Principal's Message-
Laura Spence
Dear families,
As we reach the end of Term 1, it’s a great opportunity to reflect on what has been an incredibly full and rewarding start to the year. Our students have been involved in a wide range of experiences, including Immersion Week, NAPLAN, Open Night, Year 7 Camp, SES and OED camps, the VM Fringe Festival, interschool sports, the Swimming Carnival, VCE Success Day, and much more. It has been a productive term, and we are very proud of all that has been achieved.
Our Year 7 students returned safely this week from their camp at Summit Adventure Park. This experience is an important part of the transition to secondary school, helping students to build friendships, resilience and confidence. We commend our students for the way they embraced the challenges of camp, and thank our staff for their care and organisation of this significant event. They will probably sleep through the Easter weekend!
On Tuesday evening, our Vocational Major students showcased their work at the annual Fringe Festival. Families who attended would have seen the high quality of student projects and presentations. A highlight I observed was the thoughtful way students explored and communicated the impacts of social media on young people, demonstrating both insight and confidence in speaking with visitors. We are very proud of their efforts. This is a particularly important topic as our teenagers from Year 7 to Year 12 navigate the online world. We have communicated with parents this term from younger year levels of concerns around social media platforms and the dangers we are often not aware of, as well as having an ongoing curriculum school wide around respectful relationships, consent, and the online world. Parents and carers, over the break please take the time to talk to your children about their online use and ensure you are aware of what they are accessing. The statewide school smart devices ban, and the Under 16 social media ban is in place to protect young people, but it requires a strong partnership between school and home to continually reinforce the information.
We also acknowledge a significant staff milestone this week, with Jenny Graham celebrating 30 years of Educational Service at the College, starting at Ballam Technical College. Jenny has made an outstanding contribution to our school community over many years, and we thank her for her dedication and commitment. McClelland College has many staff who have been here for decades, as well as many staff who were students here and have retuned to be on staff, which is indicative of our whole dedicated and quality staff body.
Please take time to read and enjoy this edition of COG to see all of the wonderful learning and activities from Term 1. Thank you to our families for your ongoing support throughout a very busy term. We wish all students and families a safe, restful and enjoyable break, and we look forward to welcoming everyone back for Term 2.