Galen Catholic College Reflections Newsletter - Issue 17 2022

Reflections

Art & Design Showcased at Benalla Art Gallery

Congratulations to Galen students who were successful in having their work selected by Benalla Art Gallery for the annual ‘VCE Show case’ exhibition. The 2022 exhibition opened on Friday 21st October and features final works from Unit 3 & 4 Studio Art and Visual Communication Design. Galen students featured include, Chiara Lestino, Lachlan Newton, Millicent Quin, Claire Annett, Tamsin Collins, Charlotte Burrows, Emily Tidd and Tiah Simpson-White. Their work is also displayed alongside artworks from other regional schools including Euroa Secondary College, Benalla P-12 and FCJ College Benalla. The artworks and designs from our students really shine in a contemporary gallery setting and they are to be commended for their excellent effort during the year. ‘VCE Showcase 2022’ is open at Benalla Art Gallery until November 20.

Pathways to success for all students

TERM

TERM 4 - WEEK 7

TERM 4 -

Galen Contacts

LEADERSHIP TEAM

• Principal: Darta Hovey

Deputy Principal - Staff & Students: Patrick Arcuri

Deputy Principal - Learning & Teaching: Dale Gleeson

Deputy Principal - Catholic Identity: Jim Samon

Business Manager: Emily Hordern

Senior School Leader: Kylie Quin

Acting Junior School Leader: Kylie Girolami

Professional Learning Leader: Daniel Armitage

Innovative Curriculum Design Leader: Sara Korman

Director of Staffing: Anthony Batters

Staff Representative: Beth Code

Executive Assistant to the Principal: Tess Barnard

ADVISORY COUNCIL

• Co-Pastoral Leaders: Fr. Nathan Verallo & Fr. Shibu Pezhumthottathil

• Advisory Council Chair: Colin McClounan

• Principal: Darta Hovey

Business Manager: Emily Hordern

Staff Representative: Daniel Armitage

Parent Representative: Chris Dwyer

Parent Representative: Leah Waring

GPA Representative: Kim Saunders

Parent Representative: Angelo Pomponio

Parent Representative: Glenn Mercer

Catholic Education Sandhurst Rep: Leonie Irwin

PARENTS ASSOCIATION EXECUTIVE

President: Margaret Anderson

Vice President: AnnMaree Christian

Secretary: Louine Robinson

Treasurer: Kim Saunders

The Parents Association can be contacted via email: gpa@galen.vic.edu.au

Members of the Advisory Council can be contacted via the office on 03 5721 6322 or email: principal@galen.vic.edu.au

The best way to contact Galen staff members direct is by email. All staff have email addresses which follow the formula: firstname.surname@galen.vic.edu.au

Uniform Shop

Tuesday: 9am - 5pm Thursday: 8am - 4pm

Phone: 03 5723 8320

Email: galen@midford.com.au

Secondhand Uniform Shop

Open each Thursday during Term 8:30am - 4:30pm

Student Absences

Phone: 5721 6322

Email: absences@galen.vic.edu.au

College

Email: principal@galen.vic.edu.au Phone: 03

Principal's Message

Exams

We wish all our senior school students the best of luck as they commence their VCE exams. Some students have already commenced oral and performance components of their exams. Unfortunately, Italian and Music Performance students have had changes of dates and venues for exams; we can only hope that our students will not face further impacts due to flooding.

This Wednesday is the English exam, which we hold on site at Galen Catholic College and the last exam for our students will be on Wednesday 16th November.

Advisory Board

At our Advisory Board meeting last week, the group toured our school to look at each building, review its design and explore how best we could use the facility in the future.

I have made no secret of the fact that our next building program must incorporate the replacement of our portables at the Park Crescent entrance to our site. Further to this, the consideration of moving our Year 9 students from the upstairs section of the main building and repurposing the space.

Over the past term, the Advisory Board has been developing a parent survey for us to gain a deeper insight of parent perspec tive of Galen Catholic College.

Please click on the link below to complete the short survey. https://bit.ly/3TKIK12

I would like to thank Colin McClounan, Angelo Pomponio, Chris Dwyer, Glenn Mercer, Leah Waring, Kim Saunders, Leonie Irwin, Emily Hordern and the Galen Deputy Principals for their support and vision throughout the year.

Building Program

For the first time, the building program has been impacted by weather. This, combined with the pressure to source materials and specific skilled trades has slowed down the progress over the last month. Once the impacts of weather events lessen, we anticipate a quick turnaround with trades being back on site.

Happy days

Darta

Year 12 Dress Up cElebration DAY

In2science Awards Honour

Year 10 Student Ashlee Davey will have the honour to be a guest speaker at the 2022 Annual In2science Awards night. Ashlee won the Mentee of the Year Award in 2021, and has been invited back to talk about her In2science experiences and her relationship with her Mentor Georgia Eleftheriou, a neuroscience PhD student at the University of Melbourne and Florey Institute.

Ashlee is very excited about the opportunity to speak about her In2science experiences and how her mentor Georgia has inspired her to pursue a career pathway of Medical Research. Georgia also organised for Ashlee to do work experience with her at The Florey Institute earlier this year.

The In2science Awards ceremony is a celebration of the program’s success throughout the year, with many lead ing researchers, from industry, Deans of Science faculties in attendance form Melbourne, Swinburne, La Trobe and RMIT Universities as well as The Honourable Professor John Brumby AO (Chair of In2science and former Premier of Victoria).

Ashlee is extremely excited, “I can’t wait. It is such a great opportunity and honour to be chosen to do this. To be able to say “thank you” to Georgia for inspiring me in front of this VIP crowd will be very cool”.

The Award ceremony will be held in Melbourne, on the evening of December 7th.

Celebrating… The Italian way

The annual Italian Day has been a big and colorful celebration this year at Galen. On October 6th, all students studying Italian were involved in various activities and workshops to celebrate Italian culture, food and traditions.

The day started with an Italian-themed quiz in all homerooms. After that, the day unfolded with plenty of fun and learning experiences for our Italian language learners. Year 7s and 8s discovered the Italian tradition of the “Madonnari” (an ancient version of street art) and expressed their creativity by drawing artworks around the school using chalks. They also enjoyed the Commedia dell’Arte performance “Venice in Love” staged by the company Make a Scene. Year 8s were also involved in a gardening workshop, sowing Italian herbs and learned to use them to make simple, delicious recipes. Year 9s and 10s baked and enjoyed a very popular Italian treat, “crostatine”. They also performed “Pinocchio in 5 minutes” and painted mini canvases inspired by some famous Italian artists, like Raffaello, Leonardo and De Chirico.

VCE students had fun in the kitchen making gnocchi and pizza... Italian style (no pineapple, of course!).

Lunchtime is always a time to look forward to on Italian Day, and this year it was a great feast indeed with students en joying pizza and delicious pasta with traditional Bolognese sauce. Also, 20 brave students and staff (including our Prin cipal) challenged themselves in the spaghetti eating competition, finishing up a whole bowl of spaghetti without using their hands. Yes, it got messy, but it was great fun and the spaghetti was actually delicious!

A big thankyou to the Languages staff for organizing and run ning the activities and also to all students involved. Their engagement, positivity and teamwork were exceptional.

VEX Experience set Galen Alumni up for University Success

Huge Congratulations to Lachie Carboon (Galen Alumni, pictured third from left) and his Deakin University team mates, who took out FIRST PLACE in the International "35th Warman Design and Build Competition".

Lachie and his team competed against 15 university teams from Australia, Malaysia and New Zealand. Each year there is a new challenge created by Engineers Australia and sponsored by Weir Group. In this years challenge teams had to create a prototype system, that would autonomously, pick up a package (tyre) and deliver it across a chasm, to a specific spot and then return back to the starting position, in the fastest time. It was an extremely close battle with 4 teams within a few points and seconds between them after the final round.

It was just as close by the end of the final round with RMIT and Deakin Uni, coming a tie for first place - the judges then went back and analysed all the video footage for a further 20mins keeping everyone biting their nails, to decide the eventual winner. It was finally announced that the Deakin Team came out on top with a score of 324.63 points - winning by the smallest of margins, 0.375 points. It was the first time Deakin Uni had won the event in its 35 year history.

Lachie has said that VEX Robot ics skills and experiences, while at Galen helped him and his team mates in their success.

“VEX robotics and the Warman Competition are both great examples of project based learning. This is very important for the real world and your career as it teaches you how to organise and work in a team, manage your time and most importantly it allows you to make mistakes, break things and learn how to fix them again.

I was very fortunate as I learnt a lot of these skills at high school through the Galen VEX robotics program, so when I began the Warman Competition at university I felt that I was already ahead of many students.

Competing in VEX robotics set me up to succeed during the Warman competition, winning the Warman competition has now allowed me to find amazing internships which will hopefully next lead to an amazing career.”

Lachie is currently in his 2nd year at Deakin studying Mechatronics (Engineering) More info about the Warman Design and Build competition: https://warmandesignandbuild.org.au

Italian experience in Melbourne

On Wednesday our year 10 Italian class left school at 6am to head to Melbourne. At around 10 o’clock we arrived at Melbourne University and listened to an Italian lecture and did a small presentation as a class about Wangaratta. It was very interesting to see the environment in which you learn Italian at uni and how it works. Next, we went to Lygon Street where we looked around at the many places and had a delicious lunch. After lunch we went to the Museo Italiano where we spent time looking around before taking part in a work shop. The museum was interesting to look around and see all the different stories from Italians who immigrated here and to see items that they brought over and used in that time. Before leaving to come back home we stopped for Gelato of course! It was a very fun day, and it was a great learning experience to see what Italian would be like at uni, to understand more of the Italian cul ture in Lygon Street and to get more of an insight into the lives of Italian immigrants coming to Australia.

By Edyn Hill - Year 10

Day of AI Australia 2022

Students from across Australia had the chance to participate in the Day of AI Australia, including 8 students from Galen. Year 7 and 8 team: Lily Girolami, Harrison Allen, Ethan McCully, Oscar Bell Year 9 team: Angus McColl, Sam Sacco, Ben Feldtmann, Ethan Perry-Heyden

The day was broken up into various sessions:

Session 1 – What is AI – Artificial Intelligence –what it is NOT and the Big ideas of AI.

Session 2 – How do machines gain intelligence – they had some fun with Google Quick Draw https://quickdraw.withgoogle.com the data sets behind it.

Session 3 – Teachable Machines – they got to build their own AI machine – using Google teachable Machine https://teachablemachine.withgoogle.com/train, some trained it to recognise, dogs and cats, some experimented with holding a pen vertical or horizontal.

Session 4 – Deep Fakes - this lesson they learned about how the internet/social media we have to be very careful and look for “deep fakes” – then went onto seeing how Deep Fakes are created using a GAN (Generative Adversarial Network).

Session 5 - Your Own AI Technology – in this session they put their knowledge from the morning sessions into designing a solution to a problem, at school or in the community using AI. They broke into two teams and got their thinking caps on.

The Junior Team – came up with the idea of AI locks on lockers – using facial recognition, they included a GAN so that daily each image it takes of you to recognise your face goes back into the system, to allow for changing hair growth and cuts, and ageing. Video Presentation: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-Mpm-WBPBxua4-ezNF5neLO18ju9CRiC/view

The Senior Team – came up with the idea of an AI Grape harvester – the robot would not only harvest the grapes but do analysis on the grape – eg: look for disease, measure how much smoke damage during bush fire season, and optimal ripeness before picking. Video presentation: https://drive.google.com/file/d/18kRXTEptLgvrPSOvlBoABomAqY7KfSBo/view

They submitted their short video of their ideas to the Judges, they were finalists and received some fantastic feedback from the judges.

Junior team judge feedback:

“Your competition pitch about using FaceID to secure lockers around your school was fantastic and it was great to see how much thinking and creativity went into how you would bring the technology to life. Particularly, your application of the GAN concept, one of the more difficult components of AI technology was brilliant and demonstrated how much your learnt throughout the day. Beyond the technical components, we loved the suggested use of solar power and repurposed metal to make your design environmentally friendly.”

Senior team judge feedback:

“Your competition pitch about alleviating the stress many wineries are experiencing due to the loss of seasonal workers was fantastic and it was great to see how much thinking and creativity went into how you would bring the technology to life. Particularly, your application of a dual AI function, that your technology both picks and tests the quality of grapes, demonstrates that you didn’t only look to fix the problem but further innovate the industry and increase productivity.”

SOME QUOTES:

Lily Girolami: The AI Day was a great experience and a good chance to try something new.

Harrison Allen: The day of AI was a challenge I really enjoyed. It was so different to anything else I’ve done at school, I loved it.

Oscar Bell: The day was very enjoyable and also challenging. It made you think in new ways, plus it was something different to learn.

Angus McColl: It was a fun experience, and I really liked making our own AI on the google teachable machine and good to learn about the future of tech. I also enjoyed brainstorming and coming up with the Grape AI harvester with our team.

Ben Feldtmann: I also liked the creating our own AI on the google teachable machine, and learning about AI. It was a fun experience and good to have a day to work with others who like technology.

Ethan Perry-Heyden: The Day Of AI was an amazing experience, we got to learn about AI and test our own and then we got to design our own idea it was a great day and a wonderful way to learn with others.

State Athletics

On Monday 17th October nineteen of our students headed to Melbourne for State Athletics to compete in individual events, along with 3 relay teams, 12-13 Boys, U14 Boys and U17 Girls. We had a very successful day with Galen placing 4th overall on the day. While not all students walked away with a medal, several students achieved a Personal Best and we congratulate you on this achievement. Year 12 student Flynn Hill came 1st in the 1500m 18-20 age group. Year 7 Student Georgia Lewis placed 2nd in her Javelin event. Sophia Pasquali placed 3rd in the 14yrs 100m & 200m events. Callum Bott placed 2nd in the 14yrs 100m, 200m & 400m events. Isabella Pasquali placed 2nd in the 16yrs 100m and 1st in her 200m & 400m events.

Our relay teams had a great result. 14yrs Boys ran a tough race but pushed over the line to take out 1st place. The team consisted of Charlie Haring, Callum Bott, Ashley Primerano, Mitchell O'Sullivan. The 17yr Girls team finished 1st in a convincing race. The team consisted of Isabella Pasquali, Sophia Pasquali, Ruby Rigoni and Hannah Gillies.12-13 Yr boys came in 7th place. Team consisted of Joel Comensoli, Kaiden Wohlers, Dean Balfour & Zach Bott.

Thank you to Staff for their help on the day, Pat Noonan and Murray Waite.

Poppy O'Keeffe makes Junior Matilda’s Camp

Year 8 Galen student Poppy O’Keeffe has been selected in a 30 player Provisional Junior Matilda’s (Australian) squad for a camp on the Gold Coast this month. The squad will be reduced to 24 players in the next few days. We wish Poppy all the very best on achieving her goal of representing Australia!

The Visual Arts & Technology team is proud to showcase final works from Unit 3 & 4 Media, Product Design and Technology, Studio Art and Visual Communication Design students in our annual Emerge Exhibition Catalogue.

View final works from talented Senior School students at: https://bit.ly/3RO74h6

Galen Theatre Chair Donations

Galen Catholic College is excited to partner with the community and invite sponsorship towards our new Performing Arts Theatre chairs. Our new Performing Arts Centre will provide Galen Catholic College and the Wangaratta Community with a fantastic community theatre and performing space. Sponsorship of the theatre chairs is being offered as a $200 donation. Donor names will be affixed to the theatre seats, or donations can be made anonymously. Donations can be made at: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/galen-theatre-chair-donations-2-tickets-398672800077

Composite School Fees Reminder

As the school year is now well advanced, this reminder is a friendly prompt for all parents with outstanding fees, to assess their current balance.

If you have already contacted the school this year to discuss payments or have a 2022 agreement in place, we thank you in advance.

If you have not yet made contact with the school, we ask that you advise what your payment intentions are to finalise your balance before the end of the current school year.

In cases of financial hardship or where special/difficult circumstances exist, parents/guardians are in vited to contact Jaye Miller on (03) 5721 6322 for an appointment to discuss ways we can assist you and your family. Parents and Guardians are strongly urged to make such arrangements rather than allow debts to accumulate with the School. These arrangements are to be negotiated on an annual basis. All details discussed are of course strictly confidential. Your cooperation is much appreciated.

Fruit for Junior School students

A reminder to Junior School students that Nu Fruit are kindly continuing to donate fruit on a weekly basis until the end of the year. Fruit will be available outside the Junior School Leader ship office on a Tuesday’s at recess, so make sure you come along for a healthy snack!

SKATE

Tuning in to Kids - Emotion coaching

For parents and carers of children aged between 2 and 10 years

This five-week program aims to help parents and carers understand their child’s experience and connect with and support their child.

This program will look at:

managing meltdowns

tuning in to your children’s emotions to help manage behavior emotion coaching helping children to understand and regulate their emotions problem solving and self-care the different styles of parenting.

Location

Wangaratta Library - 21 Docker St, Wangaratta

Date and time

Wednesdays from 2 November to 30 November 10am to 12pm

Cost

This is a free program

Contact us gatewayhealth.org.au

For enquires and to register your attendance contact the Gateway Health Intake team on 02 6022 8888

Bookings are essential

These clinics offers Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV), COVID-19 and flu vaccinations to those eligible. For more information, go to awh.org.au/omphu

Where Date Time Address

Albury

Beechworth

Tuesday 8 November Wednesday 9 November

Monday 19 December Tuesday 20 December

Chiltern

10 30am to 2 30pm

10 30am to 2 30pm

Monday 17 October Monday 5 December Tuesday 6 December 10 30am to 2 30pm

Corryong Tuesday 22 November 10 30am 2.30pm.

Myrtleford

Wednesday 26 October Monday 28 November Tuesday 29 November 10 30am to 2.30pm

Rutherglen

Tuesday 15 November Wednesday 16 November Wednesday 21 December 10 30am to 2 30pm

Mirambeena Community Centre, 19 Martha Mews

Beechworth Memorial Hall, 101 Ford St

Chiltern Memorial Hall, Conness St

Corryong Events Centre, Strzelecki Way.

Myrtleford Neighbourhood House, 156 Myrtle St.

Rutherglen Senior Citizens' Centre, Douglas St

Wangaratta

Monday 31 October Wednesday 2 November Monday 12 December Tuesday 13 December

10.30am to 2 30pm

Nissen Hut, Gateway Health, 45 Mackay St

Wodonga

Wednesday 12 October Tuesday 1 November (Melbourne Cup Day) Every Thursday and Friday until further notice

Important information:

9.30am to 4 30pm

Corner of Smythe and Stanley streets (former fire station)