Springvale Secondary College’s outstanding students, from left, Viet Do, Barry Tang, Ly Duong and Tom Le.
By Shaun Inguanzo
SUCCESS must be in the water at Springvale Secondary College with several students becoming high achievers in their chosen fields.
The college has recently had an overwhelming number of students earning special achievements.
Principal Mark Kosach said the entire school was performing well, but some students had been outstanding.
“We are very proud of the achievements of all our students, but this group in particular has had some amazing academic successes over the last month,” he said.
Among the high achievers, year 11 student Ly Duong attended the 34th Professor Harry Messel International Science School in Sydney with students from all over Australia and a selection from Singapore, Thailand, China, Malaysia and India.
Later this year, Ly will also attend the National Youth Science Forum.
The forum is a two-week program for students moving into year 12 who are thinking about a career in science, engineering and technology.
Fellow student Tom Le was awarded a medal for scoring the highest mark in Victoria for year 11 students in the 2007 International Competitions and Assessments for Schools (ICAS) science division.
Tom has also attended a new science outreach program, Students and Teachers Accessing Research Scientists Science School, at the University of Melbourne.
The week-long program gave Tom and other year 11 students who are passionate about science a chance to conduct exciting experiments in diverse scientific fields such as physics, chemistry, mathematics, molecular and cell biology, zoology, earth sciences and history, and philosophy of science.
Meanwhile, year 12 students Viet Do and Barry Tang have been accepted into the Kwong Lee Dow Young Scholars Program run by Melbourne University.
The scholarship program supports high-achieving Victorian year 12 students through exclusive access to tailored on-campus programs designed to enhance and enrich their VCE studies.
“In 2006 our VCE pass rate was 100 per cent and we had 19.5 per cent of our students with an ENTER score over 90 compared to the State average of 10 per cent,” Mr Kosach said. “With the successes of these students we are looking at continuing the very high academic standards set by our past VCE students.
“Our curriculum program from years seven to 12 challenges all students to achieve their potential.
“We are very proud of the successes of all our students and in particular Ly, Tom, Viet and Barry for their outstanding recent successes.”
