Beaconhills College

Our dancers have made the nationals again! Congratulations to the Berwick Campus team who won through the state finals on the weekend of the Dancestar and Glee competition.

Glee Up Tempo – state champions 1st place
Glee Down Tempo – state champions 1st place
Jazz Small Troupe – 3rd place
Lyrical/Contemporary Large Troupe – state champions 1st place
Allie Catrucco – Lyrical Contemporary Solo Senior Amber Section – state champion 1st Place
Ruby Thornton-Mackay – Lyrical Contemporary Solo Junior Red Section – 2nd place

The students are now off to Queensland in August to compete in the national championships.

Beaconhills College is a winner in Sustainability Victoria’s ResourceSmart Schools award (campus infrastructure and operations).

The College’s Business Manager David Young and Sustainability Co-ordinator Jack Donkers were at the awards ceremony today at the MCG with students Alysha Hall, Matthew Kane and Chloe Ward, from our Senior School’s ‘Green Team’.

The College received a cheque for $500 which will fund a student-led sustainability project.

Mr Young said the award recognised the work of the College over several years, “in particular the vision, leadership and support for our environmental sustainability programs made by our College Board, Headmaster Tony Sheumack, staff and students of the College. ”

“The College is very proud of its achievements in this area and we recognise that there is so much more to learn and develop as we move further to enhance the sustainability of our College and community.”

We are proud to announce that The Educator magazine has named Beaconhills College teacher Danielle O’Leary as one of its 20 top ‘Rising Stars’ in education. Danielle is Senior Geography teacher at our Berwick Campus.

Rising Stars recognises future education leaders from across Australia. Danielle was nominated by Macmillan Publishing, which is currently collaborating with her to produce a new textbook series for Humanities.

Danielle is described as an “energetic and passionate teacher” who employs a ‘learn by doing’ approach, empowering students to think critically about our world and to become informed, global citizens.

You can read more about The Educator awards here.

Congratulations Danielle.

Students from Years 2-8 braved wintry conditions to help a clean up the beach at Seaford last weekend in the lead-up to World Environment Day (5 June).

The clean-up was organised by Berwick Campus Wellbeing Counsellor Laura Collins, along with Pakenham Campus counsellor Dylan Redman. For the Year 8 students, the volunteer hours will go towards completing their Year 8 Certificate of Excellence.

Talented artist Callum Warren is bringing superheroes to life in this striking mural at the entrance to the junior art room at the Berwick Campus.

The artist-in-residence is a former Beaconhills Pakenham Campus student (Class of 2012). He has a successful career as a commercial artist and has regular commissions for his art and design work. You may have seen another of his murals at the back of the Daydreamers Café in Beaconsfield.

Beaconhills College today is celebrating three Premier’s VCE Awards collected by two of its high achieving students from the Class of 2018 – Victoria Tiplady (Berwick Campus) and College Dux Olivia Acciarito (Pakenham Campus).

Olivia earned an impressive two Premier’s Awards for her perfect scores in Legal Studies and Visual Communication Design, while Victoria’s award recognised her 50/50 in Outdoor and Environmental Studies. (Oliva also scored a perfect 50 in English).

The awards ceremony was held today at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, with more than 1000 guests attending.

Victoria said she was “thrilled” to receive the award and paid tribute to the dedication of her teacher, Belinda Dalziel.

“Mrs Dalziel provided such an amazing support system, giving me exam after exam and correction after correction – it was both her commitment and kindness which inspired me to achieve the top results.”

Victoria said Beaconhills College’s outstanding resources enabled her to discover and build on her passion for the outdoors, both through classroom and practical experiences.

“I’d love to continue pursing and extending my knowledge in the outdoor environment career path by potentially completing an outdoor traineeship in the future years,” she said.

Both girls are studying double degrees this year at Monash University, Olivia is doing Law and Global Studies and Victoria is studying Science and Global Studies.

Olivia pictured with Pakenham Campus Principal Sarah Rudiger

Victoria pictured with teacher Belinda Dalziel.

Beaconhills College’s Pakenham Junior School has raised a whopping $22,600 to help fight heart disease.

Students from Years Prep-4 have spent six weeks taking part in the Heart Foundation’s Jump Rope for Heart, celebrating Friday 31 May with a major ‘jump off’ day of skipping.

The amount raised makes Beaconhills the second highest fundraising school in Australia and the leading school in Victoria.

Students cheered as Physical Education teacher Renyce McConnell revealed the final tally on Friday, congratulating all families for their generous donations.

Every year, more than 300,000 kids in over 1300 schools take part in Jump Rope for Heart, with the help of more than 500,000 generous sponsors including families, friends and community members.

A phenomenal effort from our star athletes at the 2019 Association of Co-educational Schools (ACS) Athletics Carnival.

Improving from our 2018 fifth place result, our combined campus team achieved fourth overall, including first place in the boys’ competition and setting six new individual records.

Berwick Year 7 student Rivinaka Dharmaratne ran 25.86 in the boys’ 13 200m dash, and Year 10 student Caitlyn McCormick achieved 35.72m in the girls’ 16 discus throw.

Pakenham School Captain Matisse Lazzari set 2:25.38 in the girls 18 800m event, and Year 12 student Cameron Debruin broke not one, but two, records with 21.37 in the boys 200m dash. He also ran a blistering 10.80 in the boys’ 100m race – just a fraction of a second off world qualifying time.

Amiru Chandrasena (pictured) broke the boys’ 17 long jump record by almost 70cm, with a jump of 6.93m. This effort saw him named male athlete of the meet.

A fantastic result. Well done to all of our athletes for representing Beaconhills College so admirably.

Beaconhills College now has two Cancer Council research awards funded by proceeds from our Relay for Life campaigns earlier this year.

Both Berwick and Pakenham campuses opted to fund ‘low survival cancers’; these include oesophageal, stomach, brain, lung and liver cancer types.

The news was welcomed by the family of Beaconhills student Callum McLoughlin, who lost his battle with cancer in 2018.

Today Headmaster Tony Sheumack and Head of Citizenship and Service Clare Tuohy presented Callum’s family, Kerrie and James, with two Beacon of Hope roses to plant in their garden in Callum’s memory.

It is good to know that that the $47,646 our community raised from Relay for Life will help fund research into a cure for cancers that claim so many lives each year. The Beacon of Hope roses are sold online through our College Shop, with proceeds going to our Relay for Life campaigns and other citizenship and service initiatives.

Beaconhills’ piano and keyboard students are lucky to have a teacher as accomplished as Alex Waite.

A passionate chamber musician, Alex has performed in Europe, Asia and across Australia and taken part in festivals such as Shanghai New Music Week, the Metropolis New Music Festival and Melbourne Festival. He has collaborated with artists such as Silvia Carredu (principal flute of Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra), Peter Hill and Steve Davislim. Recently, Alexdid a residency at the Center for 21st Century Music in Buffalo, New York.

Alex grew up in Gippsland and completed a Bachelor of Music (performance) with First Class Honours at the Sydney Conservatorium. In 2016, he moved to Melbourne to study with Timothy Young at the National Academic of Music, where he completed three years of the Professional Performance Program.

He lists the big composers like Beethoven and Bach as his inspirations, but also enjoys the more contemporary work of György Ligeti and Liza Lim.

Alex finds teaching inspiring, and says it complements his performance work: “The whole process of discovering new music and the exploration of ideas is similar between teaching and performing.”

This week he is in Taiwan to play at the National Concert Hall, as pianist with the ELISION ensemble.