Principal's Update

It has been a good start to the school year and lovely to have students and staff back onsite working together. We have also appreciated the very pleasant Autumn weather so far!

We welcome all our new students and families to the Box Hill High School community, especially all our incoming Year 7 students and their families. I enjoyed meeting a number of our new Year 7 students when visiting their camp at Mount Eliza and when I have been in to observe the different classes. It was also lovely to meet many of our new Year 7 parents on the Family Picnic Night we held earlier this term.

It is indeed interesting to reflect on the changes that occur for our young students as they move through school and all their life experiences (friends, successes, challenges, physical changes, interests) that occur while they are with us over the six years. The opportunity for school leaders, teachers, and parents to think about these changes often happens when looking at our graduating Year 12 students each year. 

We were finally able to hold the Year 12 Valedictory at San Remo Ballroom on 17 February and celebrate with the 2021 Year 12 students and their families. Congratulations to all our graduating students and we wish them all the best in their lives. We hope that their time at Box Hill High School instilled in them a love of learning, and respect and compassion for others.

Supporting our school

Box Hill High School has a long history of providing a supportive and safe learning environment for all students; this is reflected in our student and parent survey data over the years. The school is calm and orderly through the school day and students as a rule interact positively and politely with their peers, their teachers and other staff. Positive relationships are established in class between teachers and students and we are focusing explicitly on rebuilding these relationships and expectations following the last two years that have impacted on student routines and engagement.

This term, we have observed some student behaviours that indicate a negative impact of the past two years, with some of the behaviours demonstrating a need to learn/relearn how to interact respectfully with other students and to show self-regulation in challenging situations. Teachers and coordinators have been spending more time mediating low-level behaviours at school to instil those respectful and positive behaviours. As a whole school, we are also focusing on strategies that strengthen a positive climate for learning and address student wellbeing this year.

We need the support of our parents and carers to work with us on strengthening the school values of respect, resilience and growth when addressing student behaviour in class, in the yard and on the way to and from school. We approach student misbehaviour as a learning opportunity and base our processes on restorative practices. We consider extenuating circumstances and additional needs of the students when deliberating on our course of action. Students are usually given the opportunity to make their statements about any incidents before decisions about consequences are made. There are clear expectations in the school regarding following teacher instructions and providing a safe learning environment and we do not tolerate physical aggression or bullying. We ask all our parents and carers to work with us to support these expectations and show respectful behaviours to school staff when supporting your child. We are all focused on the same goal and that is to help our young people be the best they can be, to strive for higher things and to make a positive difference in our community. Thank you to all our families who support us in this endeavour. 

The 2022 School Goals

We have two broad school goals in 2022. 

1. Student Learning

• Supporting students who need extra support following previous interruptions to onsite learning and supporting all students at their point of need
• Strengthening the student Learner Behaviours of Active Participation, Self-regulation, and Growth Mindset
• Improving the number of students making benchmark growth in numeracy

    2. Student Wellbeing

• Strengthening our whole-school approach to creating a positive climate for learning in all classes
• Embedding a tiered approach to supporting student wellbeing and mental health

We are also focusing on student attendance and strengthening student engagement in the classroom.

Student Leaders 2022

School Captain - Belle White

Vice School Captains - Hannah Lee and Felix Sun

Year 12 Prefects 

Megan Choo, India Bretel, Jemma Phelan, Mateo Donjic, Ian Sezouza, Flynn Gosby, Ari Rego

2022 House Captains:

Blackburn House (Yellow) - Yonal Abeykoon & Mary Zhong

Freeman House (Red) – Niro Meniksiwala & Cindy Xiao

Chang House (Blue) – Aiden Wong & Marsha Lenin

Irwin House (Green) – Maneesha Karungasagara & Muhib Chohan

Year 11 Leaders Group

Ashanya Ramlukan, Paris Christakakis, Ryan Xia, Luke Nicholson, Audrey Lau, Ashley Wen, Sam Montgomery, Jesse Wheeler, Sophia Choy, Michelle Woang, Matt Crellin, Karan Dahvan

Music Captains – Reuben Strentz & Aurelia Thian-De Wind

Art Captains – Archer Chadwick-Pask, Megan Choo & Wendy Huang

Congratulations to all our active and positive school leaders – we are looking forward to working with you to continually improve our school!

School Council 2022

Our School Council members for 2022 are as follows:

Newly elected Parent Members are Andrew Cameron and Muhammad Ali joining the other Parent Members - Daniel Buick, Andrew Walton, Kajaal Fox, Kim Huett. 

Thuy Tran is a co-opted Community Member.

DET members are Theresa Iacopino, Kellie Ind, Katrina Young and the newly elected Chloe Steele.

Student Members are Taj O’Donnell and Ryan Almazzi.

Our 2021 School Council President Kim Huett has decided to step aside from this office for 2022 due to other demands and on behalf of the Box Hill High School Community, I would like to sincerely thank her for her energy, diligence and support of the school. She will continue to support the school on School Council this year. We are saying farewell and thank you to Christiaan O’Dea (Parent Member), Danny Koganti (Parent Member) and Nicholas Carr (DET Member). Christiaan was also SC Vice President and we thank him for his leadership.

School Council Office Bearers for 2022 are:

• School Council President – Kajaal Fox
• School Council Vice President – Andrew Cameron
• Parent representative on Finance Committee – Daniel Buick.

Congratulations to all new and current members of our School Council in 2022. We are looking forward to working with you to support the school.

Happy Ramadan and Happy Easter to our school community as well!