Our annual TAP Cheese Appreciation Night is a highlight of our term long investigation of cheesemaking showcasing the learnings of our Year 8 Science students including posters and scientific information about the cheese making process and featuring dairy advertisements devised by the students. Our audience of students and parents viewed the advertisements produced by students while their cheese was judged in a blind taste test by Simon Schulz and Hila Perry from Schulz Organic Dairy with some very tasty Camembert cheese produced. Our judges first tested the aroma of the cheese, the shape of the brined cheese wheel, the appearance of the cheese whilst cut checking for consistency and finally, the taste and flavour. Media judges, Robyn Vale and Fiona Mackenzie had a difficult time determining the winner of the advertisement challenge as there were many ads which delivered clear, concise and witty messages about dairy. The winning 8A ad, “Milk. No Bull. Just Good” was produced by Indii and Imogen with Xavier, Oliver and Kaiden as runners up with “Milk makes you grow” while 8B’s Samantha, Alexis and Emman, won the competition for their class with “Dairy, the Mood Buster” and Noah and George were runners up with “Expiry Date”. After the cheese judging Simon Schulz commended the students on the quality of their cheese and the cheese making process. The best cheese in 8A was produced by Lyla and Ruby with Jed and Lachie as runners up while Imogen and Dakota produced the the best cheese in 8B with Stella and Emily as runners up. Thank you to Jess Harmsworth from Bega for proving dairy goodie bags whilst our runners up prizes were ice cream vouchers from Timboon Fine Ice Cream. Congratulations to Mrs Maxwell, Mrs Dennis and Fiona Allen who coordinated the evening with thanks to everyone who attended who helped us celebrate all things cheese with special thanks to our judges extraordinaire for giving real 'steet cred' to our curriculum offerings; Simon, Hila, Robyn and Fiona.
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As an extension of the Year 12 VM students exploration of entering the workforce and managing expectations, we accepted an invitation from Ben Rowland, the HR Manager from Monk and Son, to visit their Cobden work site. The Year 11 and 12 VM students learnt that the business that was established by Sam Monk at the age of 16 and now includes a fleet of 92 Tractors, 17 Forage Harvesters, 13 loaders, 9 Prime Movers, 2 Silage Trucks, 116 implements, 5 Excavators and more. The company has around 65 full-time employees and staff numbers can reach 250 in peak silage season. Monk and Son also operates a 2600 acre dairy and fodder farm, milking 1500 dairy cows and leasing 13800 acres of cropping land. The Recruitment Manager, Eimear Grier, introduced students to the site that has the capacity to do everything themselves with a range of tractor, vehicle and engineering workshops, a wash down shed, an extensive spare parts division and a HR hub that covers payroll, social media, their own accommodation centres and rental accommodation. An induction video introduced the company expectations, Code of Conduct and policies that included a range of apps that are used to facilitate payroll, time sheets, jobs, safety etc such as Rippling, Ag Drive, Harvest App, Voyager Scales App and Vic Emergency. Ryan, the Tractor Workshop Manager, outlined the main skills that employers seek including those employees who want to listen, want to learn with a good attitude. He concluded, “If your name is on your job, make sure you do it as well as you can”. Thanks Ben, Eimear and the Monk and Sons team for an enlightening insight into entering the workforce and a large scale operation As part of the Year 8 Science cheese making assessment, a separate criteria was based on the psychology of advertising and students were tasked, not only with making a video advertisement about dairy, but a print advertisement as well. As AI is here to stay, the class had the option of producing an original poster or an AI assisted version but they had to submit the prompts they entered to achieve their result as part of their assessment. We have been offering our own Camembert production unit since 2015 and the quality of advertisements, creativity and the technical prowess of students has continued to impress us, check them out! The 11/12 VCE Outdoor and Environmental Studies and VCE VM class pitched in to help Heytesbury District Landcare to continue planting along North South Road along the Poorpa Canteen Meerreeng Timboon - Port Campbell Trail. The VCE OES classes have been learning about community actions to sustain outdoor environments. While the VM class have been investigating volunteer opportunities. Chris Hibbert, Landcare volunteer instructed the students to plant multistorey native vegetation ( Eucalyptus, Tea-Tree and Wattle) and spoke about the importance of looking after and supporting native vegetation networks in the local area. To support the production of camembert cheese making, a component of the original Dairy Australia, ‘Camembert in the Classroom’ unit was for students to produce scientific reports on the cheese making process and conduct an experiment that reported on the milk solid analysis of whole milk. Whilst the Dairy Australia unit does not run anymore, we have kept the cheesemaking and scientific reports component as a cornerstone of the Year 8 Science curriculum. The students’ posters will be on display at our annual Cheese Appreciation Night in early September but here is a sneak peak. Is your Dad difficult to buy for and you are searching for an interesting present for a Dad or Grandad who has everything? Perhaps consider gifting him a copy of the Year 9/10 Extension Humanities students collection of oral histories - ”Timboon Tales: Celebrating 150 Years”. In March 2025, our students interviewed 15 local Timboonians and collated these interviews with 14 written submissions in a booklet that shares the stories of Timboon and it’s regional residents. This TAP legacy publication serves to instil a sense of time and place as our young people have captured the lives of elders in our community who have shared stories of resilience, tragedy, persistence and humour. Copies of the book, "Timboon Tales: Celebrating 150 Years" are available from the Timboon P-12 School office or the Timboon Library for $20.00 or by emailing the school on [email protected] As the Year 8 Science classes have compared the processes involved in the small batch Camembert cheese they made with Saputo’s industrial cheese making enterprise, we invited Julian Benson from Apostle Whey Cheese into our classroom to explore artisan cheesemaking. Since 2005, Apostle Whey Cheese has been selling artisan cheeses from their farmgate property, which they began after over 30 years ago in 1972. Julian described the changes to his business over the years and how it pivoted to take advantage of the numerous visitors who were enchanted with the scenic attractions in our area. As our students are composing an ad for their camembert cheese studies, Julian described the marketing of his products and the importance of telling a story, using humour to sell products, attractive packaging and using features to evoke happy memories of peoples’ time in the southwest to encourage future sales. He described the various cheese making process and ingredients used in Apostle Whey’s range of camembert, brie, semi hard, blue vein and fetta cheese with intriguing names like Loch Ard Gorgeous Camembert, Southern Briez Brie, Heytesbury Harvest, Bay of Martyrs Blue Vein, Bolte's Bonanza Blue Vein Cheese and Apostle Crumble Feta. Thanks Julian! Last term, our Year 5/6 students were learning about floods as part of their Natural Disasters unit when unfortunately, one of the facilitators had to cancel due to ironically, you guessed it, an impending flood emergency! (If there was any doubt about the street cred of our TAP presenters, this negated it!!) This week, Sarah Cornelissen, the Emergency Management Officer from the Corangamite Shire, introduced students to the Corangamite Shire Curdies Flood Study that maps the flood levels for rainfall events in the Curdies catchment and assesses the potential impact off flooding on properties, roads and other assets. Students discussed examples of different types of flooding and where they occur including riverine, flash and overland. Sharna Whitehand, the Coordinator Community Emergency Management for the Surf Coast Shire used the flash flooding event on January 15th 2026 as a case study to explore flash flooding. Comparing water going down a water slide top a flash flood event, Sharna outlined the similarities and differences with the main point being that real floods are dangerous and unpredictable. She explained that severe thunderstorm warnings were issued that morning at 11.57am and flood waters hit coastal communities just over an hour later. There had only been 9-10mm of rain occurring along the coast but up in the mountains there was 180mm of rain that raced down gullies sweeping into the four river mouths impacted. The class discussed the time line involved and determined the warning signs to take heed of to stay safe when flooding events could potentially occur including watching for major thunderstorm or rain events and not playing in, or driving through flood waters. Sharna described the role of the Surf Coast Shire officers in helping people during and after the event including providing accommodation, clothes, food and assisting with the car and caravan retrieval operations and infrastructure clean up. Thanks Sharon and Sharna for these very timely warnings. Our Year 9 Science Science students are investigating disease so local vet, Zoe Vogels from Dairy Australia and Scotts Creek Dairies, used cows as a case study and explained how cows fight disease and how farmers can help them do so. Students had to determine what was a cow’s first line of defence against disease and identified their skin, hooves and udder as the first points of resistance. White blood cells were acknowledged as the second line of defence in killing bacteria by swallowing the them, chewing them up, spitting them out with the bacteria expelled as pus containing dead bacteria and body cells. A cow’s antibodies acts as the third line of defence and this is transferred to their calves in colostrum so the importance of quality colostrum was outlined as calves are born with no antibodies. The role of vaccinations was considered and their importance to help cows develop antibodies, almost like extra soldiers called in to prevent a disaster. Biosecurity was addressed and it’s importance in keeping animals safe, especially in light of the recent Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak in Indonesia and it’s potential threat to livestock. H5 Avian Bird Flu was also considered with the class asked to photo, report and not touch any sick or dead birdlife and to call the Emergency Animal Disease Hotline on 1800675888 to report cases. Zoe challenged us all to play a role in the fourth line of defence as people need to adhere to Australia’s strict biosecurity laws to protect people, livestock and Australian wildlife. How fortunate are we to have some with Zoe’s expertise helping educate our students! Our annual ‘Science Week’ Family Science Night was an outstanding success as over 130 people investigated the engaging theme “Seeds of Science – Nurturing Knowledge For All”. Passionate seed enthusiast, Andrew Allsop from Notman Seeds, provided an entertaining introduction explaining that seeds need soil; to provide a stable home where they are sheltered and fed, water; to wake them up to germinate, the right temperature; (like Goldilocks) for a plant to grow, while the sun provides energy for a plant to flourish with the leaves acting like solar panels. He also challenged the audience to seed new ideas such as seeding oysters, crystals, diamonds and even clouds! Andrew encouraged participants to, ‘Treasure your ideas, as they are like seeds that germinate in your mind’. Our families then delved into a series of four workshops that invited participants to delve into the science behind seeds that included making grass heads and plant chromatography. Families could design and create a seed that used an identifiable form of dispersal whether wind, water or was carried by animals, birds or people and then identify various seeds before creating a seedpod creature. Our junior students had provided a wonderful backdrop of Van Gogh inspired sunflowers, printed sunflowers, Grotti Lotti-esq wattle bouquets and Julie Ryder themed flower fields in a gallery of student art showcasing nature’s incredible designs. Congratulations on a wonderful evening to Pennie Maxwell and her Science team including Gemma Dennis, Robyn Watson, Caitlin Kearney and Fiona Allen ably assisted by Tom Cavarsan, Claire Watson, Dean Whitehead and student teacher, Paige Copeland. Thank you to all the budding scientists and their families for tackling our Family Science Night challenges so enthusiastically! |
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