Minister awards for exellence in student achievement 2008

The Annual Minister's Awards for excellence in student achievement, organized by the NSW Community Languages Schools Board were held at University of New South Wales in Kensington, on Friday night the 5th September 2008. The NSW Community Languages Schools Board and the Department of Education, each year for the past 5 years, awarded students in recognition for their language achievement at their community languages school. There are currently 49 languages being taught across 487 NSW languages schools and there are over 30,000 students studying each year.

For the Annual Minister's Awards for excellence in student achievement, each school can nominate only one student from junior category and one student from senior category (over 13 you). There are only 10 Minister Awards given out each year, 5 for junior category and 5 for senior categories. The rest of nominations get either a: Highly commended award (about 80) and the rest receive either a Commended award or a Merit. This year the Board accepted 310 nominations out of more than 30,000 students across NSW. In recognition for their language achievement at the Serbian Sunday school "Vuk Karadzic" in Cabramatta, two students were recently honored with an award by the NSW Minister of Education and Training:
1. Aleksandra Knezevic received the Highly Commended Award in the senior section.
2. Dragoljub Paunovic received the prestigious "Minister award" in the junior section, one of only 5 awarded.
Both students are from Serbian school "Vuk Karadzic" at the Serbian Orthodox church "St George" in Cabramatta and their Teacher is Mrs. Sladjana Nikolis.

The awards where given out by the guest speakers the Hon Virginia Judge MP (who represented the NSW Minister of Education and Training), and Mrs. Edna McGill, Chair of the Board and other Board members.
Among the VIP and honorable guests in attendance where, His Grace Bishop Irinej, Father Djuro Djurdevic , Mr. Rajko Ignjatic, Mr. Tihomir Novakovic and other distinguished guests that represented either the Serbian School "Vuk Karadzic", Serbian Orthodox Church "St George " Cabramatta, or Serbian Sports Club Bonnyrigg.
This year, congratulations must go to Mrs. Sladjana Nikolis, who wrote a special request to the Community Languages Board, to also allow the Serbian folklore group to dance in the only performance item of the Award night.
Her request was granted and the Folklore from Serbian Sports club performed a special 10min dance under the choreography of the very talented Mr. Goran Nikolic. Also a special place was given to 11 y.o. Tamara Tamaburic who opened the Awards by singing the Australian National Anthem.
All in all, the ceremony for 2008 was dominated by the Serbain community.
Between other award reciepints, were a few other Serbian children from other Serbian Schools.
They were:
1.Nikol Knezevic- Highly Commended- (junior)
2.Ivan Gojkovic- Commended- (senior)
3.Sanja Subotic- Commended-(junior)

Ivan Gojkovic and Sanja Subotic are from Serbian school at the Serbian Orthodox Church "St. Sava" on Elanora Heights.

Congratulations, to all the hard-working teachers, students, dancers and their families.

Source: www.soc.org.au