Principal's Report
Final Newsletter 2024
What a year! It has been busy as always and there has been so many successes throughout the year – too many to list as we reflect on the year that was.
This year, our usual high quality curriculum program has been enriched by more extracurricular opportunities, including interstate and overseas travel, a thriving music, visual and performing arts program, sports programs, and much more. We have also had some great community partnerships built this year through Year 9 Connect, our music and drama domains, and the VCE Vocational Major Certificate. For example, this year the VCE-VM students created a clothes bank for students, and cooked meals for the church and neighbourhood house, who delivered these to families in need. Bird boxes were built at Macalister Park with Landcare, they supported one of our feeder Primary schools with cleaning up their grounds, and helped run activities with residents at Stretton Park. Here at school they have undertaken a range of maintenance projects, including fixing the footy posts and tennis nets and revamping the male toilets in the gym. What a fantastic effort!
The student leadership team, led by our School Captains Jeremy Smyth and Kasey Svenson and Vice Captains Avery Canon and Luke Lanigan have continued to meet regularly as a whole group and also with their respective action teams to implement a range of student-led events and initiatives including: casual dress days, Maffra’s Got Talent, Carnival Day, Push Up Challenge, Harmony Week, Shave for a cure, and many other events.
Student wellbeing has continued to be a school priority, and this year we have had a focus on embedding a culture of respect and equality. Actions taken towards this include rolling out a new racism prevention policy, revamping our bullying prevention policy, and providing professional learning for all staff around disability inclusion and respectful relationships. Every student at our school, regardless of their background, is expected to uphold our school values and expected behaviours. In 2025, we are implementing a new ‘learning to learn’ program to provide high-quality social and emotional learning for every student along with the skills required to be a great learner. This will be supported by a weekly 30 minute assembly on a Monday, prior to lunchtime by a mix of whole school assemblies, house assemblies and year level assemblies.
In the academic space, this year we have seen the growth from the last couple of years continue to a higher level, because of our work in building teacher capacity. We have focused on differentiation, student voice and agency, inclusive classrooms, and literacy. We have continued to raise academic expectations of students, building on the introduction last year of every student across the school assessed as having either a Satisfactory or Not Satisfactory results for each semester-based subject they complete.
Pleasingly, our school culture continues to grow and thrive. Every year the department of education undertakes standardised surveys of parents, staff and students, allowing us to compare our school performance to all schools across the state.
Our staff data was above state average in 52 out of 54 measures – on average 19% higher than the state and 24% higher than similar schools. Our academic emphasis and our collective focus on student learning have both increased significantly, which is fantastic. We are lucky to have such dedicated and passionate staff.
Survey data from students shows that they are more confident, resilient, emotionally regulated and connected to school than the state average. They’re also experiencing more stimulating, differentiated and challenging learning than the state average, and they feel that our teachers care
about them, while maintaining high expectations for success. And, given our work this year on creating a culture of respect and equality, we are so proud of the data on ‘managing bullying’ and ‘respect for diversity’ which is well above state average.
Compared to the State, we are above the average in all but one of the measures - Attitudes to attendance - which will be a focus as we move forward because going to school every day is the single most important part of your child’s education.
As a result of our work focused on student learning, student engagement and student wellbeing, we are seeing learning stamina increase, classroom structures and processes have been more consistent, and this is being reflected in the parent opinion survey this year with their opinions of our school higher than the State average in 18 of the 21 measures which is very pleasing. The department’s performance report, that each school receives annually, has reinforced this by placing us in the highest category of performance. We are one of only 3 similar schools that have achieved this.
Our Year 12 VCE results have improved this year and we’ve achieved a median VCE study score of 28. This places us in the top 25% of all secondary schools across Gippsland, and that’s not just State schools, it also includes the Catholic and private schools. Our DUX result also increased and was higher than the previous 2 years – congratulations Lily Reid.
Our improved results at VCE have been the result of sustained hard work across the school to increase academic expectations. Our VCE English results improved significantly, with a median score of 28. This is the highest in over a decade. Mid way through Term 4, our Year 12 English teachers were invited to present their work at the Annual State Conference for English teachers and as a result of this, the VCAA have asked for their resources to be made available to every English teacher across the state!
Once again, our students across different year levels have secured a diverse range of apprenticeships and traineeships in 2024. Supported by a very strong careers program; every student receives individualised pathways support to navigate the ever challenging and increasingly complex road of identifying personal career goals and working towards them. We also work closely with HeadStart to support those who are interested in school-based apprenticeships and traineeships. This allows students to begin a paid traineeship or apprenticeship while completing their VCE or VCE-VM certificate.
We are proud of our 2024 results, but the work doesn’t stop here. In 2025 we have been invited to partner with the Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO) to learn about a deliberate and structured approach to implementing evidence-based practices in our school. We believe this will fit very nicely with the work we’ve been doing and we expect further growth in the future. We will be one of the first secondary schools across Australia to partner with AERO in this evidence-based approach after they worked with primary schools across Australia this year with very successful results.
All of this couldn’t happen without the incredible and committed teaching staff, passionate wellbeing team, dedicated education support staff, our energetic facilities manager and all of the incredible support staff in administration and those that support subject areas across the school. I would also like to acknowledge the strong leadership team and our two fabulous Assistant Principals that have worked strategically to lead the improvement agenda at Maffra Secondary College.
At the end of each year we always farewell some staff. This year we are farewelling the following staff and wish them all the best:
Loueen Smith (Eng/Hums/Indo – 1 year), Leanne Venables (VM), Michelle Macnaughtan (Eng), Naomi Wickham (Math/Sci), Daniel Anglim (Eng/Hums), Rachel Noble (Tutor), Kylie Ruthberg (ES), Rachel Green (ES), Alfie Rahim (Language assistant) and Mark Lisiecki (was on leave for 2 years.)
Our school wouldn’t be the same without our fabulous community of staff, students, parent/carers and the generous community organisations who are committed to making a difference in the lives of our young people every day. Thank you for your support, adaptability and good will this year - it takes a village to raise a child and an army to impact growth – we all have a role in making this happen and working together makes the journey so enjoyable. I wish everyone a happy and safe summer break and look forward to seeing you back here again in 2025.
Jennifer Roep
Princip