Principal's Report

Dear Homestead Community,

As we reach the middle of Term 3, there is once again a great deal happening across Homestead and plenty I am so proud of.

One of the things I continue to value enormously about our college is the quality of the people who work here. Teaching is highly skilled professional work. Every day our teachers make hundreds of decisions about what students need to learn next, when they need additional support, when they need to be challenged, how assessment should inform teaching, and sometimes when a young person simply needs an adult to hold them to a high standard.

These decisions aren't simply opinions. They are professional judgements, informed by evidence, experience, collaboration and, importantly, knowing our students.

I am equally grateful that the overwhelming majority of our families understand and respect this. One of the great strengths of Homestead is the relationship between home and school. Our parents ask questions, communicate with us and work alongside our staff with a shared purpose, helping young people succeed.

That is something worth protecting as our college continues to grow.

Plenty to celebrate

Perhaps the biggest highlight of the term so far was our first ever college production, Clue – High School Edition.

What our amazing directors, Elise and Cal, our students and the many people supporting them managed to create was genuinely remarkable. To watch the students perform was fantastic, but equally rewarding was seeing them backstage, working together throughout the weekend, and seeing the pride of their families. 

The production started with very little and became something our community can be enormously proud of. I am incredibly grateful to Elise and Cal for taking the risk of creating something new for our college and for giving our students an experience that will stay with them well beyond this year.

Our students have also continued to represent Homestead exceptionally well in sport. Congratulations to our Senior Girls Badminton Team, who finished second at the regional competition. We have seen excellent performances across a range of other sporting competitions as well, and, as always, I am particularly proud of the way our students represent the college when they are away from school. Receiving feedback from members of other schools bout the conduct of our students continues to be such a highlight for me.

Our STEM Racing team-Typhoon, in collaboration with Alamanda College, also had the opportunity to present at the Western Melbourne Principal Forum. Having our students share their work in front of school leaders from across the region is wonderful recognition of what they have achieved. It also speaks to the confidence of our students and the quality of the programs and opportunities being built around them.

Whether it is performing on stage, competing in sport, designing and engineering, or standing in front of a room of principals and presenting your work, these experiences matter. They allow students to discover things about themselves that cannot always be measured by a test or an assessment score.

Welcoming new staff

We are also pleased to welcome two new members of staff to Homestead.

Mehar Pinki has joined us in classroom support, working alongside our teachers and students, while Tom Coleman has commenced in our Maintenance and Woodwork team.

Both roles contribute in very different ways to the daily life of our college, and I look forward to the contribution Mehar and Tom will make to Homestead.

Looking into the near future

For our Year 12 students in particular, the next part of the year moves incredibly quickly. What they do now really matters. Attendance, preparation, asking for help when needed and responding to feedback will all make a difference as they head towards the final part of their schooling.

For our Year 10 and 11 students, there is plenty of important work happening too as they continue to build the habits, knowledge and independence they will need as they move through senior school.

There is still plenty to come at Homestead this term. Amongst all the events, programs and opportunities, the most important things remain pretty simple: students being at school, teachers teaching well, students putting in the work, and families and the college working together.

We are very fortunate that this partnership is overwhelmingly what we see at Homestead, and I thank our families for the trust and respect they continue to show our staff.

As always, thank you to our students, staff and families for everything you continue to contribute to our wonderful college.

Kind regards

Danijel

Principal