GSSC Leadership Team

Most of us in education have tried to move past descriptions like “unprecedented” or “extraordinary” in describing the events of past months as we manage teaching and learning in a time of pandemic. So I won’t mention the fact that Term 3 of 2021 was unprecedented, extraordinary and a school term like no other (even if it was!).

What I would like to say is how far we have come in a short time as a new school. 

Term 3 of 2021, in many ways, has exemplified how Greater Shepparton Secondary College (GSSC) has come into its own. Staff and students have come together across our campuses, proud of their school and excited about our future.

We knew the development of our own, strong GSSC culture among students, staff and our school community was never going to be easy. We’ve had to run a single school from three separate campuses with many students and staff having to shift from familiar surrounds as our new school was constructed on the grounds of the old Shepparton High School.

The addition of a pandemic and the need to equip and adjust our students and staff to remote learning simply made this difficult, two-year transition even more challenging.

Yet it has been awe-inspiring to see our new, state-of-the-art school take shape at Hawdon Street. It has been equally impressive to see our leadership team, students and staff from Shepparton High School, Mooroopna Secondary College, McGuire Secondary College, Wanganui Secondary College and Invergordon, come together as GSSC, with our shared vision and values.

I mentioned how GSSC has really come into its own in Term 3 – we not only have a school working very well together in its operations, but we have teachers who are now very familiar with their colleagues and able to pool their talents to best serve our students. We have wonderful student leaders who relate to GSSC as the secondary school they are proud to call their own.

Indeed, School Captain Caitlyn Glasson has been outspoken in her public support and pride in GSSC. Co-Captain Ben Okely’s achievements have been recognised with a 2021 VCE Leadership Award and a chance to be named VCE Leader of the Year.

To quickly summarise Term 3, we returned to normal school in mid-July with hopes we could avoid remote learning. Our past experience, however, taught us to make the most of every face-to-face teaching moment – and we did – until Friday 20th August saw us go into a sudden lockdown.

The few days of school prior to this lockdown would give you a sense of our commitment to GSSC and our students.

On the Monday, with Melbourne having long been in lockdown, we decided to bring Carlton Football Club into our Year 7 and 8 classrooms. The delivery of the Carlton Respects program saw AFL and AFLW star players deliver lessons to our youngest students.

The next day, 17th August, our inaugural GSSC Junior Athletics Day was held. It was a fantastic day for our first-ever GSSC athletics carnival with so many staff committed to its success. It also instilled the friendly House rivalry that will fit so seamlessly into our new school.

On the Thursday of that week, we again took advantage of our status to have on-site learning to bring another Melbourne “star” into our classrooms. Grant Petty is the founder of Blackmagic Design, a world leader in film and television production and a product of McGuire campus – a true inspiration to our senior students.

When we were thrust into lockdown on the Friday, our school spirit really shone. With most of our students and staff forced to isolate, the efforts to support our GSSC families in quarantine ramped up from Saturday morning and continued through our two weeks of quarantine.

Food drops were hastily organised for vulnerable families and our college’s Multicultural Education Aids and Koorie Educators were particularly invaluable in reaching out to our diverse community. This was a community-wide effort and our college certainly played its part in keeping the pandemic at bay.

While remote learning isn’t our preferred method of teaching, our staff, students, parents and carers simply got on with it. Parent-teacher interviews in the final week of term cemented this engagement.

Successive days of zero cases has seen the harshest lockdown measures lifted in Greater Shepparton, just in time to allow our families more freedom as they enjoy a well-earned term break. 

We have high hopes Term 4 will allow all of our students to return to on-site learning. As a school, we will also take possession of our new campus and we have much to do to prepare for the 2022 school year in an amazing new facility.

The hard work in creating a strong, proud school culture, however, has been done. Term 3 – for all its ups and downs – certainly showed us that.

Enjoy the term break and we look forward to seeing you in October.

Barbara O’Brien

Executive Principal

For the Greater Shepparton Secondary College Leadership Team