From the Principal

New college website is now ready to be launched

It is with much pleasure and pride that I announce our website is now ready to be launched to our school community.

The website address is:  https://yarrabingsc.vic.edu.au/ for community members to visit if they wish.

I wish to take this opportunity and thank the four people directly involved in supporting me in the development of this website; Theresa Pagon, Dina Becvinovski, Renay Ackland and I were instrumental in the writing of all the material. Our IT Manager, Locky McKinnon needs to be acknowledged for putting all this together to form this finished product.

What a brilliant effort by all of them. Well done.

Walking around Yarrabing Secondary College as I do each day, I am constantly amazed to see both our students and our staff engaged in many and varied activities. Schools are certainly vibrant places. In this edition of our newsletter, I want to take the opportunity to highlight some of the activities I was alerting to above.

2025 Year 7 Information Night

In the last week of Term 1, we had our Transition Information Night for the new 2025 Year 7 students and their families. We had close to 300 people attend on the night. It gave our Leadership team and staff the opportunity to introduce themselves, our college, and to outline to them the many proactive and positive programs that we have to offer. The feedback received from these families was incredibly complimentary for the college.

Athletics Carnival

The first Athletics Carnival held at the beginning of term was very successful this year. I was very pleased to see the vast majority of our students attend, participate, and encourage their fellow students to do well. It was also quite evident that both students and staff had a very good day getting into the spirit of the day.  I would like to acknowledge Mr Paul Arney, who organised the event with the support of the HAPE team and all the staff who contributed to the organisation and supervision on the day. It certainly was a very positive experience for those involved.

Student Learning - Parent/Teacher/Student interviews

Our students were given feedback through their Interim Reports recently. Discussions then took place during Parent/Teacher/Student Interviews for future improvement. For many of our students and their families this was a very beneficial experience. The teacher facilitated the interview and guided the student and parent through the process. Throughout the interviews parents and the teacher were encouraged to ask questions. We have since seen students diligently working even more in their classes to build their skills and knowledge in all areas of their learning programs.

On a different note, I also wish to mention the following items to our families:

New Community Hub building has been handed over as of 7 May 2024

The new gymnasium, performing arts and bike storage facilities which are all part of our new community hub have now been handed over to the college for use. We did run our first school assembly out of the Theatrette for our students last week. Timetabled classes started in the Community Hub as of this week. We thank all our school community for their patience as we have been awaiting its delivery.

School Bus for our Thornhill Park and Rockbank students

As you are aware, Public Transport Victoria (PTV) operates a School special bus service which collects students from the suburbs of Thornhill Park and Rockbank, transporting them to Yarrabing Secondary each morning and returning them in the afternoon.

As we do experience some issues at times with this bus service running on time, we are continuing to work closely with both the Transport Company as well as the Department of Transport and Planning (DTP) to address these concerns as they arise.

At our most recent meeting with the DTP they suggested that if issues continue to arise, that they ask families of students travelling on this bus to log the complaint with Public Transport Victoria (PTV) at the following link https://feedback.ptv.vic.gov.au/ptv-feedback. DTP are then able to see this complaint immediately and will then be able to address it in a timelier manner.

Social Media

Schools have been notified this week by police that there seems to be an increase in the number of Snapchat videos being sent out randomly to young students. These videos tend to be very confronting and horrific in the physical assaults that they are showing. As a school we spend time educating our students on the appropriate use of social media, but I also ask our families to further assist us in trying to get the message across by having a conversation with their student on the appropriate use of social media as well. In particular, I ask that you emphasize that students should not be opening any random videos. For further information to assist your conversation, please check the eSafety link that we have included in this newsletter.

John Mitsinikos 

College Principal