NETschool celebrated its biggest night of the year on Thursday 17 November at the 2016 Recognition of Achievement evening.
Students, teachers, friends and family packed James King Hall for a night of celebration, music, and recognition with special guests Deputy Mayor Rod Fyffe and Member for Bendigo, Maree Edwards. Department of Education personnel Amanda Ferguson, Damien Jenkyn, Wendy O’Connor & Anne Cunniff also attended, while Chloe Shorten, wife of our Federal Opposition leader who has mentored students and has a special interest in NETschool, sent a video message.
The Student Achievers of the Year were Stacey Redwood and Nicole Trew. This award recognises learners who have achieved exceptional personal and educational goals, have made an outstanding contributio
n to the NETschool community and have planned a pathway beyond NETschool.
Special admiration must go to Stacey for persevering with and completing all her studies while raising two children.
Over the last three years Nicole Trew actively involved herself and contributed to many of the NETschool activities while upholding the NETschool values of Trust, Optimism and Commitment. Nicole this year completed a scored VCE program and hopes to attend RMIT in Melbourne to study Biomedicine.
The second major award of the evening was the Everest Award which went to Shanae Purtill for her resilience and perseverance in overcoming substantial barriers to attaining her educational goals while maintaining a strong sense of self and values.
In 2016 NETschool has created a new award. The Change-Maker Award recognises a student whose commitment to ongoing enrolment at NETschool has reflected a significant personal transformation in attributes such as personal growth, use of initiative, confidence and capacity to generate optimism about future prospects, while overcoming many barriers. The inaugural winner of this award is Beth Leech.
BSSC congratulates all the award recipients as well as the NETschool students who have persevered to achieve their educational and personal goals during the year.
NETschool facilitator Anton Van Maanen said he was proud of all of the young learners.
“This is a wonderful opportunity to showcase the resilience and dedication of our learners. They have all overcome substantial obstacles and made wonderful progress in their personal and educational journeys in the last year,” he said.
NETschool Bendigo provides flexible learning options for young people from the Greater Bendigo region who have disengaged from mainstream schooling, but want to achieve their senior school certificate.