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Cire Community School acquires an additional campus in Monbulk

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Cire Services, a not-for-profit organisation and registered charity in the Yarra Ranges is expanding its Community School to Monbulk. This expansion follows the acquisition of the former school grounds of Mountain District Christian School earlier this year. The new campus, located at 325 Macclesfield Road Monbulk and spanning 17.5 acres, boasts incredible facilities, including a full-sized oval, an indoor sports stadium and gymnasium, a stage, an internal canteen, a science room, and a library. These resources will allow the students to have experiences that were previously unavailable.

Cire Services’ CEO Gus Seremetis shared that other campuses at Yarra Junction, Mount Evelyn, Berwick, and Lilydale are currently at capacity and have waiting lists. With the acquisition of the new campus, Cire Services will be able to cater to more students and address the significant need for community schools in the surrounding areas. The community has shown great support and interest in this expansion, which will serve students from primary to year 12.

Cire Community Schools currently have around 360 students across their four campuses, where they offer co-educational schooling catering to young people who have or are at risk of disengaging from their education, requiring an alternative to mainstream schooling. The model will remain the same as what is currently offered in classrooms, with an average of 15 students per class and two educators in each class.

Gus said that the organisation runs differently from traditional models, providing a lot of support for students at different levels. Furthermore, with the fantastic support from key stakeholders, including Yarra Ranges Council, Mountain District Christian School, and the local community, Cire Services is well-positioned to offer community schooling, training, early learning, and community outreach services to more students across multiple locations.

If you would like to know more about the Monbulk campus; click here to submit your interest. With this new campus, Cire Community School will undoubtedly continue to provide its students with an exceptional learning experience.

New Hospitality Training Centre for Cire Community School

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Career pathways for students at Cire Community School will receive a major boost with the opening of the school’s new hospitality training centre at the start of 2020.

The purpose-built training facility will enhance the learning experiences for students from both the school and Cire Training, greatly enhancing and expanding their potential career opportunities in the hospitality industry.

It will also hugely benefit a social enterprise run by students from the existing basic and small kitchen in the Cire church building.

Costing more than $500,000, Cire CEO Gus Seremetis said the development would boost the school’s growing reputation as a school of choice and place of positive learning.

‘The hospitality training centre is particularly relevant for our students because of the continuous of tourism in our region and ambitious plans for the future including the Ride Yarra Ranges project.’

‘Our state-of-the-art commercial kitchen will encourage Cire Community School students to participate in hospitality studies and skills which will be highly sought after to cater for the continuously growing number of visitors to the Yarra Valley and surrounds.’

Adding to the project, Cire has received a $20,000 Local Schools Community Fund grant to assist with landscaping and creating areas for relaxation and developing a vegetable garden.  The vegetable garden will help promote healthy eating and reinforce the paddock-to-plate learning.

The Yarra Valley is renowned for hospitality and tourism, however, according to local traders there is a skills gap. Being able to train students to a high standard onsite, means the initiative will be of great benefit to local business, the broader region as well as the students and Cire’s reputation as a visionary organisation.

The Warburton Mountain Bike Destination Project and Yarra Valley Trail Project alone promise to create many new jobs in the near future to cater for the anticipated boom in visitor numbers.

It is envisaged the new facility will be used by other Cire operations and the broader community.

 

Students start their day baking fresh bread

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Cire Community School recently purchased two new bread makers for use by two Year 10 Foundation VCAL classes at the Yarra Junction campus. Concerns over some students coming to school without healthy food, or without food at all, has been an ongoing problem that teachers have resolved to deal with. The purchase of the bread machines has met several objectives.

Our students love to cook but unless they’re engaged in the cooking program on a Thursday, access to the kitchen is limited. The bread machines are the perfect solution. They can be set up in the classroom, all preparation is done in class and numerous educational outcomes are being met through the students making their own bread daily. Numeracy and Literacy outcomes are being met through measuring and making the bread, through researching and trying new recipes and in instructing classmates in bread making procedures. The students are excited by the endless possibilities of creating their own bread recipes and imaginations are running wild! We are currently using a white and whole wheat flour recipe and it is interesting to note that there have been no complaints or refusal of bread. When we had store-bought bread in the past, students refused to eat it unless it is white!

Routine is very important for our students and serving up warm bread, spread with good quality butter at morning tea time every day gives the students something to consistently look forward to. Bellies that are full of nutritious food are more likely to be conducive to students that are more settled in the classroom, more focused on their work and more engaged in school generally. An added bonus is the sense of community in the classrooms as everyone sits down together to share something that they have made themselves. Some students have been bringing condiments from home and sharing them with others and there is a real feeling of family as we break bread together.

The highlights were the anticipation of the students as they waited for the first loaves of bread to bake, and the looks on their faces when the loaves came steaming out of the oven .

What our students had to say:

“The bread tastes like cupcakes.” Jasmine
“The best thing about today was making and eating the bread.” Ben

Although the bread making is a new initiative, so far it is a wonderful success! The students get to experience warm, wholesome, fresh food that they have made themselves and everyone gets to work in an environment that smells of freshly baked bread. This can’t help but to contribute to the wellbeing of all students and teachers alike!

We would like to thank local business Village Greens Health Food for their support of the project and for supplying bio-dynamic flour to the school at a wholesale price.

If you would like to know more about our youth education programs and community school call 1300 835 235 or click here.

Nurturing Our Community

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The staff and students at Cire Community School Yarra Junction care about the environment, so they have decided to do something about it by becoming a ResourceSmart school.

So what does this actually mean?

Basically, it’s a program designed to improve the way we use our resources at Cire Community School and, through this program, we learn the benefits of being more sustainable. From students through to the teachers and even the wider community, changing the way we use our energy is necessary for our future.

Completion of the core module will initiate our journey as we discover our energy, water and waste usage. We will track our biodiversity, providing students with hands on approaches by learning different ways to come up with sustainable solutions.

Imagine the students creating a community garden space right here in our school grounds. They would be involved right from the start, from planning and design, constructing plant boxes, maintaining gardens and future development of the space. What an accomplishment it would be harvesting for the first time and knowing that all the produce was created in a sustainable environment. There is so much to gain from teaching these skills to our future generations.

So you can see it’s not just a singular idea. It is a comprehensive approach to improving the way our school runs and is a project that we can all get involved with.

As the program expands we hope that the wider community will also see the way our school is advancing towards a nurturing environmental future, also increasing the scope of future programs we can offer to those who really need it, our students.

As we travel along the path to gaining a 5 star energy efficient ResourceSmart school rating, Cire will naturally be more and more environmentally sustainable. We hope the changes create a positive impact on the way that we see sustainability and show the students that a little hard work and dedication can make a massive impact on tomorrow’s future.

We will be posting our progress of our journey to sustainability, so keep your eye out for future posts about what we have achieved and what is on the horizon.

If you would like get involved in creating this wonderful new environment or would like to find out more about our project, you can contact Bernadette Murray, Education Support Officer on 0449 295 344 or contact Cire Community School on 1300 835 235.

For further inforation on Cire Community School click here.

 

Working Together Forum – The best Pho I’ve had all week

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Cire Community School students in the Yarra Junction cooking group shone recently at the Cire Working Together Forum where they, along with their teacher, Ian Seppings, catered for 70 staff members, serving a delicious Vietnamese Pho and some healthy finger food.

“Our teacher Ian Seppings, together with students Lachie and Carlie serving on the night, did an amazing job catering for our recent Working Together Forum.  The forum is an opportunity for staff, board and volunteers to all get together and share in what we are up to and contribute to new initiatives.” Gus Seremetis, CEO

In the lead up to the forum, the Yarra Junction cooking group prepared and cooked for the event. The students not only prepped the ingredients for the Pho, they also created samples of food they are cooking for their school projects this year.

One of the projects that the students are undertaking this year is aimed at educating younger children about healthy eating options, which, in partnership with Cire Children’s Services, the students hope to provide the kindergarten children with some fun foods, which are also good for their health.

“It is great to see the work done by the Cire Community School students to prepare the delicious food that we all enjoyed on the night. Lachie and Carlie put in the extra hours to be there on the night, which was outstanding.” Tim Knowles, School Principal

With this as the goal, Cire Community School cooking students created ‘Martian Crackers’, which are made out of cherry tomatoes, cucumber slices, rice crackers, hummus and slices of bocconcini. All the ingredients are healthy and nourishing, and when they are ‘built’ to resemble an out of space Martian, eating becomes fun.

So, while staff at the forum sampled Martian Crackers and other tasty morsels, Ian, along with students Lachie and Carlie – who volunteered their time to serve for the evening – got to work organising serving the ingredients of the Vietnamese Pho.

“Commendations to Lachie, who showed true leadership throughout the day in preparing the food, then served throughout the evening. Lachie went above and beyond. Carlie’s help with this event was outstanding. Carlie is not part of the cooking group, but was more than happy to lend a hand on the night and help with serving the food.” Ian Seppings, Teacher

Platters of chicken, vermicelli rice noodles and freshly cut vegetables, herbs and spices were laid out on each of the tables. Then came the demonstration; whilst Ian explained to everyone how to make their Pho, Carlie and Lachie handed out a preserving jar to everyone. These jars were to be the vessels for everyone’s dinner.

The Pho tasted amazing and everyone had a lot of fun slurping out of their jar with chopsticks in hand.

“Ian and our students provided us with the opportunity and learnings on how easy it is to create Vietnamese Pho, a meal that can be prepared and shared around a table with family and friends.  A huge thanks to them for making the session both fun and informative.” Gus Seremetis, CEO

It was fantastic to have the participation of students from Cire Community School in the staff forum.

“Thanks to Ian and his amazing team of students” Tim Knowles, School Principal

Cire Working Together Forums create a space for all staff to come together. People who may not get the opportunity to meet staff from other departments are able to find out what is happening and be kept up to date. Some of the highlights were the People Choice Awards, presenting Ric Butler with a Certificate of Appreciation for his 17 years as our president, Erica German gave an update on the SWEY Project and Robynne Mauger gave us all an overview of what’s ahead for Cire Community House.

If you would like to know more about Cire Community School and the education programs we deliver click here.