By CASEY NEILL
A KEYSBOROUGH student has overcome family tragedy to leave school with a 97.25 ATAR – and a shiny new car.
Sena Kocoglu’s younger brother Abdullah died in 2011 following a fire that also left his twin Omar with severe burns.
Last Monday, 6 October, the 18-year-old drove home to Hampton Park from Mt Hira College in a black Suzuki Swift.
The school’s business manager Nadir Yildiz last year suggested the board offer a car to any student who scored over 95 in their VCE.
“I thought it would encourage the students, because we are a new school, to get better results,” he said.
Sena was the first to receive the reward, from Booran Suzuki in Dandenong.
“It’s surreal. It’s amazing,” she said.
“The school doing this… I feel like the school just keeps wiping away the problems I have at every stage in my life.
“I wasn’t expecting to be able to get a car.”
Sena – who moved up from Grade 5 to Year 7 – is now studying psychology at the University of Melbourne.
“I’d like to be a psychologist. I’d like to venture out into business as well,” she said.
“Business was my favourite subject at school and the only one I got a perfect score in.”
The 2013 Mt Hira school captain when receiving her car keys told current students that her results were worth her hours of study, and urged them to study every chance they got.
“You can be comfortable knowing that you did your very best,” she said.
Principal Pat Gay said Sena was a kid “that really deserves something extra”.
“The past couple of years have been very traumatic for the family,” she said.
Abdullah died in the Royal Children’s Hospital on 24 April 2011 from complications following a fire in his family’s garage on 14 February.
Coroner Kim Parkinson determined Abdullah had lit the fire while playing with matches, and described the incident as a very tragic event that had forever touched many people.
“Many of the family’s neighbours and bystanders responded immediately and bravely to a shocking situation where the little boys had suffered dreadful injuries,” he said.
Sena said the tragedy “took a massive toll on me and my family”.
“It was hard to push through it,” she said.
“But when you come to a school like this and you’ve got support from the board members and all the teachers here – and my parents and my friends – it was easier than it would have been if I was at any other school.
“It was tough but the school catered to me a lot.
“The teachers helped me catch up with everything, and whenever I needed to take a day off were fine with it.
“That wasn’t an extra stress.
“The school was like an extra family. I grew up here.”
Omar, now seven, and their sister Bucu, 16, are current Mt Hira students.
“They already have that same family around them,” Sena said.
