Arts Learning Area: Fashion Design

Following the Premier, the Hon Mark McGowan's, visit to Belridge last month, Emily Hamilton MLA returned recently to pass on ties kindly donated from the Premier for our Fashion Design Students to weave their magic on their next project ... we cannot wait to see what the students create!

APEX: Australia Teenage Fashion & Arts Festival 2019 - Belridge Shines Again!

Ten Fashion Design students had a very long, yet exciting, experience competing at the APEX State Finals competition on Saturday 24 August.  It is always a daunting experience when you see your competition on the day and the butterflies seem uncontrollable. 

Congratulations go to the following students who made it through to the State finals held this year at Lake Joondalup Baptist College, with their amazing work of arts!

I am so proud that ALL of our students did a fantastic job in representing Belridge.  Bonnie Kerslake (Year 10) won the Society & Environment category with her garment that represents the devastating impact of pollution on our marine creates. 

We are also delighted to report that Faith Reid (Year 12) received a Merit Award in recognition of her outstanding contribution and participation of three APEX events. 

Bonnie is now through to the 2019 National finals to be held at LCI Melbourne, located in suburb of Collingwood on Friday 18 October.  We wish you the very best Bonnie! Learn more about this prestigious event here

Wool4School 2019

Fashion Design students once again participated in this year's Wool4School national competition.  Wool4School encourages budding fashion designers to show the nationa what they are made of.  The competition is open to students from Years 7 to 12 and invites competitors to design an outfit using at least 80% of wool.  The outfit must contain one to four separate pieces and show the student's creative and innovate talent.  This year students were required to incorporate tecnology into their design. This could be by way of technology in fabrics, add-ons or design. Their design option was to be presented as a fashion illustration with annotations, show casing the chosen technology.  Congratulations to the following students whose entries were shortlisted as national finalists: 

Year 7 
Abigail Kruger 
Shelby Wighton

Year 8
Ayesha Manilay

Year 9 
Leuk Nelson-Marsden

Year 10
Ashley Lambert

Year 12
Sarah O'Neil
Faith Reid

Winners were announced at the end of August and we are delighted that Alicia Carlyon was the Year 8 National Runner-up!

An Honourable Mention was also awarded to Karolina Alarcon in Year 10 for her outstanding entry. 

Anna Dyer 
Dean of Arts

ATAR Drama Workshop

The ATAR Drama students for 2019 were fortunate enough to work with a professional actor and director, Caitlin Beresford-Ord from The Black Swan Theatre company on Friday 23 August.

The students participated in a workshop focusing on the approaches from practitioner Anne Bogart before moving onto developing ideas for the Original Scripted Performance. As part of the ATAR Course, students are required to write and perform their own 4-6 minute monologue. This can be a very stressful, nerve-wracking and an overwhelming task to complete. Caitlin’s focus for the day was to build student confidence and performance skills to prepare students for a successful practical exam coming up at the end of this term.

Belridge students found this intensive day highly beneficial and are now feeling more confident in their own work!

Calisthenics State Champion

A big congratulations to Nikkita Koertzen (Year 12) who recently competed in the 2019 ACF National Calisthenics Championships held in Perth. Nikkita has been training for this event all year and was awarded second place in her Senior Calisthenics Solo, giving her the title of Runner-Up National Champion. Although she was the youngest competitor in the section, Nikkita performed her dynamic and physically challenging routine with ease as she dances to the powerful song “Survivor”. Miss Currie was fortunate enough to see Nikkita compete in this competition and has invited Nikkita to perform her routine at the end of year dance showcase.

Nikkita has also been selected to compete at the 2019 Royal South Street Eisteddfod, a prestigious national event to be held in Ballarat later this year.

We congratulate Nikkita on her wonderful results and wish her all the best as she prepares for the upcoming competition.

Heather Currie
Peforming Arts & Dance Teacher

Write a Book in a Day 2019

On Friday 26 July, three groups of our students took part in the Kids' Cancer Project's Write-a-Book-in-a-Day Challenge.  They spent twelve hours in the library writing and illustrating children's books which will be distributed to children's cancer wards around Australia.

As part of the challenge, the groups are given a set of parameters which they adhere to in the process of writing their books. Each group has different parameters, but all must contain the same five words exactly as they are given them - this year the words were: Community, Skipped, Magic, Canvas and Sings. The parameters for each group are as follows:

Year 10 Fab 5 - "Fox and Locks"
Primary Character 1 - Web developer
Primary Character 2 - Baggage handler
Non-Human Character - Fox
Setting - Hidden garden
Issue - Cracking the Code

Year 11 - "The Sydney Harbour Hoax"
Primary Character 1 - Hairdresser
Primary Character 2 - Baseball Player
Non-Human Character - Kangaroo
Setting - Sydney Harbour Bridge
Issue - A hoax

Year 12 Magnificent Seven - "Phoney Observatory"
Primary Character 1 - Security guard
Primary Character 2 - Anesthetist
Non-Human Character - Mobile phone
Setting - Observatory
Issue - The missing teachers

In addition to this, all stories must have elements which identify them as Australian. I'm thrilled to say that all groups produced some fantastic stories with great writing and well thought out plots. They worked fantastically as teams and all seemed to enjoy the experience, despite the very long day. This year was an extra challenge as nearly 7 hours in we lost power; students worked without power for an extra 2 hours and were granted permission to finish on the Monday.

As part of this, the teams work to raise funds – these funds allow the students to enter their books into a competition against other schools, but more importantly, every cent raised goes directly towards supporting research towards a cure for cancer and the families of children with cancer. We cannot be more thankful to all sponsors we’ve had this year, in particular our major sponsors: Sarah Osborne, Mi-Lin Finnie, Sweatal Shah (at Northern Osteopathy), Joanne Baker & Kieran Baker and Par Excellence. Thank you as well to everyone else who made a donation towards this amazing cause – every little bit makes a world of difference.

The experience this year was fantastic for all involved, and we look forward to updating everyone with positive news once the competition side of things is finalised later in the year!

Mrs Lisa de Ponte
Literature Teacher

Belridge Celebrates Book Week

Book Week is a national celebration designed to bring children and books together, Together, the Library and English Learning Area run activities throughout the week, designed to get staff and students talking about books, and celebrating their love of reading. The Library hosted a "Book Chat" luncheon, where representatives from Dymocks shared information about new releases and put the latest CBCA Book of the Year finalists, a literature-themed colouring-in contest was run, and a school-wide Book Week Quiz was won by Ms Trinke's form (led by Jakob Van Der Plas) who got 100%!

The culmination of the week's celebration is always the Book Week luncheon, hosted by the English learning area. Students who dress as characters from books are treated to lunch and parade their fantastic costumes. Teachers also get it on the act, with a number of teachers celebrating their favourite books, which is always really appreciated by the students.

Next year's Book Week will have the theme of "Curious Creatures, Wild Minds", and will be celebrated from 22-28th August.

Joanne Baker
Head of English 

Humanities & Social Sciences Learning Area

Geography Fieldwork

Year 11 ATAR geography students are currently studying the diffusion of complex manufactured goods, and have been studying fast food as a part of this. Students completed their fieldwork at McDonald’s and Hungry Jack’s to better understand the use of technology to produce fast food and changes made for the local population that have helped these transnational corporations diffuse all over the world.

The Year 11 general and Year 12 ATAR geography students, studying regions, have been busy completing their fieldwork in Perth. Students explored Claisebrook, Northbridge and the Perth CBD during a day excursion. The highlights of the day included field sketching Optus Stadium from Claisebook and experiencing the Perth shopping malls and arcades.

Chloe Ironmonger and Ryan Stevens
Geography Teachers

Australian Geography & History Competition

Each year, students from Belridge participate in the Australian Geography competition and the Australian History competition. Each year, without fail, we have a number of students achieving excellent results in these national competitions.

Three candidates in the Geography competition achieved outstanding results. Two of our Year 10 students were ranked in the Top 1% of the country: Max Burke Rowe and Oscar Longworth Baker did exceptionally well.  Kai Spencer in Year 8 achieved results in the Top 2% of the nation. Several students across Year 8 and 10 achieved High Distinctions: Riley Bonolo, Will Johnson and  Kade King in Year 10, and in Year 8; Jamie Leahy, Ethan Gordon, and Amalea Williams. Several students cross the years also attained Distinctions and Credits.

Our Year 9 students participated in the Australian History Competition and we would like to acknowledge the following students who achieved Distinction: Alice Abrehart, Zach Doolan Buchanan, Jorja Huntley, and Kyle Pearce.

The Belridge School Community is very proud of the achievements of these students and congratulates them on their excellent results. We also thank all students who participated and gave their best efforts to the competition.

Virginia Linto
HOLA Humantities & Social Sciences 

Student Report: Amanda Young Eco-Health Leader's Summit

Wow! Where do I even start? This camp changed my life ... Amanda Young was an average teenager in WA, and I learnt later that we had the same teachers, just 28 years apart. She died at the age of 18 in 1997 from a disease called meningococcal, only 36 hours after showing any signs of illness. The Amanda Young Foundation was founded in her honour to raise awareness about meningococcal.  The Eco-Health Summit I had the privilege to attend, has been going for 18 years now with 700 plus students having attended this camp, held at Penhros College. The Summit focused on leadership skills, communication and education and we had a very eventful 4 days.

42 of us walked in on a raining Monday arvo to Penhros College, and I still remember Mike (one of the organisers) saying “In four days’ time, you will be feeling very differently about the 41 other people in this room”.  He was right. It started with an activity, made by Mike himself, where you took apart a wooden car and put it back together, in under 45 seconds.  It moved to psychology and a theory exercise called Myers – Briggs indicator type, that tests personality types. I’ve included a table here:

I ended up being ISTJ. There’s plenty online about Myers-Brigg and it taught me a lot about how people are different in how they operate and learn. And it gave me a new outlook onto how I should be working with others in the future. We learnt more about psychology in the following days and delved into the intricacies of our own mind within this society.

Tuesday started early, at 6am, with some Tai Chi to start the day and breakfast. We moved onto another activity where we communicated with a code, a code we invented not 30 minutes before (beware of #707). Next, we threw around some teddies, passed water around, kicked volleyballs and got flustered. Water was spilt on my new friends’ jacket and some teddies were dropped, but we had fun. Lastly, we had free time and a 42 person volleyball game was organised.

Wednesday started at 5am when someone set an alarm wrong, went for a run and set off every alarm on campus … thanks Jack! Wednesday included some heartfelt words on what we thought of each other. And it ended with a presentation from Greenbatch (a plastic recycling company located in Perth). Finally, we talked to Catie and Alisha about life after high school.

Thursday ended in tears, but it started at 6am with some yoga. We spent the day enjoying our final hours at this school with our new found friends. After making a presentation, we had to present on what we chose. Tears were shed and promises to catch-up were made. We all eventually left and a long walk to the train station followed.

I’d do it all again.  It was refreshing and re-invigorating to be in such a positive environment. I’d recommend this camp to anyone who gets the chance, even though it takes up four days of the holidays, I can guarantee you won’t regret it. Sometimes you have to take a chance on events. I knew no-one at the start, but now I’ve got 41 new friends.

Jamie Attree (Year 11)

Wear it Purple Day

Belridge turned purple on Friday the 30th of August for Wear it Purple Day. Wear it Purple day strives to foster supportive, safe, empowering and inclusive environments for our LGBTIQA+ young people. This year’s theme was 'Stand Up Stand Out'. It is a great opportunity to Stand Up to the language of hate that has dominated the media recently and to Stand Out by fostering a safe and inclusive environment. As a member school for inclusive education WA, Belridge Secondary College is making a visible commitment to supporting diversity. There were a number of activities throughout the day to show that the Belridge SC community supports, acknowledges and provides a sense of belonging for our LGBTIQA+ students.

Student Stars in the Making!

State Reps!

There must be something in the water! We wish the following students the best of luck in representing WA in the following sports:

Golfing Champ!

Congratulations to Rory McKinney (Year 10) on winning the U18s Junior Golf Championships for 2019 - what a fantastic achievement! We will be watching Rory's progress closely.

Young Originals Exhibition

Congratulations to Camille Bates (Year 10) whose artwork was selected for the prestigious Young Originals exhibition at ECU, Mount Lawley.  Photo to follow in next newsletter. 

Netball Academy 

On Friday 30th August we took 5 teams from Year 7 to Year 10 to the Multicultural Netball Carnival held at Perth Netball Association. The Multicultural Carnival is a one-day event held by Netball WA. The carnival promotes participation and engages players from a wide variety of ethnicities to foster their netball skills in a fun and encouraging environment.

The Multicultural Carnival is a celebration of WA’s cultural diversity and requires 5 participants with 1 or more parents born overseas or to identify as an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander on court at all times. We took a total of 50 students who meet these requirements.

112 teams from across the state battled it out on the court across the day, with us, Belridge Secondary College being the most successful school of the day. The event is catered for those of all skill level and experience, with the carnival boasting 19 divisions.

All girls also participated in Wear It Purple Day by wearing purple ribbon in their hair and rainbow bands on their wrists. The girls were lucky enough to get a photo with the West Coast Fever players who also attended on the day. The following four teams ended up winning their division.

Year 7 - Belridge Black
Year 8 - Belridge Yellow
Year 9/10 - Belridge Blue
Year 9/10 - Belridge Red

Thank you to the following Year 12 students who assisted on the day by umpring and coaching; Kayla Ashworth, Ebbie Carter, Charlie Kinsella, Nikkita Koertzen, Aisha Mayhew and Kaisee Pollock. 

Janneke Markovic
Netball Coordinator

2019 Interhouse School Athletics Carnival 

The 2019 Inter-House Athletics Carnival was held on Friday 6 September. The early signs were that is was always going to be an awesome day, when the weather was absolutely beautiful with clear, warm and still conditions.

The day ran smoothly and with minimal issues, which is testament to the many, many people who helped in the weeks leading up to the carnival organisation. Thank you to everyone involved in any way, shape or form in the organisation and running of the Athletics Carnival.

Students conducted themselves amazingly, and it was a great experience to witness so many keen and enthusiastic competitors trying their best and having fun. The participation numbers escalated this year with students getting involved in all events, which was great to see. Well done to the following medal recipients for all year groups:

Congratulations to Marlins, who were the winning house on the day with a total of 3185 points. Runners up on 2626 were Sharks and Manta Rays not to be forgotten in 3rd finishing on 2451 points.

Congratulations to the Year 12s and on some great outfits and competing in the full 1980’s costumes.

At the end of the day, the female staff relay team competed in the senior school relay race placing 2nd in the event. The male staff relay team made up for their dismal showing to win the senior boys relay comfortably.

Thank you to all staff and students who made the day memorable for all. It was already great to see 60+ parents who attended and supported the day.

The Interschool Athletics Team will be selected ready to represent Belridge SC in the C Division. The interschool carnival will be held on Monday 21 October. 

The Health & Physical Education Staff

Girls Footy: Year 7 to 9 Freo Dockers School Girls Cup Metro North Competition 2019

The Year 7-9 Belridge girls football team were extremely successful in their first season playing the Freo Dockers School Girls Cup Metro North Competition. The girls made it all the way through until the semi final, but unfortunately came up against a formidable opponent in football specialist school Wanneroo. It was an amazing game to watch and the girls showed tremendous fighting spirit. Congratulations to Wanneroo who went on to beat Irene McCormack in the grand final.

Team: Sophie Murray, Niamh Gallagher, Lily Atkinson, Leuk Nelson-Marsden, Layla Archer, Kristin Dolzan, Karla Stagg, Jorja Huntley, Jess Medwin, Erin O'Brien-Forbes, Elli Van den Broeke, Ella Wardlaw, Beth Turner, Baylee Skinner, Arwen Deans, Alina Moore, Dewi Van De Peppel, Jess Harrold, Reese Semler and Tisha Ansell. 

Assistants: Bianca Webb, Jess Davis, Abbey Boliver, Mahalia Woolterton, Ava Martin.
Coaches: Lisa Pignatiello, Corina Fordham, Ryan Stevens

Tell us your news ....

We are always interested in what Belridge students are achieving outside of school life.  Email nicola.harris@education.wa.edu.au to keep us in the loop! 

Year 7 BYOD Program 2020

Is your child commencing Year 7 in 2020?  If so, orders have now opened for the BYOD Program through our preferred supplier, CDM. Key dates as follows:

If you have not received details on how to place your order, please contact the front office on 9408 8000 asap.  Any questions relating to BYOD should be directed to CDM by email to daid@cdmaust.com.au