From the Acting Principal 

Welcome back from online learning!  

It seems to be a re-occurring message – “Welcome back!”, however it is the message that I continue to share with our staff and students. We are so pleased that we are able to be back onsite, undoubtedly we are improving in our ability to work and learn remotely, but the familiarity with teaching and learning in the classroom makes it our preferred mode.

At School Council last week, our two student representatives were asked how they were finding the use of Microsoft Teams for online learning. The students both agreed that the time invested in learning how to use the new platform has definitely been worth it, but also that there are some technical challenges. Sometimes our challenges are not so technical - you would think by now that we would not need to say “You are on mute” so often during class or a meeting. I have also experienced some technical issues with my email address that is linked through Compass. If you emailed me last fortnight it would not have got through to me, I apologise that it took a week or two to realise that I have not received your email, please feel free to resend if it has not been resolved.

Let’s hope that we can continue to be learning onsite. To do so we all need to be playing our part in covid-safe behaviours around the school and in our local community. This includes mask wearing. It has been pleasing to see students consistently wearing their masks with only a few students needing to be reminded. I have one request for families though, and that is that we try to reduce the number of single-use masks that we use. I have been noticing broken masks left around our local community and reading about the environmental impacts they are having.

Interschool Sport and Interschool activities are now allowed to run after initially being postponed. I hope that more events, such as performances, excursions and camps can be reorganised very soon.

Architect Appointed

I’m excited to share with you that Kerstin Thompson Architects have been appointed to work on the upcoming upgrade project at Northcote High School. They are the same architecture firm that designed the PAC building.

Architects will work closely with our School Council and the Victorian School Building Authority (VSBA) to develop designs for state-of-the-art facilities for our school.

It’s forecast that the initial stages of design will be completed by Term 1 2022.

Once these designs are finalised by the School Council and approved by the VSBA and Department of Education and Training, our project will then progress into the final stages of design development which will see us share renders of the project with our school community.

The VSBA will work closely with our school to ensure our community continues to be updated as the project progresses. I look forward to sharing more details with you soon.

If you have any further questions about the works at Northcote High School, you can phone the VSBA on 1800 896 950, email vsba@education.vic.gov.au or visit the website: www.schoolbuildings.vic.gov.au/schools/Pages/NorthcoteHighSchool.aspx

I look forward to meeting you around the school or very soon at school events, 

Chris Jones

Acting Principal