Beaconhills College

Beaconhills College teacher Scott Wallace has earned the title of Casey YMCA Community Father of the Year.

Mr Wallace’s children submitted a heart-warming entry about their dad, praising his cooking skills and love and care for his 12-year-old son Cody, who was diagnosed with a rare brain tumour and hydrocephalus (excess fluid on the brain) 10 years ago. He has since undergone nine brain surgeries and has a number of other conditions. The family is now trying to raise funds for a seizure alert dog to help in Cody’s care.

The award submission submitted on behalf of Cody about his dad said: “He takes care of me when I am sick and have to go to hospital.

“He makes sure I take all my daily medicines and says to me all the time ‘If I could take away your pain I would in a heartbeat’.”

Mr Wallace, who is Head of IT and Head of Rich House at the College’s Pakenham Campus, said he was humbled and surprised to learn of the award.

“You don’t think you do anything differently to anyone else,” he said. “From the age of six, I always wanted to be a teacher – and a dad!”

• If you would like to contribute to the Wallace family’s fundraising efforts for Cody, go to https://www.gofundme.com/codys-seizure-alert-dog-fudraiser

A 1.5m wooden pelican is the latest art installation to land at the Berwick Campus, thanks to talented chainsaw artist Brandon Kroon.

Brandon fired up his chainsaw today to create this Cyprus pine masterpiece, the fifth pelican amongst thousands of chainsaw artworks he has carved throughout his career.

The former motorbike mechanic said he originally took up chainsaw art as a hobby. He recently placed third in the Alaska Cup Carving competition and his works are now constantly in demand.

The sculpture was created as part of the Beaconhills Artist-in-Residence program.

Before and after: from piece of wood to pelican

Chainsaw artist Brandon Kroon with the pelican sculpture

Beaconhills College students have achieved placings in a number of categories at the West Gippsland Eisteddfod event held across weekends in July and August.

At the Classical Vocal event, there were many placings for students across the seven categories. Keturah Ratnarajah was first in the ‘Own Choice’ category – 12 years and under, with her rendition of ‘Cherry Ripe’, as well as winning the ‘Song in Costume’ section. Christina Keen placed first with ‘If you hadn’t but you did’.

Voice students also did well in the Contemporary Popular Vocal sections of the competition, with first placings to Lucienne Wynne in the 18 years and under character song, Charlotte Moseley for 12 years and under character song and Chenuli Haththimuni for 15 years and under character song.

In the Drama event, Cael Fisher, Christina Keen and Indra Liyanaarachchi all gave stellar performances, placing first in their various sections. Drama teachers Amara Jensen and Deana Jacobs said they were incredibly proud of all students for their efforts.

Last weekend Christina Keen again competed in the contemporary singing section of the Waverley Eisteddfod and placed first in the under 25s for her song ‘Still Hurting.

Christina walked away with over $600 prize money for the Contemporary, Classical and Speech and Drama sections of the event.

Congratulations to all students for the excellent results.

First placegetter in the Drama event, Indra Liyanaarachchi (left) with West Gippsland Music & Drama Eisteddfod Speech and Drama adjudicator Bethany Simons

Eleanor Moseley (left), Year 3 and Georgia Stayner, Year 3, placed second and third in their vocal event. Eleanor’s older sister Charlotte was also third in her category.

Our Berwick Campus Year 6 District girls’ basketball team had an exciting win today at Cranbourne, beating all of the competition on the day.

In the final match they won 39-14. The team will now play at Divisional level in coming weeks. Congratulations to the team.

Proving the power of girls’ footy, our Year 6 Berwick Campus team made the Southern Metropolitan Regional Girls football finals this week, just narrowly losing their three matches.

They battled some fierce competition and freezing weather but loved throwing themselves into the great game! This is only the second year that the Sport Sports Victoria (SSV) Girls AFL has been in competition.

A big congratulations to our Pakenham Campus equestrienne extraordinaire Georgia Price, who was named Reserve Champion last month at the grand final of the Victorian Equestrian Interschool Series (VEIS) show jumping.

Georgia is pictured here on her horse Batman Extreme during the event at the Werribee Park Equestrian Centre.

Along with volunteering on the Vinnies Food Van, Beaconhills College staff are now lending a helping hand each month to The Bless Collective Food Van Project.

Staff help serve food and chat with people visiting the van in Pakenham. Twenty-four Beaconhills staff are on a roster to help the community initiative, run by the Follow Baptist Church. Pictured is College Senior Chaplain Rev. Peggy Kruse writing out the menu for the night.

The exchange program with Lycée François Rabelais in Chinon is a 5 weeks linguistic and cultural exchange between a small number of students. 6 students are participating in this exchange program in 2018, 3 students are staying with Berwick families and 3 with Pakanham’s. Although it started as an exchange between the Beaconhills tennis academy and the first students were all tennis players, the program has developed into a reciprocal linguistic exchange open to any senior school student of French.

Lycée François Rabelais is a co-educational high school with 1103 students, 196 boarders and 96 teachers. It is situated in Chinon, in the Loire Valley, “the garden of France”, famous for its castles and wineries. The school has a lot of experience in international relations with sister schools in Italy, Great Britain and Germany and partners in China, Laos and Burkina Faso.

While in Australia, French students attend classes with their host brothers and sisters, take part in some excursions (Botanical gardens, Shrine of Remembrance, Queen Victoria market, Phillip Island with the Japanese group, etc.) and even visit Sydney, Gold Coast or Great Ocean Road thanks to the generosity of our families.

Students are accompanied by Christine Jonot, an English teacher. This is Christine’s 3^rdvisit to Australia. The group will depart on the 7^thof August. Australian students will stay in Chinon from November 23 to December 28.