Around the Grounds: Arts Festival and Expos

To Read:  How do you measure a question? Year 10s, Mieka and Ava, can help. 
To RSVP: Paul Dillon is coming to Woodleigh to speak to parents about the worries that keep us up at night. This is an event for everyone, whether your children are at Woodleigh or not; it’s the important stuff. Please come along, and bring anyone you think will be interested. Wednesday 21 October, bookings can be made here. 
To Put In The Diary: Twilight Tours for those who want to take a walk through Woodleigh’s campuses during daylight savings hours. 

Arts Festival Opening Night and Showcase

Art is for Everyone. It’s not just for the ‘artist'; it’s for the thinker, the inventor, the observer, the doer, everyone. Woodleigh’s Art Festival Opening Night was on Monday, and crowds, including recent graduates, alumni from generations back, students, staff and families, gathered in the Arts Courtyard to chat, reunite and celebrate against a backdrop of live student music. 

From the Dame Elisabeth Murdoch Gallery, up to the Science Project Room for the Product Design showcase, and into the hall for music and performances, the meandering showcase was well beyond expectation, as always. 

Congratulations to Tom N (Y12) for winning this year’s Bonnie Daniello acquisition prize and to Daisy and Ali (both Y12), recipients of the inaugural David Boykett Design and Create Prize. And thank you to Emma Cleine for always going all out. The Opening Night kicked off a week of celebration - of the creative kind. 

Mini Art Market at Penbank

Well, that was fun. The kids sure know how to pull a market together. Between them, there was food, drink, cakes and icecream, seedlings, plants - edible and otherwise - artworks, buskers, grandparents, babies. It was all going on; the sun was out, the grounds were glowing, they'd had sugar and outrageous fun, all before they even started the school day.

It was the first mini market and likely, of many.  

To Read:
How Do You Measure a Question? 

Year 9 | MYP Community Project Expo

This annual event is a big part of the IB experience at Woodleigh.

To understand the year’s impact, we have to go back to the beginning. Rewind to City Bound, six months earlier, and you can follow the learning curve in real time. There were many abstract ideas that needed to be worked into an achievable goal, or what felt achievable anyway. We know the big things never go as we expect - sometimes they’re better.

Those months of work culminated in the Expo, held last Wednesday night. Parents walked in and saw the “end point”, as it stands. Some of these projects don’t end. Some zigged, zagged and restarted completely. Some reached far from home. Others were deeply personal.

The projects covered a lot of ground. Some students wrote, published and shared books with children about refugees and belonging, while others wrote about autism from the perspective of the student, the parent and the specialist. Some looked at accessibility in sport, or collected supplies and raised awareness for women and children experiencing homelessness. One group put together funny, engaging presentations for young children on life basics, like how to clean your room, and others created public exhibitions about waste. We’ll dive further into these in the coming weeks.

Students learned big lessons about how to take an idea that's hard to get your arms around and break it into achievable pieces, to work towards an impactful outcome, to be told no, to be greeted with kindness, to get stuck, to start over, to rethink ideas from lessons learnt and to articulate the entire journey. 

The night itself began with ceremony, as only Woodleigh does. Our Head of Campus, Ms McLennan, gave a brief introduction, and from there the night belonged to the students.  It was huge, and they should be proud. Wait till you hear their stories.

Year 10 | Futures Project

After Year 9 comes Year 10. We can count.

Willow can do a lot more than count. She can write, illustrate and, most impressively, take a sophisticated, often messy concept with no solid shape to it and turn it into a poignant book for young children. It's called Mummy's Cloudy Day.

For her Year 10 Regenerative Futures Project, emotional literacy in preschool-aged children was her start point. Willow wrote a book about children’s experience of having a parent with mental health challenges. Realistically, that’s a lot of them. She used coloured clouds as the thread of her story, and she shared it with ECC classes at Penbank and Minimbah. Before and after reading her book, she ran games and questions to gauge whether the children connected more strongly with emotional language once they understood the story.

This book may well take on a life of its own beyond the RFP curriculum, and we will keep a close eye. Willow will share more of her story - her book and her own - in the coming weeks. 

IN THEIR OWN WORDS:
Jack, Whip-Cracking Champ. 

I’ve been learning to whip crack since I was seven. 

After watching the Australian champion whip crackers perform at the annual Man from Snowy River Bush Festival, I was inspired to pick up a whip and have a go. My skills really took off when my family travelled around Australia, where I practised every day and put on shows for other campers. I now train most days. Whip cracking takes good upper body strength to get through a routine.

Along the way, I’ve also started my own small business. It began with selling crackers to fund my first set of stock whips. During Woodleigh’s Activities lessons, I developed my own brand, Jacks Crackers, and built it into a successful merchandise line. I now make a range of stock whips in both paracord and kangaroo hide.

This year, all that practice paid off. At the AWPA Australian Whip Cracking Championships and World Bullock Whip Championships, held at the 150th Ekka in Brisbane, I won the Junior Division (16 and under), which involved 10 tricks, a one-minute freestyle routine and 10 accuracy targets. I also placed equal fourth in the World Bullock Whip Open Division with a two-minute freestyle.

The highlight for me was taking out the Australian title using kangaroo hide stock whips I’d made myself.

IN THEIR OWN WORDS:
Zeke, Year 10 RFP work 

Dear Woodleigh Community,

Hi, my name is Zeke, as part of my RFP project, I have identified three areas of the Woodleigh car park where temporary chalk markings could help improve traffic flow and make afternoon pickup safer and more organised.

1. Bus Lane
I will mark the bus lane near the bus shelter to remind drivers that this area is for buses only and must not be used for car pickup.

2. Please Fill Parking
I will mark “FILL” with a directional arrow in the parking area to encourage drivers to move forward and fill available spaces rather than leaving gaps. This should help make better use of the parking area and reduce congestion.

3. Through Lane – No Standing
There are two rows used by cars during afternoon pickup. Row 1 is used regularly, while Row 2 is generally only used when traffic is heavy.

I propose extending the existing marking at the end of Row 2 approximately halfway along the row and adding the words “KEEP CLEAR – NO PARKING”.

This will make it clearer that drivers must not stop or park in this section, allowing cars and buses to continue moving through the car park without being blocked by stationary vehicles.

Proposed Trial
Subject to approval, I propose introducing these temporary chalk markings on Monday 19th October 2026 and leaving them in place until Sunday 25 October 2026.

During the trial, I hope to observe whether the markings help drivers understand where to go, use the available parking spaces more effectively and keep traffic moving.

Thank you for your cooperation and support with my project to improve the Woodleigh afternoon pickup process.

Kind regards,
Zeke Raus

Arts Week activities | Art is for Everyone

Yes, there were graffiti workshops at school. Yes, there were painting and film workshops. And yes, there was a Community Panel at assembly featuring an Emmy winner, Indie Rock royalty and a Gaming Studio CEO... so yeah, day one of the 2026 Woodleigh Arts Festival was a pretty, pretty good thing.

Massive thanks to our day-one guests: Joshua Searle, Tom Poyser (2018), Noam Wren (1997), Phoebe Azzopardi (2024), Clara Reeves, Adam Goldfinch and Scott Kannberg. What a bunch of legends.

Congratulations to Ali and Daisy (Y12), recipients of the inaugural David Boykett Design and Create Prize, and to Tom Newman (Y12), whose work ‘Return to Stillness’ was chosen as this year’s Bonnie Daniello acquisition prize awardee.

@noam_wren
@spiralstairsofficial
@acgoldie
@joshua_searle_art
@phoebe.jae.music
@tom.poyser.music

Joshua Searle and Noam Wren were with us once more, sharing techniques, insights and stories from their worlds as professional artists. They were joined by Nelson Armstrong, a 2008 Woodleigh graduate and recipient of the 2026 VicScreen Erwin Rado Award for Best Australian Short Film, for his recent work, ‘Our Choir Has Always Been Travelling’.

Animation workshops ran alongside improv workshops, before Impro Melbourne took over the Hall for their show, Improvaganza, delivering belly laughs from content that will never, ever be seen again. Such is the way with improvised theatre.

To RSVP:
Paul Dillon 

Graffiti workshop 

Graffiti
/ɡrəˈfiːti/
Very illegal spray painting on the sides of trains. 

Noam Wren (1997) is a professional artist who came back to Woodleigh, his old school, and it was entirely above board. Even the Principal got in on it (pretty sure he sprayed a love heart with Mum written in it). 

Before Monday night’s Opening, he had a room full of teens and adults who got to learn from a pro, someone who knows exactly what he’s doing with a can (and what not to do with a can). Spray painting is a real skill, before dark. There are techniques, techniques within the techniques and a very particular way of holding it - fully approved of by Mr Baker.  

To put in the diary:
Twilight Tours 

Film Night

As the Arts Festival rolled on, Thursday night came around, and Year 12 Media students presented their films to a packed house. They spent so many hours crafting stories and visual narration that showing them publicly is nerve-racking. 

Every year has a theme; this year, though, it was subtle. Classic. The group interviewed the film’s creator, who was interviewed by the creator before them. 

Are there things you would like to know more about, less about, tell us about, remind us of or reminisce about? 
Tell us here.

Until we go Around the Grounds again next time...