Beaconhills College

Beaconhills College now has another Cancer Council Victoria research award thanks to fundraising efforts at the Cardinia Relay for Life event earlier this year.

The Beacon of Hope Research Award will support research into leukaemia and lymphoma. The Beacon of Hope team raised more than $11,000, with Year 10 student Chelsea Scott donating more than $1000.

Chelsea was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma this year, but after months of treatment has just learned she is in remission. Wonderful news for Chelsea!

The Cancer Council has given us a list of some the projects this award will help fund.

Dr Ashley Ng, Dr Kira Behrens, Prof Warren Alexander, Dr Rebecca Feltham, Prof John Silke and Dr David Komander,

The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research

Drugging Undruggable Targets in Ph+ B-cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (2020 -2022)

Prof Richard Pearson
University of Melbourne
Combinatorial targeting of cellular “housekeeping” processes to treat cancer (2020 -2022)

Dr Lev Kats, Prof Ricky Johnstone
Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre
Development of new targeted therapies for acute myeloid leukaemia (2019-2021)

Dr Donia Moujalled
Monash University
New treatments for Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (2018-2020)

Prof David Ritchie, Dr Nicholas Huntington
The University of Melbourne
Inhibiting immune cell function to improve stem cell transplant outcomes in leukaemia (2018-2020)

Beaconhills students earlier this year getting ready for the Cardinia Relay for Life

Beaconhills has earned a $5000 Cardinia Shire grant to help provide meals to local people in need during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The grant is part of the COVID-19 Meal Relief Program. It enables the College’s food services staff to prepare around 50 fresh, healthy meals each week which are then delivered to the Pakenham Salvation Army for distribution.

As one of its Beacon of Hope programs, the College has already been providing meals and fresh produce from our vegetable gardens to the Salvation Army to help support local residents during the pandemic.

Work is underway on the College’s new community garden at the Pakenham Campus. The garden will produce fresh vegetables to donate to Casey and Cardinia welfare organisations.

Year 9 student Noah Kemp’s Personal Best project has bought some real joy to students from an Indigenous school in north Western Australia.

For Noah’s project, he collected 96 pairs of footy boots to donate to the Ngalangangpum School. He was inspired after seeing his grandparents’ holiday snaps of children playing footy with bare feet.

Noah put collection boxes around the College and was delighted with the response. Cameron’s Trucking even pitched in with an offer of free transport of the boots up to the school.

Noah now has the satisfaction of seeing this video of the Ngalangangpum students getting a huge kick from their “deadly” new boots.

We are singing the praises of 10 of our students who have received their Outstanding Achievement certificates for their performances in last year’s Australian Guild Singing exams.

A very high five to students Caitlin Buckley, Jessica Bult, Araminta Hall, Chenuli Haththimuni, Isabelle Nicoli, Sonachi Okeleke, Sheneli Phillipsz, Keturah Ratnarajah, Aiden Thanapathy (not pictured), Harriet Yates – and of course proud Singing Teacher Anna Castle.

Beaconhills College parents and students have overwhelmingly voted Year 1 teacher Markus Munday as the winner of the Casey Cardinia Outstanding Teacher Competition.

An emotional Mr Munday had a surprise visit today from the Member for Gembrook, Brad Battin, to congratulate him and present him with a voucher prize.

Parents described Mr Munday, who teaches at the Pakenham Campus, as a warm and caring teacher who made learning exciting for his students.

One parent wrote: “My only wish is that every child gets to have a ‘Mr Munday’ during their schooling years. He really is an extraordinary teacher.”

A number of other Pakenham and Berwick Campus teachers were nominated by our community in the competition. We will reveal their names next week!

It was a delight to (finally) welcome all of our students back to Campus today.

While students in Prep – Year 2 and Years 10 – 12 returned to face-to-face learning on 26 May, it was wonderful for students in Years 3 – 9 to be reunited with classmates and teachers in person today.

Students, teachers and parents have spent term 2 coming to grips with a new type of schooling – online. While Little Beacons centres remained open – along with our on-campus blended program – for the majority of students, home has been the new classroom.

There was a tangible sense of excitement in the air as all of our students were warmly greeted at the College gates this morning, before they dove straight back into the action of regular classrooms.

Berwick Campus Principal, Sam Watson, greeted his students with balloons and a smile as they entered school grounds this morning.

Today our students recognise National Sorry Day. We remember and acknowledge the mistreatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who were forcibly removed from their families and communities, which we now know as ‘The Stolen Generations’.

Here is some work from our Year 4 students. They read the book ‘Sorry Day’ by Coral Vass, then created posters to display in their front windows.