General Information & Reminders

General Office

Office hours:  8:15 am - 4:30 pm

Parents visiting the school or trying to make contact with their children must always make contact with the General Office first.

Camps, Sports and Excursion Fund (CSEF)/State School Relief and Parent Payment

If you hold a valid means-tested concession card or are a temporary foster parent, you may be eligible for CSEF.  The allowance will be paid to the school to use toward expenses relating to camps, excursions or sporting activities/sports uniform for the benefit of your child. The annual CSEF amount per student will be: $225 for secondary school students.

How to Apply: Contact the school office to obtain a CSEF application form or download HERE

State School Relief: Applicants applying for State School’s Relief must have a valid Health Care Card dated first day of the 2023 school year. Assistance may be available if you are experiencing financial difficulties. Please contact the Wellbeing Team on 9743 3322.

Parent Payments

The 2023 Parent Payment information can be found on the College website.

https://www.meltonsc.vic.edu.au/our-college/policies-reports/ (Payments and Finance)

Compass Pay

Melton Secondary College are now accepting payments via Compass. You can now access your students’ events and parent payments via your compass app. 

Attached you will find instructions on how to pay for your student's upcoming events and provide consent through Compass. 

This will reduce the amount of consent forms your child will bring home as everything will be in one place for you. Once an event has been created you will receive a notification in your newsfeed advising that you have an Event Consent/Payment requiring action. If an event doesn’t require a payment, you will only need to consent. 

Parent payment contributions can also be accessed and paid for via the app. Payments will still be accepted at the office by Cash or Eftpos if this is your preferred payment method. 

Please do not hesitate to contact the College office on 9743 3322 if you would like further information.

School Canteen

Students are able to order food for lunchtime before school and order food for recess at lunchtime. By ordering food at these times, it is guaranteed that food is available. EFTPOS is now available for students to use.

Uniform Shop

The Uniform Shop is located at 39 Bakery Square, Melton

Monday to Friday 1pm to 5pm and Saturday 10.00am to 2pm

Contact number 8746 2142 

Orders can be also made online at Shop.Buxwear.com and collected from the shop.

Lost Property

If your child has lost any items in school last year, please encourage them to check lost property located in sickbay during their breaks, before or after school.  We highly recommend that all clothing is clearly labelled with your child's name. 

Locks: All locks are supplied by the school. 

Non school locks will be removed from lockers.

Bike Cage: Please encourage your child to lock his/her bike inside the bike cage and not outside.

Student accident insurance, ambulance cover and private property brought to school

Parents and guardians are reminded that the Department of Education and Training (DET) does not provide personal accident insurance or ambulance cover for students. Parents and guardians of students, who do not have student accident/insurance/ambulance cover, are responsible for paying the cost of medical treatment for injured students, including the cost of ambulance attendance or transport as well as any other transport costs.  The DET cannot provide advice to parents or guardians on the purchase of individual student accident policy or ambulance cover.  Insurance policies can be purchased from commercial insurers. Private property brought to school by students, staff or visitors is not insured and the Department does not accept any responsibility for any loss or damage. This can include mobile phones, calculators, toys, sporting equipment and cars parked on school premises.  As the DET does not hold insurance for personal property brought to schools and has no capacity to pay for any loss or damage to such property, students and staff are discouraged from bringing any unnecessary or particularly valuable items to school.

Access to School Grounds

All parents/carers and visitors to the school are unable to drive a car on to the school grounds as the driveways are gated. Parking can be found in the local car parks close to the college. 

The decision to restrict car access to school staff has been made in the best interests of student safety. This decision will greatly reduce the amount of traffic at the front of the school site during the times of the day where students are walking in this same area. This increases the pedestrian safety for our students. 

We still have disability parking for anyone unable to walk from a local car park to the administration building. Anyone with a medical reason that means they require a disability car park can call the number on the signs on the gate to contact the front office, and the gate will be opened automatically.

School Access Times - Students

Melton Secondary College grounds will be open each morning from 7:30am and close at 5:00pm. Please note, while the grounds are accessible, supervision of students does not begin until 8:50am, 10 minutes before the school day begins. If your student is enrolled in a school run program before school, supervision is provided within that program.

The grounds then close at 5:00pm each day. Students are supervised for 10 mins after the end of day bell, 3:20pm Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and 2:50pm on Wednesday. If students are attending a program or training at the end of the school day, supervision will be provided, but all students must be enrolled in the program.

Students should not arrive at school prior to these times. 

Collecting students from school early

From time to time it is necessary for students to leave early during the day due to appointments and family matters. To assist us in ensuring that your student is in the office to be collected on time can we please ask that you do the following:

• If you have a known appointment please provide your student with a note that they can present to sub school when they arrive. Sub school will provide them with a pass to leave class at the appropriate time. When notes are not provided it is necessary for a staff member to leave their work station to locate the student.
• If you have an unexpected reason to collect your student please call ahead of time so that we are able to locate them prior to your arrival.
• If your student contacts you on their mobile phone to organise an early pickup, please direct them to the office to avoid any unnecessary confusion when they arrive to be exited. Students should not be using their mobile phones during school hours.
• If students are ill during the day they should come and see Lauren in First Aid who will then call you if they need to go home.

We are unable to make announcements to call students to the office during learning time as this will interrupt the rest of the school.

Students may need to purchase their lunch from time to time via the canteen. We ask that money is provided to students at the start of the day, rather than dropping off lunch or lunch money during the school day.

Mobile Phones

It is a rule in all Victorian schools that students who bring Mobile Phones to school must store them in their lockers for the duration of the school day. If students need to make phone calls during the day these can be made at the Student Reception in the General Office from the school phone. If parents/carers need to contact their child, please phone the College on 9743 3322 . More information is available via our Mobile Phone Policy  Students who breach this rule are required to hand their phone into the office and collect it at the end of the day. Consequences for repeated breaches of the Mobile Phone Policy are outlined in the College Student Engagement and Wellbeing Policy. 

Recording a Student Absence

Parents and carers can now log student absences on Compass anytime, anywhere!

When your child is absent or arriving late to school, you should let us know by logging the absence on Compass.

Absences can be logged in advance, so if you know that your child will be away in the future, you can pre-record this.

Please see attached information on how to report an absence.

FAQs

Can I still notify the school of an absence by phone or email?

No, all absences will need to be logged online, however, Term 3 will be a transition period. Our office staff are available to support families to use the online process. 

What if I can’t access Compass?

Please contact the office and we will provide you with your log in details.

Can students log their own absences?

No. Legally students cannot provide explanations or permission for absences. It is critical that parent/carer Compass login details remain confidential and inaccessible to students.

Account access may be restricted if unusual absences have been detected.

Our school collects, uses, discloses and stores student and parent personal information for standard school functions or where permitted by law, as stated in the Schools’ Privacy Policy.

Privacy Information for Parents and Carers

Please take time to remind yourself of our school’s collection notice, found on our website https://www.meltonsc.vic.edu.au/assets/uploads/2022/02/Privacy-Collection-Notice.pdf 

For more information about privacy, refer to: Schools’ Privacy Policy — information for parents. This information is also available in ten community languages:

* Amharic

* Arabic

* Dari

* Gujarati

* Mandarin

* Somali

* Sudanese

* Turkish

* Urdu

* Vietnamese