Primary school
With several remote learning interruptions due to COVID-19 restrictions, primary schools across Greater Shepparton made the best of a bad set of circumstances.
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Book Week parades took place in living rooms, and St Mel’s Primary School went a step further with its creative ‘Book Faces’.
Kids at St Mel’s Kindergarten helped to fundraise for the Winter Night Shelter by collecting sock donations to distribute to those sleeping rough.
The Schools Breakfast Club program expanded to include Bourchier Street Primary School, Gowrie Street Primary School, Guthrie Street Primary School, Shepparton East Primary School, St Georges Road Primary School, Wilmot Road Primary School and Verney Road School.
St Georges Road Primary School appointed a new principal, with Adam Burbidge taking the leadership role later in the year.
And Katunga South Primary School closed it doors after more than 100 years. Past students, teachers and school community members gathered to share their memories of the school in November before the final bell rang on December 17.
“There is a nostalgic feeling, but it’s the right decision,” principal Elizabeth Oudeman said.
COVID-19
Greater Shepparton schools continued to be impacted by COVID-19 in 2021. The August 20 outbreak forced students, families and staff from Greater Shepparton Secondary College’s Maguire and Wanganui campuses, Notre Dame Secondary College, Bourchier Street Primary School and St Mel’s Primary School into 14 days of quarantine.
Year 12 students also experienced interruptions to their final school year. The important General Achievement Test (GAT) was postponed three times over the school year, from June 9 to July 21 and then pushed back again to August 12.
Later in the year, the introduction of rapid antigen tests to schools in the Goulburn Valley halved the isolation time for unvaccinated students from 14 days to seven.
The News spoke to single mother-of-two Shara Scott, who felt a rush of relief when Victorian Education Minster James Merlino made the announcement in early November.
“We have not had a full week yet where one of the kids hasn’t been identified as a close contact (since August),” she said.
Super school progresses
Progress on Greater Shepparton Secondary College’s new campus has forged ahead during 2021.
Barbara O’Brien was named executive principal in June, and construction is now finished, with just the landscaping to go.
We took a peek into how Greater Shepparton Secondary College moved shelves, tables, chairs and books from the three existing campuses to the new school.
Decades’ worth of equipment and resources dating back to the 1970s had to be moved, or sold.
“Shifting house is hard enough, let along three schools,” GSSC facilities manager Pete Cantlin said.
Victorian Education Minister James Merlino visited the site in November, and said he was “blown away” by the new campus.
“The young people of Shepparton, Mooroopna, the Goulburn Valley, they deserve excellence,” he said.
“Whatever a student’s passion, it’s going to be met at this school.”
In December, more than 300 Year 6 students visited the new school as part of their Year 7 orientation day.
Three tours took place on Tuesday, December 7, to introduce the students from 28 local primary schools to the brand new campus.
“This is kind of the cherry on top of the cake, to be able to see this building before everybody else,” GSSC assistant principal Julie Walsh said.
Awards and accolades
Greater Shepparton Secondary College school captain Ben Okely was named as one of six VCE leaders across the state in September.
During remote learning stints, Ben focused on improving his peers’ wellbeing, earning him a nomination for the VCE Leadership Awards.
“I didn’t expect it, I got nominated by a teacher and didn’t take much notice but now I’m one of six in the state.”
Grahamvale Primary School Year 6 student Darcy Mintern won this year’s Joseph Furphy junior poetry award.
A Hopeful Dream was inspired by the idea of a midnight clock counting down the minutes to Earth’s destruction.
Junior poetry judge Tru Dowling said she was “wowed” by Darcy’s poetic technique.
“Darcy handled the complex struggle between human destruction and hopeful effort with subtle beauty and thoughtfulness,” she said.
And St Mel’s Primary School student Elora Natalizio won the Greater Shepparton Story Writing Competition.
Elora, 11, was presented with a professionally published copy of her book When I Grow Up I’m Going to Be, which will now be included in the local book bag program, and given to nearly 1000 children.
University and TAFE
Earlier in the year, La Trobe University’s Shepparton campus hosted its first in-person graduation ceremony since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
At the ceremony, 110 students donned a cap to officially celebrate finishing their university degrees, including Stephanie Watson, who graduated from nursing in 2019.
“Just to celebrate with all your cohort — it’s really special,” she said.
Over at University of Melbourne’s Shepparton campus, they’re getting ready to welcome 30 new students to the campus who are undertaking the new Doctor of Medicine (Rural Pathway) next year.
Murchison local Isabella Trevaskis is one of them, keen to experience what rural study has to offer.
“I think compared to the city, we get a lot more hands-on experience,” she said.
At Goulburn Ovens Institute of TAFE, a repurposed semi-trailer transformed into a mobile classroom hit the road in November to improve access to training and career counselling for the regional and rural communities in northern Victoria.
GOTAFE board chair Diana Taylor said she hoped the mobile campus helped those who didn’t consider further education as an option.
“It will open up education to people who thought it wasn’t possible for them,” she said.
Shepparton News journalist