Senior Assistant Principal

What a start to Term 4! Thank you to our students as they returned to school in Week 1 & 2, reestablishing their routines and our high expectations across our programs. Our Tutor Group Teachers and Year Level Leaders have been monitoring trends to support students to begin the term successfully and this will continue across the term. We have seen innovative Tutor Group activities and positive messages in our Year Level Teams. Of course, there have been several DARE posts for attendance, productively learning behaviours in class and our summer school uniform too. Well done to our Year 10, 11 & 12 students!

Our Senior School students are finalising their 2024 academic programs over the next few weeks. Our formal SACs for our VCE and IB programs for Year 11 will be completed by the end of Week 3 to support students in finalising their satisfactory outcomes for Unit 2. This will empower our students to consider on their strengths and areas to revisit prior to our internal examinations which begin in Week 6. At this point in the year students also have the opportunity for self-reflection. We encourage our students to be proud of their contributions and see how their daily actions can shape positive behaviours. With the 2025 Student Leadership Teams applications now open it is fantastic to hear students reflect on how they might contribute to our community next year as senior role models in their year level and house communities. 

Class of 2024

Our Year 12 students have had a successful week of trial exams in the second week of the September holidays. Thank you to the staff who volunteered to supervise them along with our Chief Exam Supervisor who was also on-site this week to get to know our students and our requirements for each of our Year 12 subjects. This allows her to further support our students with special provisions and set up supports for the final external examinations this term. 

We have had many celebrations since the term started to farewell our Class of 2024. From pyjama days to ‘bring anything but a bag’. There was such creativity as the Year 12 community connected over their shared events. While they tried to challenge our staff at netball, the students were quickly shown that the reigning champions will continue to secure the victory.

Yesterday we concluded our events with a whole school assembly where our students heard of the positive contributions of our Year 12 students. Since arriving at Auburn in 2019 they have been a strongly connected cohort who has participated widely in all aspects of school life. Our students farewelled them throughout the main school building by lining the corridors and clapping the Class of 2024 as they left together for the final time. Last night concluded with a Valedictory Ceremony and Dinner at the Hawthorn Arts Centre. This local venue embodies the grandeur of our graduation ceremony, and we thank our families who attended to support our graduates. We heard from members of our Senior School team and were proud to announce students who had demonstrated academic excellence and aspiration in their Year 12 subjects. Thank you to Craig McPherson (Year 12 Leader) and Ashley Lanfranchi (Leading Teacher – Student Leadership & Community Engagement) who have been working behind the scenes to ensure these events are a true representation of this incredible milestone for our students and their families. 

The development of our inaugural IB program has been a long-term project for our school, and it is so exciting to have our first IB cohort graduating this year. Our IB students begin their external examination on Monday, the culmination of two years of study where they will be assessed against the content in their three higher-level and three standard-level subjects. It has been lovely to see them submitting their final internal assessments and finalising their CAS projects, Extended Essays and Theory of Knowledge (TOK) components. I want to thank our first IB teaching team (Cassandra Mahony, Jesse Weymouth, Gary Wu, Geraldine Lautour-Akremi, Peter Ryan, Alisha Kirtley, Sam Tolomei, Louisa Phillipson, Emily Zaccaria, Genaaron Diamente and our Extended Essays Supervisors) who have guided by Peter Ryan (Leading Teacher – Curriculum 10-12) to support our students through the implementation of our first IB program.  We have learnt a lot and come a long way since our authorisation in 2022 and I know that our students and community value this addition to AHS. It is a huge achievement as these students complete their two-year program. Thank you to our families for supporting and trusting our school with this program. 

I am excited for the term ahead and look forward to celebrating and reflecting throughout the term.