It’s been a very busy few weeks at Rosehill Secondary College with many exciting activities and events happening each week, despite the staffing challenges across the system. To that end, we are not immune, so well done to Mr Campbell and Mr Said our daily organisers, who have been able to continue to cover classes and allow us to run extracurricular activities to this point. Short term, these challenges seem like they will become more significant. In the medium to long term, staffing shortages continue to impact education, especially with the likely shortage of over 2,000 teachers next year.

Our Grade 6 to Year 7 transition promotion and program is finished for another year as we now let the process to be conducted centrally. We plan for an intake of 200 students as this allows us to run a comprehensive program for our students and ensures we can cater for the broad range of student capabilities and interests. We pride ourselves as a school that has a strong academic focus with many enrichment and enhancement programs that cater to our high ability students but is also able to provide exceptional opportunities for students across all key learning areas: Music Program, Sports, Languages, Technology, Visual Arts, Humanities, Interpersonal Learning Programs and Science, in addition to the core Mathematics and English/EAL across all year levels.

Starting last week and over the course of the next few weeks, your children will be asked to complete an anonymous online survey about their schooling experience at Rosehill Secondary College. It vitally important that our students take the time to reflect and answer these questions sensibly and with thought. The data collected from these surveys is important and is used to help us determine the key areas of the College we think need improvement. A significant component of the current Strategic Plan (2018-2022) was developed with data such as this as a guide. Please take the time to have a conversation with your child about their thoughts and encourage them to reflect on their experience at Rosehill this year. Our new strategic plan will use the data collected this year as a base line for setting targets for the next four years.

Our Year 9, 10 and 11 students are approaching their mid-year exams. This is an opportunity to showcase ones learning and use this time to revise and help consolidate the learning across the semester. It is also a terrific opportunity to experience exam style conditions in preparation for the final year of schooling in the years to come. At the end of this exam period our Year 10 students will undertake two weeks of work experience. We wish all our Year 10 students the best of luck with this real-world experience, where many students develop a greater sense of direction and appreciation of possible career paths. A tremendous effort from the Careers team, and to the parents/guardians, and students for taking the time to organise such wonderful placements. I am fortunate enough to read each application and am suitably impressed with the variety.

Ms McKay and I were invited to attend the Western Chances Scholarship Award Ceremony on Thursday 12^th May. Ms McKay is prolific in applying for a large number of these scholarships for our eligible students every year. The support these provide enables students to experience activities and events that they may otherwise not afford. Started by Terri Bracks back in 2003, the program has gone from strength to strength. It was a privilege to represent our college at this event hosted by the Governor of Victoria, The Honourable Linda Dessau AC, and to hear Terri Bracks share many success stories.

Finally, I would like to congratulate Ms Snow, who will be the Acting Principal for the first five weeks of Term 3 covering for me during my leave, and also to Mr Stubbings who will be an Acting Assistant Principal during this time. Last week we welcomed a new member to our Administration team, Levena Hayes. She will be working at College Reception as the Accounts Receivable Officer and has spent the last week transitioning and learning with Jacinta Catoggio. Please make her feel welcome if you have the opportunity to communicate with her. In Term 3, Amanda Watt will be completing the Administration team as the new Receptionist and together with Levena, will be the first point of contact for our College.

Arthur Soumalias

Principal

The VCE art and studio art classes went to the NGV to view the Top Arts exhibition. This exhibition featured work from high achieving VCE art & studio art students from 2021. We were also lucky enough to listen to a lecture by one of the curators and view the students’ art folios. This experience helped inspire us, broadened our ideas, and showed us how to use our practical explorations and artist inspirations to guide us towards producing a meaningful resolution. On behalf of the VCE art classes I’d like to give a big thank you to Ms Davies and Ms Zivcic for taking us.

Tori Foster

School Captain

Food Handling Workshop for VCAL Year 11 Students

Recently Year 11 VCAL students participated in an accredited Food Handling course. The lesson covered all the basics including personal hygiene, safe food handling, dealing with “danger” foods, cleaning food preparation areas and how to identify food safety hazards.

With an estimated five million cases of food poisoning in Australia each year that result in 31,920 hospitalisations, 100 deaths and one million visits to doctors, food handling is a serious consideration for everyone and especially for our students who might have started working in the hospitality sector. While most believe they handle food safely, a 2019 survey showed that many people do not know the correct methods, especially when handling eggs and chicken. Food poisoning is more than a minor stomach upset. It can be life threatening especially for the elderly, pregnant women (and their unborn babies) and people with compromised immune systems.

Our students learnt about the types of food contamination which fall into three categories:

Physical: hair, foreign objects, glass

Biological: fungus, mould, salmonella

Chemical: bleach, sanitiser

Prevention strategies for each type of food contamination were then outlined. The strategies included using hair nets, checking the temperature of refrigerators and storing chemicals away from food. We learnt that all food businesses must comply with food safety laws in the Food Act 1984.

Councils enforce food safety laws by using options ranging from advice and warnings, to temporary closure of the premises to prosecution.

At the end of the course students were capable of identifying food safety hazards in the workplace and knew what to do if a food safety incident occurs.

Ms Vicki Handris

VCAL Coordinator

Year 12 VCAL Volunteering in the Community

Following is a reflection from Kosta, Luca and Joseph

We all are volunteering at Vinnies on Keilor Road. Our duties involve sorting clothes and manchester that have been donated from the community. As we sort through clothes, we put items which can’t be sold such as dirty or soiled clothing in the “Bad Bin”. All the “good” clothing goes onto a rack and then we put it out onto the shop floor. We also sort through cups and plates and tag and price each product. The majority of people we work with are all retired elderly people who donate their time. This volunteering program benefits us in many ways. We get to help our community, but also it looks fantastic on our resumes.

Ms Vicki Handris

VCAL COORDINATOR

Naomi Wolfe Presentation to Year 10ID

Year 10 ID students were very fortunate to listen to a presentation from Naomi Wolfe, member of the Rosehill Community and, Aboriginal academic and lecturer at Australian Catholic University.

Naomi explained the differences between welcome to country and acknowledgment of country, described the difficulties with some words and language that have been used over time, gave us insight into how Indigenous Australians understand concepts such as time and country, and helped us to appreciate the diversity within Aboriginal language groups across the country. We learned about the significance of dreaming stories and the legacy of colonisation and considered what divides us as well as what unites us.

Naomi allowed students a safe place to ask a range of questions and responded to these openly and honestly. Opportunities such as this for two-way dialogue are of the greatest importance. At Rosehill we look forward to continuing our active engagement with contemporary issues facing the Aboriginal and Torres Strait community.

Danielle Murray

Year 10 ID Curriculum Leader

On Tuesday 10th May and Wednesday 11th May, I went to the National Schools Constitutional Convention with 20 other students from Victoria to discuss the question 'Should Australia have a Bill or Rights?' While at the Windsor Hotel we remotely logged on to Zoom to connect with 11 hubs from the other States around Australia. We had speakers such as the Governor General and members from the Human Rights Commission where we were able to hear their opinions on rights, whether a bill should be implemented, as well as ask questions. We also had time during the Soap Box to hear opinions from students across the nation about what rights would be included, the structure of the bill, whether that is common or statute law, and issues that are currently relevant, such as Roe vs Wade. Overall, it was a fun experience learning things about the Constitution, meeting new people and eating an abundance of food.

Alexis Padula

Year 11 Legal Studies Student