Principal Report  

End of Semester 1

As we finish Semester 1 today, I would like to thank all of our students, families and staff for their endeavour and efforts, resilience, creativity and collaboration across the Semester. Schools are generally very busy places, and this past semester at Koonung has been both very busy and very productive. I am constantly in awe of our hard-working staff, who on top of their excellent classroom practice, continue to offer their time and skills in a wide range of co curricula and extra curricula activities. I am proud of our students who live of motto of ‘Excellence through Endeavour’, who take the opportunities, both inside and outside of the classroom, to involve themselves into the College Community. Finally, I am thankful of our parent community for your support of your child and their learning. 

It has been a busy semester, so please take the opportunity of the winter break to recharge your batteries, spend quality family time together and rest before coming back for the start of Term 3 on Monday 10 July.

The Semester 1 reports will be published to all parents on Friday June 23 through Compass. 

New Address

When we return on Monday 10 July, you will notice some further changes to the layout of the College. Firstly, our new Administration building should be completed. This will see the shift from our entry on Elgar Road, to a new entry for the College on Box Hill Crescent. As a result, our address will be changing. Koonung Secondary College’s new address will be-

68 Box Hill Crescent

Mont Albert North , VIC 3129

Elgar Road Access

As a result of the shift to Box Hill Crescent, gates have been installed on the Elgar Road entry. The Elgar Road entry to the College will only be open in the morning for student access to school, and in the afternoon as students leave. The gates will be closed during the school day, as well as on weekends and during school holidays. This means that if students need to leave the College during the school day, after they have signed out they will need to leave via Box Hill Crescent. It also means that students who arrive late to school will need to access school through the Box Hill Crescent. This is a change to our current practice. We know that this will take some time to get used to, but the use of gates on Elgar Road is based on promoting and enhancing student safety, as well as adhering to Child Safe standards. Our standards require that all visitors to the College grounds, including parents, must report to the Administration building on arrival. We cannot permit visitors to walk through the College on safety grounds. 

Similarly, the access for the wider community to College facilities is one that we are proud of. We proudly host the Koonung Comets in our Stadium, as well as Saturday Language school as well as community use of our grounds and basketball courts on the Box Hill Crescent side of the College. This will continue. However, for site security on weekends and over school holidays,  the access from Elgar Road to Box Hill Crescent will no longer be available for community use. Access to the Stadium will be through the newly re-opened car park (on the southern side of the new Admin building/A block) and the external basketball courts and soccer pitch remain open for community use. 

New Administration Building

The finishing touches are being added to the building works and we are getting ready to move in. 

The new administration means that all visitors and parents will be able to park along Box Hill Crescent or in the Admin carpark and check in to the College through the general office. This is far safer for our College community that we will have one point of access to the college through the Box Hill Crescent entry.  

Concussion Protocols

As you may be aware, concussion protocols have been an important discussion topic in our wider community as we learn more about Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE). 

We ask all families that if child does experience a concussion in sport outside of school, to please let us know so as we can follow the recommended guidelines around return to school and return to sport protocols. This is important for our Physical Education lessons, Sport Ed classes and in inter-school sport. 

For more information about Head injury, please see-

Kids Health Information : Head injury – return to school and sport (rch.org.au)

Kids Health Information : Head injury – general advice (rch.org.au)

Events

It has again been a very busy May and June here at Koonung. I would like to highlight a few events from the past month. 

Congratulations to our Year 7 students for completing 100 days of Year 7. The Middle School Team hosted an Assembly for our students, with a wide range of student presenters and performers from Years 8-12, and a fun activities afternoon. 

The Year 11 and 12 Formal was held this week at The Grand on Cathies Lane. A fantastic way to end the semester. The students looked amazing and danced the night away!

Our Year 10 students have just completed a Week of Work Experience. Our staff have loved visiting the students in their workplace and we look forward to presenting some of the stories of work experience in our next newsletter.

The end of semester not only means the Semester report, but also Exams. Well done to our students for their participation in Exams this semester. 

We also held our annual Winter Music Concerts. Held over two nights, the concerts showcased exceptional talent and effort from the students in our extensive Music program. 

Please see the page in this newsletter for a future event- the proposed Koonung College Space Camp scheduled for September 2024. 

Koonung’s very own Peter Hodkinson has the launch for his book ‘Inside the Notebook’. Congratulations Peter and well done. 

Please support our wonderfully talented and hard working students in the upcoming College Musical- ‘Seussical’. Tickets are available for purchase now. 

Staffing Update

I would like to take this opportunity to thank a number of staff who will be leaving us at the end of this Semester. A big thank you too Mr James Vlasiotis and Ms Helen Caine for who has completed a Term replacement role in Physical Education and Science respectively. We will see both Mr Vlasiotis and Ms Caine again in other roles next term.  Thank you also to Mr Nathan Carter and Mr Brendan Pinto who will be moving to new opportunities, and we wish them all the best. There will be staff taking Long Service Leave  including Mr Phil Dimattina, Mr David Forward and Mr Conor Sheehan in Term 3 and we wish them an enjoyable period of leave. Finally, we wish all the best to Ms Sarah Hobson who will be beginning Family Leave at the start of Term 3.

With Mr Sheehan on leave in Term 3, we would like to announce that Ms Allira Howe will moving into the Assistant Principal role and Mr Alistair Tuffnell will move into the Director of Learning: Senior School role for Term 3. Congratulations also to Mr Jordan Dunn, who will be moving into the Year 9 Coordinator role for the remainder of 2023. We are very pleased that we start Term 3 fully staffed and look forward to another busy term.

Have a wonderful Winter break and we look forward to students returning on Monday 10 July.

Andrew McNeil

Principal

andrew.mcneil@education.vic.gov.au