Language of learning

A NOBLE Park student has claimed an award from the Premier for her studies.
Erika Genota decided to take Filipino as a VCE subject because she thought it would be convenient.
It’s her mother tongue and the Victorian School of Languages (VSL) was close to home.
On Thursday 28 April at a Crown Palladium ceremony, a Premier’s VCE Study Award for achieving the top score in the subject further vindicated her decision.
The VSL and Erika’s teachers and parents hope the award will further motivate her to succeed in her VCE studies and her path towards studying a Bachelor of Science or Nursing.
“I am hoping that I can inspire others… so that our language does not die,” she said.
The VSL is a government school that operates outside standard school hours and via distance education.
In the south-east, the VSL operates from Dandenong High School, Hampton Park Secondary College and Berwick College on Saturdays.
Almost 30 VSL students have received VCE awards over the past two years.
Zara Liang, a year 12 student at Haileybury’s Keysborough campus, receiving an award for her perfect study score of 50 in media.
She produced and directed a short film called The Cave, inspired by the philosophical concept of Plato’s cave.
Zara explored the way people confuse shadows on the wall with the real world and, as a consequence, can be fearful of imagined dangers.