Principal's Update
Dear Families, Students and Community Members,
Art Show
A key event on our College calendar each year, and always a highlight, is our Art Show.
This year, given our current circumstances, we welcomed all members of our College community to a special virtual streamlined event to celebrate the talent and achievements of our Years 7-12 students across the Visual and Performing Arts, including Studio Arts, Visual Communication and Design, Media Studies, Drama and Music.This event opened on Friday 12 November with the link and password emailed via Compass to all families and it will be accessible for the rest of the term. I would like to thank our local member, Tim Richardson, for providing an official opening speech that has been included on the homepage of the website.
To access the show please navigate to: www.mcartshow2021.squarespace.com
Then enter the password mordi2021
An incredible amount of work went into the preparation and the Arts Learning Area team deserves the highest praise for their commitment to their students and dedication in ensuring the delivery of this quality showcase event, although in a different format to our traditional Years 7-12 Arts/Technology exhibition in the EZ. Congratulations to all students who have entered their work for exhibition. We hope you feel as proud as we do of your outstanding efforts this year under very difficult circumstances.
Special thanks to our Art Show Coordinators this year - Leah Bright, Alex Trevisan and Megan Furphy, supported by the rest of Arts/Technology team.
Congratulations Cory Watters
One of our PE and Sport teachers, Cory Watters, has been awarded a School Sport Victoria Award for twenty years of significant contribution to school sport in Victoria. The award ceremony is to be held virtually on December 8. Congratulations and well done to Cory for this recognition from Sport Victoria. It is a significant achievement, recognising Cory’s dedication and involvement in promoting and organising Sport in our school and beyond, as our individual and teams have progressed through district, regional and state finals.
Facility Development
We are now permitted to have a full construction workforce onsite to continue working on the completion of our new two storey Year 7 and 8 Learning Centre. The colour bond wall cladding is nearly completed, fibre cement sheet is due onsite this week, window glazing continues, wall and ceiling lining continues, and the lift is ready for installation. The in-ground stormwater works will be commencing soon.
We have been working with the architects on the design of our new Wellbeing Centre and these plans are ready for submission to the Victorian Schools Building Authority for approval for the project to go out to tender.
As previously reported, the delay in the completion of our new two storey building has a flow on effect, now delaying the refurbishment to our current Year 7 LC for Senior School to move into, and therefore the development of our new Wellbeing Centre in the current Senior School study spaces and offices.
Richard Williams Scholarship Fund for Mordialloc College students
Please refer to the promotional flyer later in this newsletter, with applications opening for this wonderful scholarship opportunity in December and closing on 1 March 2022. This year we had four lucky students being awarded this scholarship of $1000 each to purchase goods and equipment to support them to pursue their interests. It is an annual scholarship all students can apply for each year. Richard Williams was an unsung, local hero. He worked tirelessly for others and always put other people before himself. After his passing last year, a few of his close friends, who have known him since they were students together here, got together to create this Scholarship Fund in his memory. On behalf of our students, I thank the Alumni for working with Richard’s friends and family to set this fund up, for the benefit of our current students.
Awards Night
To recognise and celebrate the achievements of our students across all year levels this year, we are pre-recording this event again and this will be available to all families to watch in early December, along with a permanent record being made available to share with our community. Students who have been nominated for at least two Academic Excellence Awards, or are receiving a Sport Award, various subject awards and our special sponsored awards will be invited to attend our pre-recording session in the Performing Arts Centre on November 16 and 23. This will be staggered over the two days to include each year level to ensure we are following the COVID safe guidelines. Since our Awards Night usually runs for 2.5 to 3 hours at the City of Kingston Town Hall, we need to streamline the event this year, given it will be pre-recorded.
Students who have been nominated for one Excellence award and/or Endeavour awards will have these presented instead in our separate Year Level Assemblies this week. Congratulations to all students receiving awards this year. It is a fantastic effort in another challenging year. We look forward to returning to the City of Kingston Town Hall in December 2022 for our live Awards Night with family members in the audience.
School Production
With the lifting of restrictions, everyone involved in our production this year of “We Will Rock You” is very keen to still have a performance event that is filmed and then made available for our community to watch. It is not possible to do the whole show, however, several key numbers are to be filmed in early December after a day of rehearsals. We will be able to share the link to families before the end of the year.
Professional Learning Communities (PLC) Link School
We have been selected to be the PLC Link School in our region for this Department initiative. I received the official invitation from David Howes Deputy Secretary for Schools, late last term. PLCs (small teams of teachers working together following an inquiry cycle to improve the learning outcomes of students in their cohort e.g., our Year 7 maths teachers) have been successfully implemented in primary schools and have now become mandatory in secondary schools. We completed the Department's PLC training during 2019 and Marina Walsh and I presented at the region Principal forum to over 300 Principal Class across a range of schools, back in March 2020.
In 2022, we will be leading professional learning for other schools in our region and opening our school up for visits and observations. It also provides an opportunity to strengthen our own practice in this space, given the impacts of COVID -19 and what has been possible in remote learning over the past two years. We do receive additional funding to support us in leading this initiative across our region. Earlier this term, Marina and I presented in an online webinar showcasing PLC schools to other schools' leaders and teachers in our region. We presented on our PLC journey since 2019 to now and our plans for the future, including the resources we have developed to support implementation in a secondary school.
2022 Headstart program
All families should be aware of our 2022 Headstart program commencing on Monday 22 November starting for all students. All current Years 7-11 students will be rolled over into 2022 classes, thus Years 8-12 classes for 2022. We will be following our new timetable for 2022 and students will have the opportunity to work with their new teachers in their new year level, over the two-week program for Year 11 and 12 students, two and a half week program for Year 10 students and three-week program for students in Years 8 and 9. This program is compulsory for all students and will conclude on Friday 3 December for Year 11 and 12 students, Tuesday 7 December for Year 10 students and Friday 10 December for Years 8 and 9 students. An alternative program will be in place for our 2022 Years 8 and 9 students during the last week of school.
Over the past couple of weeks students in the Middle School have had the opportunity to participate in several excursion and I thank my staff for organising these events to support student engagement and wellbeing; as well as celebrating the end of the 2021 academic year before beginning the 2022 academic year.
Our Year Level Co-ordinators for 2022 starting in Headstart are: In Senior School: Year 12 Mr Randell, Year 11 Mrs Wilson, Year 10 Ms Hargreaves, with Ms Furphy as Assistant Year 10 Coordinator. In the Middle School: Year 9 Mr Haber, with Ms Hatton as Assistant Year 9 Coordinator, Year 8 Ms Hockey and Ms Davey, and Year 7 Mr Potter, with Mrs McConville as Assistant Year 7 Coordinator.
We expect all students to be taking the Headstart 2-3 week program seriously and their attendance, work in class, assigned homework and completion of set tasks will count towards their report for semester one next year. There will also be a modified progress report published on compass for each subject by the end of the school year. We expect that our four core values of Personal Best, Integrity, Respect and Responsibility continue to be evident in how we all work together as a community, with all students demonstrating our core values on a consistent basis. All classes will be involved in developing Codes of Cooperation with their respective teachers during their first lesson.
Welcome New Staff/Returning Staff
We have some new staff, who have started during the term and/or will be starting with us for the commencement of our 2022 Headstart program and one returning from family leave.
Miku Nonaka – is replacing Megan Champ who has started maternity leave. Miku will be teaching French.
Ayako Lyons – will be replacing Meaghan Carlson (Baker) who is about to commence maternity leave. Ayako will be teaching Japanese.
Kym Lenc – returns from family leave and will be teaching Health and PE, 3 days a week.
Liz Ireson – replaced Peter Vicary (who is taking leave for 12 months) teaching Communication (English/Humanities) earlier this term in Year 7 and will be following the students up to Year 8 from Headstart.
Dan Carroll – is replacing Lauren Hibell (who has taken personal leave) and is teaching Health and PE 2 days a week for this term.
Mobile Phone and Hygiene article
Please find the link to an article worth reading as we try to be as COVID safe as possible. It is worth sharing with your child/family members or talking to them about it. There are also suggestions on how to effectively clean our phones. "Our mobile phones are covered in bacteria and viruses... and we never wash them" — https://theconversation.com/watch-our-mobile-phones-are-covered-in-bacteria-and-viruses-and-we-never-wash-them-167784
Whole School Professional Learning Day
A reminder that this Friday 19 November we are having our whole school professional learning day for teachers and ES staff. This day was postponed in Term 3 due to remote learning and has been moved to this term, just prior to our 2022 Headstart program starting. It will be a pupil free day.
Michelle Roberts
Principal