From the Principal

Time for review and setting goals

It is a busy time at Northcote at the moment, as we reflect on and evaluate our progress towards the goals and targets in the 2015 – 2018 Strategic Plan.

As this newsletter goes live, we will be about to launch into Day 1 – Validation Day of the School Review on Wednesday 6 March. This day is the culmination of a lot of work that took place over the course of the second half of 2018 - analysing data and seeking feedback from staff, students and parents to accurately assess our position and our next steps in the pre-Review Self-Evaluation.

The Review entails 4 days with a Review Panel that includes:

An external reviewer, Lucy Glover from VALAD Solutions; two Challenge Partners, Deborah Harman (Principal of Balwyn High School) and Lawrie Drysdale (Associate Professor at Melbourne Graduate School of Education); our Regional representative, Graham Stevenson, our School Council President, Martin Hughes, staff and students.

The ultimate goal is to set the direction of the next Strategic Plan. Over the course of the four days we will conduct further class observations and focus group discussions with students, staff and parents. In the coming days I may be calling you to invite you to participate in Day 2 and Day 3 on 20 and 21 March.

I look forward to sharing with you the Review findings at our Annual Report to the Community on 21 March (see details below).

Congratulations Intermediate VCAL class

Last week I had the pleasure of hearing from the Intermediate VCAL class about their Precious Plastics proposal. The students showed incredible collaboration, rigorous research, outstanding spatial awareness, and professional presentation skills when they outlined their proposal to establish a plastic recycling plant here at Northcote High School. Their work is exemplary. Thank you to Rohan Bevan, Tric O’Heare and Cath Lester, as well as Peter Murphy, for the work that you have done with these students to allow them to shine.

Global #ClimateStrike

There is another student global strike for action on climate change scheduled on Friday March 15.

As a Department of Education and Training (DET) school we are not in a position to encourage students to absent themselves from class to participate. That is a parent decision to make. Parents will need to provide their child with a note, entered on Compass, to allow their child(ren) to participate. Normal sign out procedures will be required of students.

We will run a normal program at school, although we have purposefully not scheduled major assessments or events on this day. It is imperative that students show their note and sign out before leaving, so that we can account for their whereabouts.

New date for Athletics Carnival

Thanks to Pauline Drinan and Jack O’Shea who have done a lot of work behind the scenes to acquire a new date for the Athletics Carnival, which was to fall on March 15, the same day as the Global #ClimateStrike. Whilst we are unable to approve students being absent from school to attend the rally we expect many students will attend, thus making it impossible to run the Athletics Carnival.

The new date is Thursday 2 May.

This is a compulsory community event for Years 7-9.

Students in Years 10-12 are encouraged to attend to compete.

Naming our new building

The new Performing Arts Building is almost finished, and we are drawing closer to a grand opening. There are many protocols and operational matters to put into place before we are up and running. One matter we need to resolve is its name.

Below is a link to a very brief survey that canvases the views of our community about whether we should name the new building. It will take you approximately 1 min to complete.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/NamingNewPerformingArtsBuildingNHS

Annual Report to the Community 21 March

6pm - 7pm in the Performing Arts Theatre

The first community event we will be hosting in the new building is the Annual Report to the Community. This year will not only examine and report on our annual performance, we will also look at the achievement in relation to the goals and targets of the 2015 – 2018 Strategic Plan.

Our guest speakers will be our school captains, Noah Sutherland and Marco Bellemo, with a focus on the issues important to young people. There will be a musical performance, and then the students will hand over to me to take us through the performance indicators in our past strategic plan and in 2018. Also, for the first time this year, we will report on the success of the Thrive Fund.

Light refreshments will be served just prior to it starting at 5:45 pm.

Book your free seat at https://www.trybooking.com/BBHDH

We look forward to filling the new Theatre! Following the Annual Report to Community, at 7.00 pm we will hold the Annual General Meeting of School Council, in which we welcome our new School Council and elect office bearers.

School Council elections - voting opens Thursday 7 March

This week each household will receive in the post a pack with ballot papers for the School Council elections. Every parent of the school (was long as they are not DET employees of Northcote High School) can vote for the Parent members of Council. Voting is open from Thursday 7 March – Thursday 14 March 4.00 pm. Don’t forget to check the mail box this week and please note that all completed ballot papers must be received at the school by the closing date.  If you are returning yours via post, please allow time for delivery.

There are instructions included in the posted packs. Please read and follow these carefully to make sure your vote counts.