VCE achievers reveal secrets to success

Haileybury students Thivyaa Mahendran, Alan Cai, Maheet Gone, Jing Ru Zhang, Aarial Wrigley and Xinxin Zhang were among 17 Premiers VCE Award recipients at the Keysborough campus. (Supplied)

Haileybury students in Keysborough have scooped the 2023 annual Premiers VCE awards.

The 17 students excelled in their subject areas such as Further Mathematics, Algorithmics, Music Contemporary Performance, English, Sociology and Systems Engineering.

They were presented awards at Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre on 17 July.

Isabella Waters who took out a Premiers VCE Award for English says the secret was to choose the subjects she enjoys.

“I’ve always loved English, so I found it easy to put effort into assignments and studying.

“Having incredible teachers also makes a difference.”

Isabella is studying Law and Languages at Australian National University and hopes to become a lawyer.

Daragh Rodrigues who received an award for Music Contemporary Performance says friends and socialising helped him cope with the pressures of VCE.

“Looking to my friends, embracing social opportunities and being in regular contact with my teachers really made a difference in keeping me grounded and managing my expectations of myself,” he says.

Daragh is currently studying Jazz and Improvisation at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, which he hopes will lead to a career in performance.

Archie Antonopoulos, who received a Premier’s VCE Award for Sociology, credited ‘discipline and consistency’ for his success.

“I studied almost every single day in Years 11 and 12 and that allowed me to complete set work and additional work.

“I’m also a strong believer in staying as organised as possible – I created timetables that mapped out what had to be completed every day and tracked the amount of time I studied daily.

“So, I was never really under any overwhelming pressure during Year 12, even during peak exam period.”

Archie is studying Commerce at the University of Melbourne as a Commerce Achievement Scholarship recipient.

Haileybury CEO and principal Derek Scott said the school was “incredibly proud of every student who completes VCE”.

“It is a challenging and rigorous program that requires hard work, commitment and persistence and, each year, our students step up and achieve impressive results.

“Every young person has different interests and passions and many different subjects awaken their curiosity and spark a love of learning that we hope students carry with them for the rest of their life.”

Other Haileybury winners of 2023 Premier’s VCE Awards were:

• Feline Leenders for Art Making and Exhibiting

• Xinxin Zhang for Chinese First Language

• Charlotte Hendrie for English

• Amber Bailey for English

• Aarial Wrigley for Hospitality (VCE VET)

• Jing Ru Zhang for Latin

• Georgia Poole for Sociology

• Flora Bacskai for Hungarian undertaken at Victorian School of Languages

• Joshua Ong for Algorithmics (HESS)

• Deshitha Galpayage Don for English

• Maheet Gone for Further Mathematics

• Alan Cai for Systems Engineering

• Thivyaa Mahendran for Accounting

• Beijia Guo for Chinese First Language and General Mathematics

• Ruiqiao Liang for Chinese First Language

• Yuqing Zhang for Chinese First Language