Message from the President

125 Years in 2015

In 2015 Kingswood College celebrates a major milestone of 125 years, and warmly welcomes the community to join in our celebrations.

Please put the following key dates in your diaries:

Saturday 28 February I Open Day at Kingswood College

Monday 13 April - Sunday 26 April I Archives Exhibition, Box Hill Community Arts Centre

Saturday 25 July I Gala Dinner, Leonda By The Yarra Hawthorn. Bookings open February 2015

Saturday 10 October I Community Fair, Kingswood College

More details will be available in the coming months.

Wyvernian profile - Hannah Pho

Hannah Pho was a Kingswood College pupil from Kinder to Year 6, and resident of Piedmont Street—a close neighbour of the College. She is the youngest of four girls, all former Kingswood College students, and now all are teachers or studying teaching.

Miriam teaches at MLC; Naomi teaches English at Cambridge International College; and Phoebe now teaches in Kingswood College’s Junior School.

Hannah loved her time at the College. She particularly remembers how inclusive the College was: her small Junior School class included several students with a large range of learning abilities and many different cultural backgrounds, from those new to Australia to different faiths. This amazing diversity was particularly influential, as Hannah learned very early to be accepting of others: in fact, not just to be accepting of people’s different backgrounds, but to celebrate them too. The community was so accepting, and you could be friends with everyone.
 

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World Mental Health Day is on Friday 10 October

As a College community we will be holding a Relay for Mental Health throughout the the day and we would like you to be involved.

Throughout the day, a variety of students will be walking around the oval, highlighting the positive correlation between physical activity and mental health.

All parents are welcome and encouraged to participate in the walk at any stage during the day. The Relay will commence at 9.00am and continue until 6.00pm.

The day will culminate in a BYO dinner/picnic at 5.30pm, when families can come together to celebrate our wonderful community. This event recognises the importance that a sense of belonging to a community and companionship has in relation to mental wellbeing.

Bottle for Botol

Kingswood College students are helping the environment by selling reusable water bottles.  The Bottle for Botol project aims to reduce the amount of pollution in Bali from single use plastics.

Bottles are $20 each and for every bottle sold, a student in Bali also receives a reusable water bottle for free, helping them to reduce the amount of plastic going into the oceans.
Click here to buy a reusable bottle

Click here to purchase a bottle

Final Destination for Uniforms

Kingswood College has a new sports uniform which all students are now proudly wearing.

Rather than throw the old sports uniforms out, Year 7 student Maddy Lerk had an idea!
Maddy mobilised students across the College to donate their old uniforms to Skills Opportunity Survival in Kenya (SOSK), a charity that works with children and women in Kenya.

All students across the College were encouraged to donate their old uniform which would be given to students at the Church on the River School in Kenya who had no uniforms.

After six months of donations, and collecting old uniforms across the College, a shipment was prepared to go to Kenya. 

More than 1,000 items of clothing had generously been donated to the cause, and the piles of clothes had taken over the Lerk’s living room!

Maddy, Carol and Andrew worked tirelessly to organise the seemingly simple, but incredibly complex task of getting the uniforms to the children in Kenya. After months of negotiations and many obstacles, the uniforms finally reached their destination…the students at Church on the River School.

Christie Faulks, founder of SOSK said the process was certainly not pain-free however from all reports, the children love their outfits and are as proud as punch!  Looking at some of the little ones, there is plenty of growing room ....they look smart.

A fantastic effort by Maddy and the Lerk family, as well as all members of the College community who donated their old uniforms, in a collective effort to make a difference in the lives of others.

Wyvernian Profile - Maree Abonyi

Maree Abonyi is a former Kingswood College teacher who retired in 2013 after 38 years with the College. Maree’s degree, a double major in biochemistry and microbiology at first led her to work as a microbiologist in London and Melbourne. During a career break to have her four children, thinking about how to manage years of school holidays, she did her DipEd. Her first job, while her youngest child was just a year old, was a part-time position as senior biology teacher at Kingswood College.

Since then, Maree taught Years 11 and 12 biology and chemistry and really enjoyed it. Staff stay at Kingswood College a long time: many of the Senior School staff had had other careers before teaching, and many had their whole teaching careers at the College. Maree liked being in the classroom with the senior students, and didn’t want to move out, although she did take on other roles, such as 15 years as Year 12 coordinator and managing the alumni. Working with the Wyvernians has been very rewarding as many former students have described how their adult lives were inspired in her classroom. And of course there are those students who introduce themselves in the dentist’s waiting room… She still misses the students.

Read the full article

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