Assistant Principals' Report

Term 3, like the third quarter of an AFL game, can be the most gruelling. Our students and staff have performed amazingly, and we hope you all enjoy your well-earned break! 

This term there has been numerous school wide programs and events that have given students the opportunity to rise to challenges, both with their learning and personal development. This term we have been fortunate to see the high performing capabilities of our music and drama students through the production and spring concert and our interschool sporting teams have come home with several ribbons. We are particularly proud of students who have engaged in Maths competitions, Career programs, and participated in discussions around their capabilities and Victorian curriculum levels in readiness for VCE, several of our Year 9s have now chosen their VCE Advancement subjects for 2025. Lastly, we would like to congratulate our Year 12s who have now completed their course work for the year and are beginning exam preparation. 

Managing Me Year 7 & 8 

In the year 7 & 8 ‘Managing Me’ learning program we focus on key themes that support our students to develop their Personal and Social Capabilities. 

Key themes include: 

• Organisation, 
• Emotional Regulation, 
• Goal Setting & Reflection, 
• Responsible use of Information & Communication Technology (ICT), 
• Career Exploration, 
• Healthy Choices Planning, and 
• Celebrating Student Achievements. 

Each week the lessons focus on one of these topics supporting the development of essential skills for life. Students are expected to share their learning with their family each week and record this in their college planner. If your child needs support with this conversation you can help them by looking through the Managing Me lesson plans and using the prompts that are provided in the last lesson plan for this subject each week. 

Here are examples of some prompts from lessons this year. 

Conversation Task prompts: 

• Organisation - Ask parent/carer how they have improved their organisation?  
• Responsible use of ICT - Ask your parent/carer, how do they use shared documents in their life?  
• Career Exploration - Ask your parent/carer, what did they want to be when they were growing up?  
• Emotional Regulation - Ask your parent/carer, how do they identify and manage their emotions?  

This week the focus has been on Healthy Holiday planning; you might like to ask your child how they plan to look after their health over the holiday break. 

Digital Literacy Lessons 

We are very fortunate to have been resourced by the Department of Education with a Health Promotion School Nurse and throughout this Term we have be working collaboratively to develop curriculum that addresses some of the concerns that emerge amongst our community at all year levels around appropriate digital literacy, particularly with a focus on social media. During the year we have collected some data around what our students' beliefs and values are towards respectful relationships and through consultation with our school captains we developed some clear actions and program interventions that would support the improvement of attitudes around respect.  

Over the past two weeks the School Captains have generously given up their time to collaborate with the Principal Team and complete training in preparation for teaching two Yr7 classes during the week. These sessions covered students values and understanding of how to be safe when using social media, including the types of things you post, the location tracking and what a digital footprint is and impacts of poor choices that can be made. We are incredible proud of the way our school captains rose to the challenge to present and teach our Year 7’s. 

This program is a valuable step in improving the delivery of digital literacy at Doncaster Secondary College and this program will become part of the Managing Me curriculum in 2025.  

Stride or Glide – Manningham City Council Vic Health Partnership 

Throughout Term 3 the Year 9 My Fitness & My City Planning classes partnered with Vic Health and The Manningham City Council to promote and improve the way students and staff come to school. Throughout the program students collected data and explored the different ways our community come to school, part of their program involved developing a strategy to encourage our community to consider low impact ways we can come to school.  

Students identified that 50% of student live within 6-10 minutes of school and that there are some alternate transport options other than the car that we need support from the council that helps change the habits of the Doncaster community. The most significant strategy that the student teams reported on was the need for more bike lanes in Doncaster to create a safer environment for bike riding to and from school or other prominent destinations.  

On Wednesday 18th September the Myself classes concluded their project by presenting their project, findings and recommendations to the Manningham City Council, including the Traffic and engineering team, families and youth, marketing and communication portfolios. Our students in their individual teams presented in the council chambers to over 10 Council staff. We are incredible proud of the work of these students who have participated in this project and particular thanks must go to the teachers who supported, Nick Ward & Adua Cipolato. 

The students received a significant amount of feedback from the council staff, which included how impressed they were with the evidence base the students had used for their work, the percentage of our school population who provided data and their presentations. Students also had the opportunity during the project to share their work with the CEO of Vic Health and in the coming months the video created by Vic Health will be circulated around the community.  

Senior School 

This week year 12 students are engaging in trial examinations to support their preparation for final VCE examinations. This will provide students with opportunities to practice their time management skills and discover what aspects of their learning require further study. Term 3 holidays are not a traditional holiday for year 12 students. We encourage students to take the time to rest and engage in activities that support relaxation, but to still find time to engage in practice examination and preparation for the final VCE hurdle. 

Year 11s and 10s will have end of year examinations during term 4, which will provide them with critical practice for their upcoming year 12 year.  

During examinations, students are reminded to adhere to school rules and VCAA examination expectations. You can read about these more here. In particular, students must remember that they cannot have a mobile phone or a smartwatch or any device that is similar. Students found in possession of such a device will face significant school consequences, but for our year 12s, they will seriously jeopardise their ATAR.  

We understand it can be a stressful time for students, so please reach out to the Senior School if you need support in your learning, motivation or wellbeing. Additionally, the Wellbeing Team can be reached via MS Teams, over the break, and students can report to Wellbeing Intake during the school term.  

Year 11 student, Sarah Coates, in her capacity as a member of the Student Representative Council, has met with the school’s Curriculum Committee to propose the re-establishment of the School Leadership Team. Sarah will work with the school and student leadership teams to get this up and running. We commend her forward-thinking and inclusivity in working to create more opportunities for students to become leaders and work together to make DSC the best space it can be. 

Belinda McGee, Kristin Skennar & Wes Pfitzner

Assistant Principals