Principal's Report

As I look out of my office window today I can’t help but smile – the sun is out, the wind has largely died down, there’s a warmth in the air and students are joyfully anticipating their well-deserved break from school for the next fortnight.  In many respects third term is the hardest to get through for staff and students with no public holidays to break up the weekly routines of school and mostly darkened skies during the shorter days of the year.  But, it’s also the term where, with less interruptions outside of sickness, learning can really skip along.  I hope this has been your child’s experience in term 3 and that you’ve noticed their personal growth and development.

Over the past couple of days I’ve had my radar seemingly tuned into learning around global sustainability.

On Wednesday evening I attended the Warrnambool Youth Council’s screen of the movie ‘2040’ which reflects with hope on actions that the world could be taking now to alleviate the potentially devasting events of climate change.  It was the positive tonic I needed to reflect on an issue that I find myself getting increasingly fearful about – an issue that will impact on us all, but more acutely those that are in the teenage years now.  It was fantastic to see so many Warrnambool College students and families at the event – there is much that we can all do in Warrnambool to make our own contributions to a sustainable way of living and I look forward to exploring this further with our sustainability group at school into term 4.

On Thursday afternoon, we had the privilege of linking up again via video conferencing to our sister schools in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.  This time our Minister for Education, the Honourable James Merlino was on the other end of the video link up as he was visiting our sister school Olifant in Yogyakarta.  It was a privilege to sit in on the conversations between our students in both school settings and hear more about their sustainability ‘pledges’, which involved commitments around reduced use of plastics.  James was very impressed with the ongoing commitment between our schools to work together.  It is pleasing to know that those in positions of influence in Victorian education are excited about the learning happening at our school.

And today many of our students made the active decision to be involved in the climate strike action rally down at the Civic Green.  I want students at our school to be in school and learning to the best of their abilities, but I also want our students to be active contributors in our community.  I know that many of the students involved in the rally today have already made commitments to be involved in our sustainability group at school and to take their activism and put it to good, positive, ongoing use in terms of the decisions we make to be better environmental stewards at Warrnambool College.  It’s an important area for us to take seriously as we make our own positive contributions towards sustaining this wonderful planet of ours.

Enjoy your next fortnight away from the routines of school.  For all of our VCE students, make sure you plan to have a break, but also plan to get your study done as well – exams are just around the corner and you need to maintain your learning momentum in the next month.

Kind Regards,

Dave Clift

Principal