By Max Davies
THE Kilmore International School, TKIS, name was revived on Thursday as teachers and staff came together to celebrate the 2022 graduation class after a tumultuous year.
Spearheaded by TKIS teacher Megan Santarossa and International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme, IBDP, coordinator Deanna Krilis, the night was a celebration of the students’ resilience and achievements following their final year 12 exams last week.
The night was also an opportunity for students and families to reconnect after completing the IBDP at different schools following the closure of the school in July.
“There have been so many challenges that we didn’t expect, and there’s always challenges but we’ve kind of been hit with things that we didn’t know how to overcome and didn’t initially know how to meet,” Ms Krilis said.
“Tonight’s celebration is evidence of how we actually achieved all of this, because there are representatives here, there are parents, there are teachers, the graduates are here, members of the Ivanhoe Grammar staff are here, and that’s how we did it. We actually had to pull together as a community.
“To have everyone here tonight to celebrate, it’s not just another graduation – it’s a celebration of something that we almost didn’t think we could actually pull off.”
In attendance were Ivanhoe Grammar School principal Gerard Foley, head of Plenty campus Fiona Devlin and IBDP coordinator Nicholas Mercer, who all played a significant role in accommodating many year 12 students and staff from TKIS and helped to see them through to final exams earlier this month.
Although results will not be released until early next year, there was a strong sense of relief and accomplishment during the night as graduates, staff and families reflected on the past few months and began looking towards the future.
“You go to school and it’s not just about the grades, it’s not just about going to a class and then coming back, so just to watch them all congregating together and saying ‘how are you going? I haven’t seen you in ages!’ is really nice. We hope those friendships can continue and carry on into their futures,” Ms Krilis said.
She said many of the graduates had displayed some of the long-standing values of TKIS and she was proud to see them complete the IBDP course.
“It proves what we keep talking about with The Kilmore International School, and I know it changed names to Colmont, but these students here graduated from The Kilmore International School. Most of them started in primary school here,” Ms Krilis said.
“They were really thrown into the deep end, and they’ve built those skills of resilience somewhere, they’ve learned this.
“I think that’s what we do as a school, we don’t just teach subjects and work on grades, we actually try to build character and build young adults who can go off into the world and meet every challenge, and these young people have.”
Ms Krilis thanked the community for their continued support during the year.
