Our annual Awards Night held at the City of Kingston Town Hall in Moorabbin on Thursday 13 December was such a wonderful celebration of achievement of Personal Best. We had the opportunity to celebrate student successes in a variety of areas such as Academic Excellence, Achievement Endeavour, the Arts &Technology, Sport and Community Involvement.    High quality entertainment was also provided by students in the areas of Music and Dance. It was also a most significant occasion for our Year 12 students. All students were presented on stage in academic gowns to celebrate the achievements of the graduating class with the entire school community. It was wonderful to welcome back our Dux from 2017, Jemima Cleaver. She gave a fantastic speech reflecting on her time at Mordialloc College and the past year studying for her Arts degree at Melbourne University. Our School Captains, Sabrina Berg and Bailey Bocksette, were our MCs for the night. They did a terrific job and they gave very thoughtful and inspiring speeches.

At Awards Night, there are many prizes awarded on the night. Students are nominated by their teachers at the end of each semester and this can be in one or more categories: Academic Excellence ­-The ‘Academic Excellence’ award is bestowed upon students who have demonstrated outstanding academic results within a subject. They have consistently worked above the expected level and/or have achieved a B or an A (in relation to Victorian Curriculum Achievement levels) on their reports where possible. At VCE level students need to be consistently attaining High or Very High on all assessments; Achievement Endeavour – The ‘Achievement-Endeavour’ award is awarded to students in recognition of consistent efforts made to strive for their personal best.  They have demonstrated academic progress within a subject and have made significant improvements to reach their learning goals; and Community Service – The ‘Community Service’ award is awarded to students from across each year level who have served the College in a particular way. For example participation in a variety of school activities as determined on an annual basis such as SRC, House Athletics, House Swimming, School Production, subject competitions, contribution to the College magazine, participation in open night, primary school visits, etc.

Unfortunately, given the size of our school we can’t recognise all students at the Awards Night presentation and thus we have set criteria for each year level (how many nominations they must receive) to be invited on the night. Therefore invitees are the top performing students in their year level. All other students who were nominated by their teachers for an award will have received these academic or achievement certificates last Friday in class. They should still be very proud of their positive work ethic and achievements this year.

This year we introduced a new award category – Dux of each year level based on close examination of achievement data over the year. The Dux for each year level was only revealed on the night,  therefore students weren’t named in the program.

Congratulations to the following students:

Anna Kuppe Dux of Year 7
Timothy Whitford – Dux of Year 8
Victoria Vasilenko – Dux of Year 9
Noreigh Zuniga – Dux of Year 10
Eleni Hatzis – Dux of Year 11