PRINCIPAL'S REPORT

Dear Parents and members of the MESC Community

Welcome back to the start of the 2019 school year. I am very pleased to say that we have had an exceptionally smooth start to the year, and our wonderful students are to be congratulated for the way they have resumed the learning commenced in Jumpstart. We have also been very pleased with the attitude to home learning demonstrated by students in our Senior Pathways Program, with the majority completing tasks assigned to them in preparation for the New Year.

It is a great measure of a school’s success when its vision and values are articulated by the students without prompt. At our whole school assembly on the first day of the year, our School Captains spoke to their peers about the college and their hopes for the year ahead. I was so proud to hear their words, and to know that the trust we afford them as leaders and representatives of the student group was so well placed.

One hundred and ten new year seven students were also welcomed to our college community. Whilst most of these students previously attended our three local primary schools, we have also attracted students from around twenty other primary schools. These families tell us that they choose this school because of its smaller size when compared to other government and private settings, and the calm and productive environment that exists here. They are also attracted by our VCE results, and the huge range of additional opportunities available to students at this college.

We were very proud of the success of our Year 12 VCE class of 2018, and particularly of our English median study score of 32. As this is the study that every student must do, it is a great indication of the extent to which our students are supported to do their best with many students outperforming their predicted scores. Overall, we had almost half of our students receiving an ATAR of 70 or above – a fantastic outcome by any measure and a credit to the quality of both teachers and programs at Mount Eliza Secondary.

The focus of our work in 2019 is in two areas:

• We aim to achieve strong learning growth for every student and to monitor and evaluate our teaching practice to ensure this is occurring
• We aim to build Student Voice and Learner Agency, ensuring that our students play an active role in the improvement of this college, and that they take increasing responsibility for their work as learners

I am excited about everything that has been achieved at this college in recent years, and very much look forward to continued success for all in 2019.

Angela Pollard

Principal