wellington.sc@education.vic.gov.au and we will be in touch. We look forward to the Spring Concert held in the MJP Theatre on Thursday September 19.

Mr John Oien
Instrumental Music Coordinator

Chemistry In Our Diet

Investigating Acid-based Neutralisation Reactions Using Antacid Tablets

Students of Year 9 have explored the side effects of consuming junk food and the ways to rectify these side effects by using Antacid tablets like Mylanta, Renni and Eno powder.

**(Knott, L. (2018, March 16). Antacids. Patient.info. https://patient.info/digestive-health/indigestion-medication/antacids)

Year 12 Movie Night

Year 12 students had a movie night at the MJP Theatre. By student vote, the chosen movie genre was Horror. Students enjoyed a great night watching movies – although they seemed happier to see their teachers terrified!

Mr Chris Feenane
Year 12 Coordinator

Wellington’s Got Talent

Over the past few weeks, Wellington Secondary College has been buzzing with excitement as students and staff eagerly prepared for the return of a much-anticipated event, Wellington’s Got Talent after many years in hiatus; a shared effort brought together by the Performing Arts Team and SRC team respectively. This successful, exciting event has truly showcased the incredible talent and creativity within our school community, bringing the school across all student cohorts and staff alike to see the incredible talent our school has to offer on display.

And the winner is….

Our winner for this year’s Wellington’s Got Talent was Georgie Karanasios of 11E, who masterfully played a beautiful rendition of ‘Iris’ by the Goo Goo Dolls! The overall event was a major success, and great event to demonstrate the importance of the performing arts to the school.

Congratulations to Georgie and every other contestant, specifically our runners up Jessica Sinon and Saanvi Shaker! Thank you to everyone who helped us put on this spectacular event!

Tayla Galluccio
12C – Performing Arts Captain

VET Student Spotlight – June

Ms Jaclyn Jacobs
Learning Specialist: Vocational Education and Pathways

World Environment Day

Some of the Sustainability Champions, armed with chalk, drew colourful ground murals to celebrate World Environment Day. Jane Tuon (8C) said, “I loved drawing the murals, and I thought it was really engaging because a lot of my friends wanted to participate. People walking by also wanted to have a look and help draw.”

The more we talk about Climate Change, the more we amplify its urgency, and inspire ACTION. We need to CHANGE the narrative and imagine a better future that we can CREATE together. We still have time to regenerate this beautiful planet, but we need to start to change habits, which is very hard to do. Start where you feel comfortable and build it from there.

We are a part of nature and we can amplify the urgent message to regenerate nature in different ways according to our many talents.

Watch this space grow!

Some committed and strong Sustainability Champions have been giving up part of their lunchtime to prepare the corner of the oval where a biodiversity garden will be created on the June 27. They have been spreading the mulch that was donated by Monash City Council last year. Thank you so much for your hard work!

Now, we just need a good amount of rain to fall before then, so that the new plants will be less likely to suffer from transplant shock. This is because they will need the water for root growth affording a strong healthy start in their new location.

What’s on the Menu?

If you head to the Community Garden, you will notice some weeds growing and some of those can be eaten – check the poster on the gate. The very talented Food Technology team is not letting any of the edible weeds go to waste! On World Environment Day, Ms Natalie Hill instructed the Food Studies Unit 2 students to use dandelion flowers to augment the taste and look of lemon curd cupcakes. They looked delicious!

Ms. Bruna Amaral
Science Teacher / Sustainability Officer

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