Hopetoun P-12 College

28/08/2026

28/08/2026

📚 OPEN MORNING — MONDAY 7th SEPTEMBER
Join us at Hopetoun P-12 College for our Open Morning! 💙

Come along and experience our school community, see our students’ learning in action and find out what makes Hopetoun P-12 College such a special place to learn.

🕤 9:30am — Welcome & Open Morning
We’ll begin with a welcome before taking a walk around the school to see our students’ learning and work in action.
🎭 Primary Performance
Our Primary students will showcase their talents with a special performance for families and visitors. We can’t wait to share what they’ve been working on!

🧊 10:30am — The Big Freeze Relay
Get ready to get COLD for a cause! ❄️ Our Big Freeze Relay is raising funds and awareness for Motor Neurone Disease (MND), with teams battling it out before the losing team gets drenched with icy water! 🥶

🎓 11:00am — 2027 Subject Selection Information Session
Families and students in Years 9–11 are invited to attend an information session about subject selection and pathways for 2027.

There’s plenty happening at Hopetoun P-12 College, and we’d love for you to be part of it! 💙

📅 Monday 7 September
⏰ 9:30am onwards

Come along, explore our College, celebrate our students and support our Big Freeze fundraiser! ❄️💙

25/08/2026

📚🎶 Book Week 2026 – Symphony of Stories!🎶📚

What a wonderful way to celebrate Book Week at our school! Our P–6 students, Year 12s and staff dressed up as their favourite book characters, choosing characters that they felt best captured this year’s theme, “Symphony of Stories.” 📖✨

We had an incredible range of characters join us, from Bluey and Elsa to the Crayons Who Quit and so many more! 🎭🖍️ It was fantastic to see the creativity and imagination of our students and staff come to life through their costumes.

Our students and staff then had the pleasure of visiting the residents at Corrong Village to show off their wonderful outfits and spread some Book Week joy. 💕📚 It was a lovely opportunity to connect with our community and share our love of books together.

A big thank you to our students, staff and families for getting involved and helping make the day so special! 🌟

20/08/2026

Day 4:

After breakfast, we spent our morning at the Melbourne court complex. We learnt about the variety of functions of the Supreme and Appeals Courts from Honourable Justice Emerton and her associates. We followed this up with a partial viewing of a criminal case, centred around a murder investigation. The prosecution was attempting to discredit the legitimacy of the accused’s claim of mental impairment by challenging the evidence from a psychiatric expert’s testimony.

After lunch, we caught a train out to Chadstone for a tour of Holmesglen TAFE. Our guide, Dylan, was well versed in the range of courses on offer and gave us an informative tour of the facilities. We were all impressed by the practical learning spaces and student work on display.

We then enjoyed an afternoon exploring the capitalist delights of the CBD. This meant that many of us had to use all available hands to carry purchases to dinner on Lygon Street. We had a delicious dining experience at Tiamo before finishing up with gelato. In typical Melbourne fashion, we then fought the rain to tram back to YHA.

It was a lovely communal experience for our final evening in the big smoke.

20/08/2026

On Thursday while we had a fantastic day skiing, the weather made the day challenging! We experienced strong winds, fog, hail, and lots of rain. Axel, Charlie and Luca have improved their skiing skills over the week and shown some amazing resilience. The highlight of the day was relocating Axel after he got lost in the fog and took the wrong ski trail!

19/08/2026

On Wednesday Luca, Charlie and Axel got to enjoy downhill skiing. This uses different boots and skis to cross country. The morning started off very foggy and windy. After navigating the chair lifts, it was time to hit the slopes! We were lucky that the rain held off until the last ski run down for the day!

19/08/2026

Day 3:

We began the activities for the day with a tour of Victoria University: City Campus. We were all impressed by the range of facilities and the sky-rise building that houses the campus. Students also appreciated VU’s unique concept of the ‘block model’, where subjects are studied singular over a month, before shifting to the next subject.

This was followed by a tour of RMIT and a presentation of the variety of pathways and subjects on offer. Our presenter was incredibly knowledgeable about the range of courses and answered all student questions.

We completed the trifecta of university tours with The University of Melbourne. We had an information session covering the essentials of the ‘Melbourne curriculum’ and exploring the icons, gardens, and facilities of the campus.

We spent the remainder of the afternoon discovering the range of exhibits in Melbourne Museum. The highlights were certainly the natural history areas, with dinosaur bones, insects, animals, and geology on display.

We then consumed a delicious dinner at the Emporium food court before fully embracing Melbourne culture with ‘Pretty Woman: The Musical’ at the Regent Theatre. It was a stunning show with powerful singing, upbeat dancing, and humorous scripting, alongside brilliant set design and costuming. Most importantly, the show emphasised the key messages of valuing self-worth, unlocking your potential, and always following your dreams.

It was an entertaining end to an informative third day.

19/08/2026

Although the snow level is a bit lower than previous years, we had a fantastic day cross country skiing. Luca, Axel and Charlie enjoyed lunch in the snow and got to have some fun with snow play!

18/08/2026

Day 2:

We got started early with a visit to the Jewish Museum of Australia and participated in ‘Be the Light’. Led by young adult facilitators, this program helps students to explore their own identities while learning about Jewish history, culture, and tradition. We had a tour of the museum and St Kilda Synagogue, before unpacking how to respond to and combat antisemitism and other forms of discrimination.

After a quick lunch, we headed to the
Melbourne Holocaust Museum for the ‘In Touch With Memory’ program. We had a thought-provoking guided tour of the museum, participated in a workshop analysing primary source material, and concluded with the privilege and honour of hearing Holocaust testimony from the last surviving member of the Buchenwald Boys, Joe Szwarcberg.

Born in 1930 in Kozienice, Poland, Joe’s childhood was shattered when the N***s invaded his town and converted it to a ghetto. He risked his life everyday to survive and learnt resourcefulness while facing brutal conditions as a child labourer and witnessing unimaginable atrocities. Once liberated, he was living in an orphanage in France, before immigrating to Australia and reuniting with his sisters, and eventually starting a family of his own. Joe’s key message was the need to show kindness and fight hatred and intolerance, so the horrors of the Holocaust are never repeated.

In the afternoon, we explored the ACMI ‘The Story of the Moving Image’ exhibition, using our special lens cards to scan information from each display. Focusing on how screens inform, influence, and empower us, the exhibit covered the screen-based art, film, TV and videogames that changed the world.

We refuelled with dinner in Docklands, at the Pizzeria and Pancake Parlour, before carving up the ice at O’Brien Icehouse, with students gaining confidence and showing off their skills, balance, and icy dance moves.

A thoughtful and meaningful day two of camp!