1489 Ignatian Newsletter - Friday 13 October 2023
Principal's Report
Term Four has commenced and, sadly, the time has come to farewell our Year 12 students. On Friday 13th October, Year 12 students will be farewelled at a House Assembly, where each Year 12 is acknowledged by their mentor teacher. This is the true strength of our vertical pastoral care system. Each student is known well by their mentor as, in most cases, the mentor has supported these students and worked in partnership with their families for their six-year journey at the College.
A few tears are usually shed at this assembly, as the reality of the transition out of Loyola College becomes all too real.
The House Assembly will be followed by a Year 12 barbeque in the Two Wolves Hub. A photobooth, dunking machine and jumping castle will provide entertainment. This will follow by the cutting of a cake to celebrate all that has been achieved and experienced in their time at the College. A year level photograph will be taken under the flagpole and the event will finish with a Year 12 video. The barbeque is a new initiative and I look forward to sharing this significant occasion with our students.
We look forward to our Graduation Mass and Dinner on Monday 19 October. This is a truly beautiful way to celebrate the end of a Loyola journey. I wish our Year 12 students well in this next stage and remind them that they will always be part of our Loyola community.
At this time of year, the following Irish blessing comes to mind:
May the road rise to meet you. May the wind be always at your back? And until we meet again, May God hold you in the palm of his hand.
New Crossing and Student Safety
Parents may have noticed that the council has provided a new crossing in Bungay Street. We ask that parents are mindful of not parking too close to the crossing and ensure they adhere to all road rules around crossings. It is important that speed limits are maintained and that cars stop to allow students to pass safely. We all have a shared responsibility to ensure the safety of our students.
The same expectation applies to parents who are using the Grimshaw Street drop off zone.
Thank you for your support in this matter.
Ice Bucket Challenge
I thank the students involved in organising the ice-bucket challenge on the oval. It was extremely entertaining, but more important the funds raised will be donated to Motor Neurone Disease research, a disease which impacts so many members of the Australian community.
Alison Leutchford,
Acting Principal
Student Voice
Year 10 Photographic Studio
Congratulations to a number of our Year 10 Photographic Studio students who had their work exhibited at The Royal Melbourne Show. This is a prestigious event, as both adults and young people from all over Victoria enter their creative works to be judged and admired by a large viewing audience.
Our students entered work in categories such as: Portrait, Nature and Landscape and Experimental photography.
In the Junior Year 9/10 Portrait category, Ben Stefanidis 10KJCU received 3rd prize overall for his self- portrait piece. In the Year 9/10 Architecture/Construction category Cynthia Lin 10XYKS received 3rd prize overall and Very Highly Commended.
Some other students who received Very Highly Commended, Highly Commended and Commended included: Jack De Carta 10CSJH, Grace Pyrohiw 10KJAT, Jesse Fan 10CAJG, Matilda Kelly 10FSKE, Damien Minutolo 10XEJS and Alex Parisi 10MSRC.
Many Royal Show attendees marvelled at the imaginative, artistic and thoughtful work of our students.
Mark Cuddon,
Visual Arts
Visual Art News
Year 12 Art student Allie Wardle, has been accepted to study Photography at the Northern College of the Arts and Technology (NCAT), in 2024. Allie, who participated in the new study design Making and Exhibiting course with Miss Carson this year, was able to maintain her pursuit and passion for the photographic art form from her Year 11 studies, both further developed throughout Year 12. Allie’s concepts use the lens of Reflection, to comment on often ill-perceived ideas and mis-interpretations about self, image and identity and as she observes, pervades social media imagery and gossip. She discusses Reflections as a personal way to assess her own values, belief systems and relationships through experimental studio-based compositions and inspiration from random and unplanned situations she finds in visited or distant landscapes and local places around Melbourne. Allie presented her folio of images made for her school assessments and attended an interview to gain one of only 15 places offered in the Photography course at NCAT.
Congratulations Allie on this major achievement.
Yenda Carson,
Visual Arts
ICT
Cybersafety Part 8: Cybersecurity – “How do you protect yourself against online scammers?”
When engaging in social networking, people post pictures, make catch-up plans with friends, and generally chat about what has been going on in life.
But, sadly, particularly now in this hyper-online connected world, social networking also offers a plethora of unscrupulous individuals and organised cybercrime syndicates an irresistible opportunity to gain access to people (e.g. via Facebook, Twitter, online gaming or via email) in an attempt to exploit and defraud them of their money.
Scamming is where one person, a cyber thief, pretends to have a legitimate financial need and exploits the generosity and naivety of another in order to obtain that person’s bank account or credit card details, with the ultimate aim of ripping money off that person.
How effective is home antivirus at stopping electronic scum and villainy such as viruses, worms and trojans from infecting and spying on the home computer and passing personal information back to cyber criminals? The truth is that there is no antivirus software or firewall in the world that can secure personal bank account details on a computer if these details are unknowingly and freely offered to phishing scammers! How? Read on…
Ever gone fishing? Throw out a line and wait for a bite. Hopefully the hook does its job and, hey presto, you have caught a fish! On the Internet this is called ‘phishing’ – same sound, different spelling; one is legal and the other is not, at least in most developed nations. It is what cyber criminals do – they try to trick children (and adults) into freely handing over their parent’s or their own credit card details. No firewall needed here!
What is interesting about this type of scam is that it does not ask you for money; rather, it asks permission to put money into your bank account – to then strip the account empty before anyone realises. But don’t be fooled; if the person is a stranger, then the person is most likely not a ‘friend’, but a ‘fiend’. These scams usually originate from organised crime syndicates operating in countries such as Nigeria and Russia, where there are no laws forbidding such practices, meaning there is no way for a person to get his/her money back!
If you receive such an email, add the sender to the email ‘blocked senders list’, then delete the email.
There is no substitute for parental involvement in a child’s online activities. Parents/guardians should establish an ongoing conversation with their children about their various online experiences, providing guidance whenever necessary. Importantly, parents/guardians might consider going online themselves and joining a social networking site or getting involved with friends in a chat room. Parents/guardians should be familiar with the space their children are playing in. You would not leave your child alone in the park, would you?
To learn more about banking scams, go to https://www.esafety.gov.au/women/life-admin/banking. Complaints about general content on the Internet can be made to the new Office of the Children’s eSafety Commissioner at https://www.esafety.gov.au/report.
Victor Dalla-Vecchia,
ICT Manager