Principal’s Message

Dear Parents, Students and Teachers,

I hope that you enjoyed a relaxing break after a very busy end to Term 3, and welcome back in Term 4. Spring is here and I hope you have been enjoying the weather with blossoming trees and plants. I am amazed with how quickly roses in front of the school are growing.

The students have returned for the last term with energy and enthusiasm. It is a busy term with many events like the end of year graduation, VCE graduation and acknowledgement day. Year 12 students are having VCE exams this term. It will continue till 20th of November. I wish all the VCE students the best for their exams. I hope that they get the desired mark from each exam and their hard work will pay off. School is a place that should be remembered as mixture of fun and hard work. Junior students should develop the strong, positive relationships that our current and past Year 12 students have with their teachers. I would like to advise Year 11 students to put extra effort now and not stop working until they have finished their own Year 12 exams in just twelve months.

We had a wonderful, competitive as well as entertaining sports carnival last Tuesday. It was really great to see what students have been working on. The carnival showed us many things such as being a team, self-confidence, playing, organising and most importantly respect and passion. I saw how students respect their teachers and each other. Matthew Pattison has joined our organizing committee this year and his efforts have been commendable. A huge thank you to David Streets and Matthew for organizing this wonderful event and other teachers as well. As I mentioned before, quality teachers bring quality outcomes.

The International Festival of Language and Culture (IFLC) is an annual celebration and showcase the range of linguistic talents and cultural diversity from around the world. IFLC started in 2003 in Turkey with students from 17 countries. In 2014, 160 countries took part in the events across the world with more than 2000 participants. This year, the festival was held in Melbourne, for the third time, organised by Sirius College as part of its continuing support of multicultural Australia.

The purpose of the IFLC is to celebrate diversity and promote inclusion. This event provides participating students great opportunities to present aspects of their languages and culture with other students from around the world and to local audiences in host countries.

Sirius College is enthusiastic about promoting learning and social exchanges in support of peace, friendship and understanding in Australia. The college aims to support and promote fellowship and dialogue among youth, from a variety of backgrounds, in Australia. The festival displays our national treasure of diversity to all Australians and the global community.

We have organised provisions for participating students to engage with the one another and with the local community through social, cultural and educational activities. They have a chance to build strong ties and lasting friendships, which has been a wonderful outcome of all previous festivals.

We believe that respect, tolerance and goodwill are the keystones to enjoying the diversity of our world. We are all linked together in a world that we share and enjoy. Each member of humanity has a potential contribution to make to the whole. We strongly believe that it is our duty to encourage and promote positive contributions.

We tend create distance between ourselves and that which is considered foreign. Communities and nations tend to be defensive about cultures with which they are not familiar or in communication with. Dialogue is therefore the key to overcoming this state of communicative failure. Building connections through dialogue is the most fundamental step for achieving lasting, universal peace. Through dialogue, people can get to know each other as equals, which can in turn lead to stereotypes and fears being replaced by a sense of peace and fellowship. At the end of this event, we saw an emotional unity, representing the world in dialogue with each other. They may not speak the same language, but they speak through the universal language of art, dance and music.

I would like to convey my special thanks to Osayd Kashoa our school captain in 2020 for representing the college on the night. Also I would like to take this opportunity to thank all our teachers who participated and helped in the event.

Important dates:

Award ceremony for students and parents on 21st of November at Serenity.

Year 12 Graduation on 26th of November at Luxor Reception

A well-known scholar says: “Hope gives lives to people however despair kills. Never be hopeless.”

Thank you in anticipation for your support.