Newsletter Term 2, Week 7 9 June 2022

This year, our team of Year 10 students consisted of Frances Chan, Caitlin Jong, Izzy King, Katherine Ma, Alec Marsland, Stephanie Tang, Heidi Tully, Cynthia Shi and Rachel Zhou. These students have proudly represented Strathcona each year since Year 7 and consider it one of the highlights of the academic year. Teams are ranked out of 20 and this year, the students achieved an overall result of 12th place in the state. A special mention to the team’s achievement of 1st place in the state for the Engineering discipline this year. When they were in Year 7, the team achieved 2nd place in the regional division and last year, in Victoria they came 3rd overall. 

This year, the group utilised time in the Learning Legacy Program to prepare for the challenge by completing past papers. This was self-driven and reflected their motivation and commitment. In keeping with the times, last year and this year the competition was held online but as we have come to expect from the Strathcona team, the students were easily able to adapt, and they participated with great focus and enthusiasm. 

The competition provides broad extension opportunities for subjects such as English and Mathematics as the tasks are very different from the school curriculum and demand more problem-solving skills. The da Vinci tasks are highly challenging and require students to “think outside the box”. The competition also exposes students to subjects that are not taught in schools, for example, Ideation, which involves coming up with creative solutions for social problems such as gambling, thereby taking students beyond the classroom and allowing them the opportunity to use their creative thinking powers to address real-world problems. 

Beyond the obvious intellectual satisfaction, the students reported that what makes this competition so rewarding and enjoyable is teamwork and collaborative learning. The students love being with like-minded people and have commented that it is “exciting to work through difficult problems together”. Stephanie Tang remarked that she loves participating in da Vinci because “working with friends makes it really fun” and there is a real sense that the group are “all in it together”. The bonding experience with peers is one of the most important aspects of the competition and the students are able to “make some memories”.  

The team is entirely self-directed, and students must draw upon their initiative and 21st Century skills such as collaborative learning to decide on roles and, based on strengths, assign which students will work on which challenge. The tasks are often ambiguous, involve lots of unknowns and it is essential that the group band together to brainstorm solutions. This was particularly critical in the Engineering challenge, which the team won by really building on each other’s ideas, which is, as one of the group members reflected, the “essence of teamwork”.  

The Code Breaking task poses a unique challenge since it sits “outside” the usual academic subjects. The challenge draws upon logical thinking skills and involves decoding an unfamiliar code such as morse code. Once again, a collaborative learning approach was key to the team’s success in placing fourth, as most of the members worked on this task with each student needing to memorise a few letters of morse code. The challenge was lots of fun and a true team effort! 

This year has been the last time these students will participate in da Vinci, and they highly recommend that younger students get involved. As one of the group members commented, everyone can find something in the da Vinci Decathlon that they like or are good at!

Claire Murray, Head of Learning Enhancement 

Below are some teacher reflections on this experience

The Year 2 Mindset Mathematics experience was a great way for all students to be involved in a discussion that included all mathematical abilities. The girls worked collaboratively on partitioning various segments of a square. Not only did the girls succeed in this task by working together but they were passionate about the challenge and discussed many mathematical concepts which related to the real world. The exploratory thoughts were wonderful since the Year 2 girls have incredible imaginations and this surprisingly led to discussions that continued out into the playground. 

– Eliza Nolan Year 2 Teacher

The Year 4 students have thoroughly benefited from investigating Jo Boaler’s Big Ideas during Mathematics sessions. The rich learning activities help the students to make connections between mathematical concepts that are critical for a strong number sense. In the first Big Idea we explored a visual showing the numbers 1-35 represented in a series of circles. The girls were invited to work in pairs and use colours to annotate their copy of the visual to highlight all the relationships they could see. The students studied how the numbers are made up of different arrangements and how some have patterns in common. It was a delight to watch the girls talk and share ideas, find connections, and discover what links they could find. After a comprehensive class discussion and sharing of ideas, the students discovered how the prime numbers were represented, and how the patterns within the numbers identified their factors. This discussion led the girls to discover how flexible a number is through a connection with multiplication and division. 

– Ms Lucy Price, Year 4 Teacher

In Prep we’ve been working on the Big Idea that we can put numbers together (addition) and see and use patterns as we do this. We’ve experimented with different ways of doing addition – including counting on - as well as predicting how a pattern might grow. It’s so important that children develop a sound understanding of this concept before they go on to learn and use more abstract concepts in Mathematics. This Unit provided opportunities for the children to investigate addition in depth and learn from their mistakes. The Prep girls are so open to having a go at something new and simply enjoying Maths for the fun of it. 

– Ms Penny Willoughby, Enrichment Teacher

Items in the Career News include –

• News from Monash University

o Changes in Prerequisites to the Bachelor of Public Health

o Pathway through Science to Medicine

o Campus Tours – Winter Holidays

• Swinburne University's Early Entry Program 2023

• Bachelor of Business (Logistics Supply Chain Management) at RMIT

• Cabin Crew (ADF Gap Year) 2023

• AGILE Program for High Achievers at ACU

• Criminology and Paralegal Degrees in Victoria in 2022

• Law Undergraduate Degrees in Victoria in 2022

• Snapshot of Australian Catholic University in 2022

It was his reference to ‘leaning in’ to experiences and soaking up moments that may never happen again that we really felt like everyone could get behind in some way or another.

We embarked on the journey of creating a Banner as a visual representation of our ‘Lean In’ theme. We hoped to rekindle some connection and create something that every student in Year 7-12 could contribute to, take ownership over and build together to represent our community.

Each letter in the banner represents a year level and is decorated with fingerprints in house colours of the students in that year level. For example, the ‘L’ has fingerprints of students in year 7, the ‘E’ students from year 8 etc. During the decorating we also asked students to think about what ‘Lean In’ means to them and these responses are displayed on sticky notes around the school. We loved reading and learning about everyone’s individual interpretations of Lean In, such as “leaning into the future” and “leaning on our friends in time of need.”

The Banner is now proudly hanging in the Knowledge Exchange and adds a pop of colour to the space. We hope that when everyone walks past, it reminds them that they are surrounded by and an important part of the Strathcona community. 

Jacqueline Evans (School Captain), Chloe Plant and Lizzie O’Sullivan (Deputy School Captains)

The students enjoyed a report from the following students and areas within the school:

·        Jacqueline Evans, Lizzie O’Sullivan and Chloe Plant - Captains address
·        Issy Cao, Georgia Snadden, Meg Harrison, Maddi Couttie – Student Executive update 
·        Maha Thiagarajan – STEM Leader / Gender Equality in Maths
·        Emily Harle – Issues and Action Leader / Strathcona Reconciliation Action Plan 
·        Ebony Reid and Katie Johnson – Service / Strathy Op Shop 
·        Anna Parris  - Debating 
·        Rachel Glover -  Public Speaking 
·        Lee Tsourvakas - Information, Literature and Media / Game of Loans & Literature Festival
·        Aimee Li – International Student Leader / Chinese Painting
·        Chiara Tolo and Charlie Eu – Art Leaders 
·        Hannah Simos-Garner and Hailey Walker – Drama Leaders / School Musicals
·        Lauren Loh and Lili Klapp – Music Leaders / House Chorals  and Music Camp
·        Caitlin Murphy and Annabelle Graham – Sport Leaders / Sport Update
·        Esther Marsland – Faith Leader / Closing Prayer 

We thank all of the Leaders for the time and effort they are putting into their portfolios and look forward to hearing another exciting update at the end of next Term.  

Megan Boyd, Head of Findlay House

The award is the culmination of many years of consistent and dedicated practice, requiring students to perform a program with a minimum length of 25 minutes. The program consists of at least 4 works across a broad range of repertoire styles and genres with a keen understanding and appreciation of performance conventions and a professional level of presentation. In addition to the demanding practical component of the Diploma, students are required to have passed a Grade 5 level of theory or musicianship. 

During assembly on Monday 20 June, Zoe will be chopping off 36 cm of her hair.

Wigs cost families up to $6,000, lasting 1-2 years, meaning families could spend tens of thousands of dollars on the purchase of wigs throughout a child’s youth. By making a donation to Variety - the Children's Charity, you can help provide a wig to a child in need. 

Please follow this link to make a donation to support Zoe and this valuable cause:

https://hairwithheart.variety.org.au/fundraisers/zoecameron/hair-with-heart

Thank you for helping kids in need.

Lisa Miller, Head of Junior School

Tay Creggan, our Year 9 campus, is proudly part of Open House Melbourne 2022. This event will now be held online.

Take a virtual tour of the magnificent heritage building, Tay Creggan, and learn about its interesting history narrated by a Strathcona Girls Grammar student.
You can also take a tour of Tay Creggan in Minecraft. This has been cleverly created by two of our Year 9 students.

More information will be available closer to the day on our website.

You are warmly invited to the next Strathcona Centre for Learning Futures event with guest Speaker, Tay Pappas.

Tay Pappas will speak about her fascinating international experience helping to build a range of businesses, leading to her current role as General Manager at Kip&Co. This will provide participants with insight into what it takes to build a company’s brand and the kinds of opportunities young people can explore as they build their own careers. Tay is looking forward to questions from the audience.

Tay Pappas is the General Manager of indie lifestyle brand Kip&Co. She has deep experience in retail and strategy and a passion for building incredible Australian brands. Tay began her career as a Management Consultant at Boston Consulting Group, before taking on strategy roles with the Just Group in Melbourne and pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk in Copenhagen. She joined Mecca Brands in 2012 to lead the four-person merchandise team, and in her eight years with Mecca helped to scale the business across strategy, store development and buying, finally returning to the Head of Merchandise role with a team of 45. In 2020 she joined Hairhouse Warehouse as Chief Commercial Officer, driving the merchandise strategy and Hairhouse’s private label brands.Pursuing her love of brand building, Tay joined Kip&Co in 2021 in the newly created role of General Manager, to work with the founders to scale the business, drive rapid growth and sustainably bring colour and fun to homewares and apparel for every corner of the home and every member of the family. Tay lives in Balaclava with her husband and three girls, and loves travel, food and all types of music.

We look forward to welcoming you to this event