From the Acting Head

A warm welcome to 2020 to new and returning Girton families. While it has been a difficult period for many families around our country, I do hope that all members of our community enjoyed safe, quality time with family and friends during the school holiday period.

It has been a positive start to the Girton year on many fronts for both staff and students. I have walked around the Senior School campus during recent lunchtime breaks and am delighted with what I see and hear. Fervent table tennis games, ever-popular down ball, animated chatter, children smiling broadly at one another and lots and lots of eye contact. I do not doubt that this energised lunchtime atmosphere is at least in some part due to there being no mobile phones in the playground. I am very proud of the positive and cooperative response from our students to our new Student Mobile Device Policy.

My thanks too, to parents and carers for supporting the new policy. I realise this is not an easy policy for some students to adopt, especially after a long Summer holiday when rules at home related to things such as devices may have, understandably, been more relaxed.

In other excellent news, I am very pleased to report that we had 109 students sit the VCE certificate last year and all of these students obtained this important educational qualification. Ninety-nine per cent of the 2019 graduating cohort who applied for a Tertiary position received a placement, and nearly eighty per cent of those placements were first or second round Tertiary offers. Some students have already entered the workforce, including undertaking apprenticeships or gap-year employment, and many have moved interstate or overseas to commence the next exciting chapter of their lives.

Some of the most popular fields of choice for study were Health Science, Science, Business/Commerce, Engineering and Arts. Students also received offers in Medicine, Pharmacy, Dentistry, Bio-Medicine, Nursing, Law/Cyber Security, Criminology, Computer Science, International Studies and Design.  Several students received offers from interstate and overseas Tertiary institutions, with three students moving to New Zealand to study and one student attending an American University. One student has been accepted in the Victorian College of the Arts to study Music (Guitar), which is an admirable achievement.

It is pleasing that our graduates choose a wide range of directions to take when they finish school. It leaves us in no doubt about whether we suffer the educational ‘cookie-cutter’ effect, and it gives me confidence that our students have the fortitude to choose their own path.

At the first all-school assembly for the year, I spoke to the students about my hopes for them in 2020. I asked them to consider how to go about setting themselves realistic goals that are achievable and sustainable, and I urged them to be their best, do their best and to ask for help when it is needed. For those interested, a copy of my address to the students can be accessed via our website:

https://www.girton.vic.edu.au/welcome-to-2020/.

A word on Camps Week, which occurs in the final week of Term 1. Owing to bushfire damage and risk, we are currently investigating possible options (location and timing) for the Year 8 high-country hike. We will keep Year 8 parents informed of our decision related to this camp, our intention being to ensure that Year 8 students participate in a camp of some sort this year. We are close to making a final decision about the Year 7 Howqua camp based on the best possible information, and at this stage, the camp looks likely to go ahead as normal and again, we will keep parents informed. The Year 9 camp to Melbourne is unaffected and will go ahead as normal.

And finally, I would like to confirm that the latest Government advice on Coronavirus has not changed since our last correspondence with parents.

I hope that 2020 is a wonderful year for our whole school community. There are exciting opportunities ahead for both staff and students, and it is my privilege to be in the position of Acting Head at this time.

Dr Emma O’Rielly

Acting Head