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Year 8 Geography Fieldwork

May 11, 2016, 6:54 pm
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What kind of new residential development would a student in Year 8 plan? This was the context of fieldwork for the day. Students visited Beacon Cove, Port Melbourne taking in the high rise modern apartments on the coastal promenade and then to the stylish town houses sitting behind. 
Students were kept busy measuring street width, house frontages and identifying the style of the houses.

From there they travelled to their 'development site' - a blank canvas under the Bolte Bridge. We followed this by a thorough examination of South Wharf's latest residential location: Yarras Edge a MIRVAC development. Landscape design, streetscape and sustainability were of key interest to the budding planners!

So what plans have they come up with? You will have to wait and see just like me!

Marg Bourke

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Kingston Division Cross Country

May 17, 2016, 4:02 pm
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On Wednesday May 18th the Kingston Cross Country was held at Karkarook Park. McKinnon fielded strong teams in all age groups and had some wonderful results. 











17-20 Boys - Team 1st
1st Will Ockenden - record time
4th Max Putamorsi
5th Jack Strangio
7th James Hackett
11th Matty George
12th Aristotle Otis

17-20 Girls - Team 1st
1st Sophie Highnam
2nd Freya Parker
5th Emily Riordan
6th Bella Lignos
7th Mikaela Sharman-Smith
9th Melina Ayres
10th Zhara Sangoor
12th Kira Brooks
15th Chantelle Malton

16 Boys - Team 1st
1st Lachie Arniel
2nd Michael Koletsas
4th Freddie Turner
10th Alex Boul
11th Joe Inglis
12th Josh Boul


16 Girls
5th Kelly Liu
10th Catrin Watkins
11th Angela Chen
12th Natasha Glocer
13th Chloe Sloman


15 Boys - Team 1st
2nd Jason Clayton
3rd Sam Kristensen
7th Jasper Jorgensen
8th Ben Howells
9th Harry Mouzakis
14th Kya Austin

15 Girls
3rd Eleanora Gilbert
6th Gemma Strangio
8th Emma Hattingh
13th Sami Ginsberg
14th Lara Van Zyl
15th Sienna Beaves

14 Boys - Team 1st
1st Will Sharp - Record Time
4th Will Atchison
9th Levi Scholz
11th Daniel Chepurov
13th Nathan Smith
14th Edden Zohar


14 Girls
1st Genevieve O'Brien
3rd Kat Hart


13 Boys
1st Adam Paliatsos
5th Aurelien Cornelis
12th Aithan Theofilopoulos
14th Oskar Nolan


13 Girls - Team 1st
2nd May Landau
3rd Jessica Ginsberg
4th Elise McDavitt
9th Tara Bajan
18th Tobie Webster


Summary = 55 Runners through to the SMR Finals to be held at Ballam Park on Thursday 23rd June. 
Winning Teams = 6 out of the 10 categories
Individual Winners = 6 out of the 10 races

James Bridges/Chris Hudd

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Intermediate Softball - State Finals

May 17, 2016, 5:57 pm
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The Intermediate Softball Team started their campaign to State finals on the 18th April where they convincingly won the Kingston Division Championships, they then played at the Southern Metro Finals on the 25th April, again they easily won their group game placing them in the final against Glen Eira, after a close 1st innings the team dominated the following 2 innings resulting in their SMR victory. The state finals were then played on the 17th May. The team played exceptionally well against some tough opposition, they won one of their group games, but unfortunately didn’t make the final. Some highlights from the day were a home run that Jemma Owen smashed out of the park, Lilly Felder taking an amazing catch resulting in a double play and Olivia Whithead and Lara Van Zyl with some excellent pitching and catching.


Congratulations to all members of the team on an excellent season: Cate Bell, Anna Donnelly, Rose Evers, Lilly Felder, Katrina Gill, Evie Krieger, Sarah MacRae, Sophie Muller, Jemma Owen, Lara Ozenir, Amanda Sarikoudis, Lara Van Zyl, Olivia Whitehead.

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Intermediate Boys Squash

May 18, 2016, 10:04 pm
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The college sent 4 teams to the Regionals.  All teams were very competitive.

Congratulations to McKinnon Team A consisting of  Ben Solly, Matia Fernandez and Alex O'Neill.

This team finished 3rd in pool A and played against Dromana in an nail biting final.





It was a hard fought match which went down to the wire.  The score was 1 rubber all going into the 3rd and final game to decide who was going to the State Finals.

Ben held his ground in the deciding match and won 27-25.

The team now progresses to State on 4th August!

Congratulations to all players on being fine ambassadors for the school

Thankyou to Mrs Hooper for coaching/supporting us

All the best at the State Titles

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Cabaret Night

May 18, 2016, 10:10 pm
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Celebrating the upcoming tour to Cuba, Cabaret Night proved to be yet another success for the Senior Stage Band. Proving to be an fun experience for the band and an enjoyable evening for all who attended.

The band performed multiple sets, ranging from upbeat funk to groovy rhumbas, featuring Ella Zagroon as the band's vocalist.



Later in the evening, they were joined by the Senior Singers, who together with the band performed jazz standards to rapturous applause.

The night also featured the teacher's band "Duck and Cover" as well as "The Slick Licks", which included former students Moran Zhou and Jack Doherty­ Brown.

Family and friends danced the night away as we farewell the group on their amazing 2 week adventure.

Senior Stage Band Captains

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School Community Awareness Presentation at the Bentleigh RSL

May 24, 2016, 2:53 pm
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The Bentleigh RSL hosted a School Community Awareness Presentation on Thursday the 19th of May, aimed at strengthening links with schools in the local community.

McKinnon S.C was well represented by the Junior School Captain Team of Xavier and Arwen Verdnik, Adam El Horri and Anna Chapman. Bentleigh RSL President Ian Butcher spoke about the numerous programs and initiatives run by the RSL, including exercise programs for returned personnel, weekly social lunches and assisting with the upkeep of homes through scheduled gardening services, installing emergency key boxes and maintaining smoke detectors.

Ex-Army officer Grant Coultman-Smith from the Vietnam Veterans Association spoke of his time fighting in the Vietnam War, showing us the equipment he would carry during combat, weighing 50kg on average, sometimes up to 65kg! Ninety year old WWII veteran George [unsure of surname] served in the Australian Air Force, flying in and out of Darwin on radar flights during the war, before running major operations for oil giant Mobil.

We left the session with a greater understanding of all the work the RSL does for returned personnel and how our help through making donations and volunteering goes a long way in providing comfort and assistance to those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for Australian's today.



Mr Paul King.

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Senior Music Concert

May 18, 2016, 6:40 pm
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On May 19th, McKinnon’s most experienced musicians gathered in the hall to present the first of our ensemble concerts for 2016.

It was a very busy night for some individual student performers as well as being a very enjoyable and entertaining evening for an enthusiastic audience. The varied program included performances from many of the school’s senior performing ensembles.

Opening the concert was the Symphony Orchestra splendidly conducted by Tracy Videon. Our other groups performing were: the Symphonic Wind Band, conducted by Su Rogerson with guest appearance from Head of Music, Martin West; Flute Choir, conducted by Bernadette Russo; the String Quartet directed by Clare Bugeja and the Senior Singers, directed by Blanka West.

The concert also featured two very talented VCE soloists: Jessica Earls on xylophone and Matt Simos on vibraphone. The Senior Stage Band, directed by Dmitry Serebrianik presented a dynamic set to close the evening.

It was a wonderfully musical night celebrating some multi-talented performers and some excellent ensemble playing.

Martin West

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Year 7 History Museum Day

May 19, 2016, 3:45 pm
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On Friday May 20 the MYST centre was completely transformed by enthusiastic Year 7 History students into the bi-annual Year 7 History Museum Day. Year Seven History students were allocated an ancient civilisation and told to prepare a museum exhibit which was creative and engaging. It certainly was with one teacher apparently telling all her friends about what she saw all weekend !


Classes involved on the day were  7B, 7D, 7F, 7H, 7J, 7l and 7N . Each class was allocated an ancient  civilisation from either Rome, China, Mayans/Aztecs, Egypt, Mesopotamia, India and Greece. Within each class students worked in small groups showcasing a particular aspect of that civilisation and had to make an artefact, poster and a podcast to show to visitors on the day. It was a huge success and an enjoyable morning with many interesting displays. Students had to work in small groups, create questions to be answered and provide feedback to the creators of each exhibit. Teachers who visited were amazed at the quality but they should not be surprised by the quality of work and creativity displayed by the Year 7s!


Students also visited other civilisations so they not only learned about their own civilisation and particular feature they focused on but had the opportunity to visit six other civilisations on the day. It was really an amazing day and one that the students will long remember. I thank all the Year 7s who were involved on the day for their efforts and to the teachers who supported them, particularly Mr Matt Shaw and Mr Dean Marsh. I would also like to thank Mr Andrew Krause for his excellent photography on the day, some of which can be seen here. It was a great display of what happens when you give young people some creative licence and it was a superb effort by all the Year 7s involved. Im already looking forward to the Semester 2 version !


Thanks
Dean Marsh, Matthew Shaw and Jonathan Jhoomun ( Year 7 History team)

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Language Perfect Champions

May 25, 2016, 4:30 pm
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McKinnon Secondary College are World Champions, winning the biggest language learning competition in the world.

Starting on Monday the 16th of May and finishing on the 26th of May, Mckinnon students were able to participate in the Language Perfect World Championships.

Our school has competed over the last 3 years along with over 1,200 other schools. In 2014 we finished 30th in the world. Last year we were ranked 4th in the world. This year we managed to exceed our expectations finishing in 1st place.

With over 1,200 students participating we earned ourselves a score of 1,023,625, having answered almost 3,000,000 questions. This equated to almost 20,000 hours of language learning over the 10 days of the competition.

Our students learned 20 different languages finishing 2nd overall for French, 2nd overall for German and also 2nd overall for Russian.

The commitment and curiosity that our students showed was incredible. We had 14 students earn themselves an elite award placing them in the top 3% of participants. However, a special mention must go to our top 2 students who, with over 34,000 points each placed within the top 15 students in the world. Ula Xu, in Year 8, finished 15th out of over 300,000 students. But our champion from last year did it again. Phoebe Dunn finished 12th in the world and demonstrated her love and commitment to language learning.

We also had almost 60 teachers participating across the 10 days, which made for a terrific atmosphere at school throughout the competition.

While we are really proud of this achievement, Mckinnon believes in providing every student with an opportunity to learn languages and we hope that even more students participate next year.

Mr Kamener


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Intermediate Boys Baseball

May 30, 2016, 3:01 pm
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After winning through three stages of competition, the Intermediate Boys Baseball team made it through the the state finals.

There were some tough games on the road to the State Finals, winning in extra innings against a talented and determined Cheltenham Secondary College in the Southern Metro Finals.

On Wednesday 25th May, the 15 boys travelled to Gilbert Park in Knoxfield to play off against the best in the state and to hopefully make it through to the final game of the day.

This was done with relative ease, despite some tough innings during the day. The scores against the opponents ended up being "a lot to a little" but only after McKinnon batters were able to breakthrough in the later innings of every game.

McKinnon got to the long-awaited final against Irymple Secondary College, from Mildura. The Sunraysia region is exceptionally strong for baseball and their representatives were no exception. Irymple got some early runs due to some clutch hitting and some McKinnon fielding errors. McKinnon found themselves behind but began to catchup in the thrid and fourth innings.

The opposition ultimately prevailed, however, the game was very hardly fought and many of our inexperienced players got some key hits to go along with the spectacular batting performances from Josh Meyer and Jarryd Dale.

It has been a long winter since the boys won their Year 7 and 8 state championships but I'm sure there will be another tilt at the title next year.

Mr Cukierman


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Skyler Kah - National Champion Men’s Gymnastics

May 30, 2016, 3:15 pm
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Since the age of 4 Skyler and his brother Josh, both McKinnon students, began their distinguished careers in sport.

Throughout their junior careers both brothers have spent years in Gymnastics State Squads, with Skyler continuing on to represent Victoria at National Championships over the past few years.

If these achievements weren’t enough, the boys are also highly decorated Short track speed skaters (ice skating) and are hoping to qualify for the Junior World Championships held next January. It is on the ice skating arena where Skyler suffered a serious accident, nearly severing his hand.





With some extraordinary resilience and determination Skyler managed to qualify in 1st place in the two Gymnastics State team qualifying competitions recently to qualify for this year’s National Championships.

The Australian Championships were held recently at the Hisense Arena (22­-27 May). It was also the qualifying event for the Rio Summer Olympic team for International Level 10 gymnasts. Skyler competed across two days, on Friday 27th May in the Teams’s event, and on Saturday 28th May in the Individual Apparatus finals.

His Victorian team collected bronze medals, finishing 3rd on the Friday in the teams event. However it was on the Saturday where Skyler shone the brightest, winning the Gold medal in the Floor event, and the Silver medal in the Pommel.

Skyler will continue to train for gymnastics but will cut his hours back to complete VCE in 2017, which he is working towards with the same determination.

We congratulate Skyler for his wonderful success, and wish him all the best in his future sporting endeavours.

Mr Hudd.

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Year 11 Theatre Studies

June 14, 2016, 5:43 pm
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On Wednesday 27th. April. the Year 11 Theatre Studies class presented self-devised performances in the style of Commedia dell’arte. The theatre was almost filled to capacity and the friendly audience were entertained throughout the evening.
The class all performed well and were left feeling proud of their efforts and achievements. Congratulations to them all.
The program ran as follows:

1.L’ospendale de la Manicomio
Thomas Hanna, Nick Lampos, Bridget Schwerdt, Amanda Woods

2. Un fruttivendolo chiamato desiderio
Matt George, Kane O’ Donnell, Maggie Rose Scott-Hill, Savanna Wegman

3. No She Isn’t
Eshley Baker, Maddi Brown-Graham, Brinda Manogaran, Eli Tahana, Irene Tartiris

4. Il Matrimonio

Courtney Donald, Justine McKelvie, Henry Xiong, (absent Pedro Aguliera)


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Year 10 Drama Night

June 14, 2016, 5:45 pm
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The Year 10 Drama Night Performance was held on Thursday 27th. May and was well attended by supportive family and friends and Mrs. Binnion. The program offered a diverse range of performances and made the audience laugh, and cry. Most of the groups had written their scripts themselves and should be proud of what they were able to achieve in a very short amount of time. The entire class should be proud of their efforts, achievements and developing talents. Congratulations on a truly wonderful night!
The program ran as follows:



Act 1

1. Worlds Collide
written based on an episode of Seinfeld and performed by
Cam Duncan, Jake Roberts, Justin Tang, Thom Van Breda

2... Psychological
written and performed by
Sabrina Hua, Alex Glasheen, Kate Collier, Rony Olesh, Chelsea Parish, Sapna Sharma,

3. Bus-stop
written and performed by
Cailyn Harris, Zoe Manning, Erica Stavrinos

INTERVAL

Act 2

1. Cyril
written by Ms. Doctor and performed by
Asker Hohwy Barclay: Cyril Bills
Anna Rhind: Mary Bills
Tahli Edwards: Clara Burnette

2. The Park
written and performed by
Tash Glocer, Amy Price, Jack Richardson, Lili Soprano

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Year 8 Science - Miss Edwards

June 16, 2016, 3:26 pm
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Last week in Miss Edwards’ Year 8 Science class students were given a choice to complete a creative task around the topic of elements. Students had many different options to choose from such as; create a rap, poem, 3D model, mind-map, crossword or anything else they deemed creative. On presentation day, I was amazed at the creative work they had put together.

Stavi Modelevich created an interactive periodic table from a 3D printer! As you can see in the image provided; Stavi had created electron shell diagrams for the first 20 elements of the periodic table and depicted the element symbol inside each shell. Each electron shell is interactive and moveable. Stavi explained to the class that he first created it online using a 3D printer program. Well done Stavi! Very impressive work.



Hamish Jobling also blew us away with his humongous 3D model of a carbon atom. He explained to the class where the protons, neutrons and electrons exist and defined how many are found in a carbon atom. Well done Hamish!

Erisha Tayal took to a bit of poetry with this incredible piece of work that she presented to the class. A scientific poet is on the rise! Well done Erisha!

Josie Alfawwal created a hip-modern rap piece that explored the first 20 elements of the periodic table. We even had a member of the class beat-box for her! Well done Josie!

Kelvin Nguyen& Alex Mantle took to the stage with their very own ‘Stand Up Comedy’ piece. My favourite joke was ‘Q: What is it called if the Queen of England farts? A: A noble gas’. Well done Kelvin & Alex!

Ethan Ferry also did an incredibly entertaining rendition of the song ‘Firework’ by Katy Perry - but replaced the lyrics with scientific concepts related to the elements! Well done Ethan!

Mia Trauffler also did an amazing animation that you can see here
Animation

Miss Edwards

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Ultimate Frisbee - AYUC

June 16, 2016, 3:48 pm
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On the 11th and 12th of June, six Australian states and territories sent their best under 18 Ultimate Frisbee players to compete in the Australian Youth Ultimate Championships (AYUC) at Ron Barassi Park, Docklands. In this tournament, both boys and girls competed, representing Western Australia, South Australia, New South Wales, the ACT, Queensland (with only a boys team), and, of course, Victoria. All teams arrived at the fields at 8:00 am to warm up, and then, starting at 9:00, played games for the rest of the day.

Day 1, we, the under 18 Victorian girls team, lost all three of our games as it was our first time playing together, but the boys team won all three. That night, both Vic teams went out for a cheap Chinese meal. A good night's rest plus a few hundred dumplings later, we were back at it again. Bright and early on Sunday morning, the girls and I lifted our game and won all three matches, claiming Bronze for Victoria. And the Vic boys, undefeated all weekend, got into finals and won against New South Wales, claiming Gold! They are now ranked 1st in Australia.

Currently, there are Ultimate clubs and pods all over Melbourne so I urge you all to play. Many of the players in my team train and compete with their own school teams. It would be so much fun if we McKinnon students formed a team -- we could call ourselves “Ultimatum!” -- so we can join in the schools competitions as well as state and national competitions. It even looks like Ultimate will become an Olympic sport in the coming years. So let’s play.

Abby Bachrach-Cox
Co-Captain, Victorian U18s Women’s Squad

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French Exchange

June 16, 2016, 9:47 pm
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Since arriving in the early hours of Monday the 13th of June, the 20 French students have settled into life in Australia and at McKinnon.

They are accompanied by their teacher, Monsieur Frédéric Charvet. They began with an induction period on Tuesday morning, getting to know our school and the community.

They have followed their correspondants to classes, helped out in other French classes and have enjoyed special 'Australian' lessons run by generous teachers.

 Ms Papworth ran a lesson on Australian music, Mr Machin and Mr Cukierman taught them about Australian Politics and Mr Hughes informed them about the historical connections between France and Australia. They are looking forward to similar lessons next week.

They also went on an excursion to Point Nepean, walking the peninsular and experiencing the beauty of the region. Luckily, the sun was shining and it was a beautiful winter's day.

The program has started very positively and is sure to be an incredibly enriching experience for all involved.

Ms Dickson


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All Schools Cross Country

June 19, 2016, 8:59 pm
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On Saturday the 18th June at Bundoora Park, McKinnon was represented by 17 of our finest Cross ­Country runners at the Victorian All ­Schools Cross Country Championships. This competition is separate to our normal Government Schools competition. This competition includes all runners from all schools around the state, so our runners are up against the finest athletes that private schools have to offer.




Our day began with our team of Under 14 girls Jessie Ginsberg, May Landau, Elise McDavitt and Tobie Webster all running in this elite competition for the first time.

In the Under 15 girls, Genevieve O’Brien finished the 4km course in 15:03 minutes to finish 5th for her age
group and qualify for the Victorian team for the National Championships to be held in Canberra in August.

Eleanora Gilbert competed in the Under 16 event and finished strongly.

The next race, Under 15 and Under 16 boys, was huge for McKinnon with a total of 8 runners across two
teams, making McKinnon one of the most well represented schools in the race. Will Sharp came 14th in the
Under 15 event, and Jason Clayton finished 14th in the Under 16 event to likely qualify for the Victorian team for Nationals.

A special congratulations goes to our second finishing Under 15 boy Aurelien Cornelis from Year 7, who was asked to join the team the day before the event to fill in. He ran a fantastic race in the age group above his own, running a kilometre longer and helping our team out.

Well done to the other boys Daniel Chepurov, Edden Zohar, Harry Mouzakis, Sam Kristensen and Ben Howells who all ran great races.

Sophie Highnam raced in the Under 18 event and finished a fantastic 21st, and our final runner for the day was Will Ockenden who smashed his 6 kilometer event in a time of 19:29 minutes, leading for the first half of the race and eventually finishing in 4th place overall and qualifying for the Victorian team for the National Championships.

Well done to all our runners from the weekend, next stop is Thursday’s Southern Metro Regional finals for the School Sports Victoria competition.

Mr.Hudd, Miss Carter & Jack Highnam

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Victorian Rogaining Schools Competition

June 18, 2016, 3:49 pm
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On Sunday 19th of June 37 students embarked on our annual Victorian Rogaining Schools Competition. This year we had 13 teams which could have been viewed as unlucky turned out to be quite the opposite with our students coming home with two of the three shields, they being the Aggregate boys and the Aggregate mixed whilst our girls came in second in the Aggregate girls behind PLC.
The location was Creswick which had a mix of pine plantation, open eucalyptus forest and cleared pine plantation. This area was bisected by some very deep gullies that made navigation interesting. Controls ranged from locations on broad spurs through to creek intersections and knolls with a 90 pointer being on the edge of a dry lake bed.
The students travelled on average around 18 kms with some teams covering distances closer to 24kms.
A big thank you to the teachers who supported the teams both during training at school and also at the event.
Grace Greenwood, Stuart Baker, Lauren Mellios, Dean Marsh, Delmar Zachest.
We look forward to 2017 and more great adventures in the Goldfields region of Victoria.
Marg Bourke

The results are as follows:
Boys events
1st: Year 10 & under: Alex Hunter, Hamish Felder, Lachlan Arneil
2nd: Year 10  & under: Matthew Stephens, Lachlan Zachest, Jesse Marlow, Jack Mills
3rd: Year 10  & under: Darcy Zachest, Toby Marlow
1st: Year 11+: Patrick Brett, Andy Zahn


Girls events
2nd: Year 10  & under: Evie Krieger, Naomi Warren
3rd: Year 10  & under: Schuyler King, Hannah St John, Sienna Beaves, Arwen Verdnik, Sophie Van Doorn,
3rd: Year 11+: Anna Furdetska, Siobahn Halford


Mixed events
1st: Year 10 & under: Amit Ben-Harim, Anita Voloshin, James Hardy
1st: Year 11 +: Avinash Thandaoori, Bridget Schwerdt, Hayden Aizicowitz
2nd: Year 11 +: Angus Vasic, Cara Morgan


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SMR Cross Country

June 23, 2016, 7:07 pm
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On Thursday June 23rd, a windy and cold day greeted 50 McKinnon athletes at Ballam Park Frankston for the SMR Cross Country. McKinnon was well represented with 6 teams and many individuals competing for the school.

Results

Winners -
15 Boys Jason Clayton
14 Boys - Will Sharp
17-20 Boys - Will Ockenden

Runners Up - 
17-20 Boys Team
17-20 Girls Team
16-Boys Team
15 Boys team
13 Girls Team
17-20 Girls Sophie Highnam

3rd Place
Genevieve O'Brien

Other Top 10 finishers who qualify for the State Finals 
Josh Boul
Alex Boul
Freya Parker
May Landau
Eleanora Gilbert
Lachlan Arneil


The State Finals are on Thursday July 14th (1st week of term 3). Good Luck to all McKinnon runners!

James Bridges

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Antipodeans 2016

July 12, 2016, 8:29 pm
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After a year of planning and fundraising, thirty three Year 11s and four teachers left for China and Vietnam. The program is run through Antipodeans, who:

"take groups on a three or four week journey to a developing country where students learn to think on their feet, work together and gain real-world resilience. Through the program, students are empowered to work as a team as they make all travel decisions including where they get their next meal and which accommodation they will sleep in that night. The program includes a meaningful and sustainable community service project; a trek through inspiring terrain; and sightseeing – all while engaging with locals and their cultural traditions"

This year, there were two groups. One started in Hanoi, Vietnam and made their way overland to southern China. The other group did the inverse, starting in Kunming, China and ending in Hanoi. Both group spent four days trekking through the majestic Tiger Leaping Gorge in China. The mountain scenery was incredible and the guest house accommodation capitalised on these views. The trek itself was quite challenging as the group walked around 10 kilometres a day, at points climbing to altitudes over 2,700 metres above sea level.

The two groups visited Lijang, Shang Ri La and Kunming in China, eating delicious meals and learning about Chinese culture.

For the community service project, the two teams spent time in Vietnam working with small villages. Team 1 spent their four days outside of Hanoi, building the foundations for a family's home. Team 2 were in a village of the Red Dao people, an hour from Sapa in the rice terrace hills. There, they worked in a small school, building fences, garden beds and a concreted area so the kids didn't have to stand in the mud in the rainy season. Both communities were incredible grateful for the work of the McKinnon groups. Team 1 was even treated to a feast of one of the village pigs which was a huge compliment from an impoverished village. The project was also a change to connect with the local community and learn about their culture. Team 2 was treated to a musical performance, an embroidery lesson and a demonstration of how to make paper out of bamboo.

For all the students and teachers involved, it was an incredible experience.. Spending a night on a boat in Halong Bay was a highlight for many. The two teams saw, experienced and learnt so much and will hold on tightly to the stories and memories.

Mr Machin, Ms Dickson, Ms Kirk and Mr Reynolds

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