GSSC Leadership Team

Every Day Counts

We all want our students to get a great education. Going to school every day is the single most important aspect of a student’s education. If students miss school regularly, they not only miss out on learning, but the social connections with peers and the school community, developing good work habits and gaining better opportunities for the future. If a student averages one day absence per week, this is equivalent to 40 days a year, or almost one term. Over the six years of secondary school, this is almost 5 terms of learning – one year and one term lost!

In the case where students are unwell, they should not attend school. Parents are asked to contact the school to explain their child’s absence. If you are having attendance issues, please contact your child’s Neighbourhood Leader so we can work together to ensure we have high attendance rates for all of our students at the Greater Shepparton Secondary College. Our college campuses will soon have a special line for parents to ring and explain their child’s absence. Watch this space!

Athletic Sports

After a few false starts due to the Term 3 Covid restrictions, we were finally able to hold our Junior Athletics day last Tuesday. It had been a long time in waiting, considering the Athletics carnival did not take place in 2020. Our students were well primed and eager for a day of fun and competition and participated in good spirit. We were excited to see some outstanding performances across the range of events.

Age Group Champions

13 years Girls – Lucy Potter

13 years Boys – Jai Laws

14 years Girls – Olivia Buchan

14 years Boys – Murphy Briggs

15 years Girls – Djuralillie Weston

15 years Boys – Jack Scott

The best performance of the day went to Olivia Buchan with 4 first places and a second place.

Overall results

Junior Female – Teal House

Junior Male – Blue House

Grand Aggregate

1st place – Blue House (446 points)

2nd place – Teal House (443.5 points)

3rd place – Yellow House (382 points)

The students won the Staff vs Students relay event (staff need to work on the baton changeovers for next year!)

Congratulations to our Sports Coordinators – Dale Cuthbert, Elisha Fiddes and Stephanie Rees for their excellent organisation that underpinned a very successful day. The Senior Athletics will take place on Monday 23rd August.

Grant Petty Inspires

Grant is the Blackmagic Design CEO and founder. He grew up in Shepparton and went to the McGuire Campus for secondary school - Shepparton South Tech. His company designs and builds hardware and software for the global entertainment industry and has been used to develop such films as The Avengers and Fast and Furious. His company employs 1600 people and has brought more than $3 billion in investment into Australia. Grant Petty credits his success with working with a Mac computer in a rudimentary TV studio in secondary school. Yesterday, staff and students from across the college, along with students from TAFE, tuned into a presentation from Grant. He inspired our students in his presentation by talking about

His belief that technology makes us global citizens, with opportunities emerging faster than ever before, and students need to see no boundaries to success
By using technology, young people can create content and careers with very little investment
He has a strong belief in skills-based education as a “great enabler” that delivers skills of immediate value

He was candid and inspiring as he retold his journey from inter-generational poverty to founding a major company. Grant has invested in our college by providing industry quality cameras and software that our students will benefit from into the future.

School Wide Positive Behaviour Support

Across our college we have been promoting behaviours that have a positive impact on the climate of the school and student learning. Over the last few weeks, we have been focussed on ‘Being a Learner’ by improving attendance at school, arriving to class on time and being prepared with all the equipment needed for the class. Teachers promoted the effort by acknowledging students who were consistently demonstrating these behaviours and each home group’s efforts were tallied each day. It has been a hotly contested competition with the final count coming in today. Our winning house will be announced on Monday 23rd August in the Student Bulletin.

VTAC Guide to applying - for year 12 students and parents

In light of not being able to host VTAC information sessions for our Year 12 Parents we are pleased to announce an alternative that you can watch from home.

Heading to tertiary study in Victoria next year? You'll apply through VTAC - the Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre. Join Michael from VTAC for a complete guide to the process, and an explanation of the ATAR and Scaling. (see the attached YouTube link)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Iydeb0Scvc&t=18sJump to a specific section for details:00:00 What is VTAC?02:22 Finding courses and understanding course requirements14:23 Steps to apply18:39 SEAS (special consideration) and Scholarships23:55 ATAR, VCE results, and course offers28:22 Understanding the ATAR and scaling

Ribbons for Afghanistan

Thank you to Tessa, Student Support at the McGuire Campus for organising students to tie ribbons on the front fences as a show of support for our Muslim Community. Tessa was inspired by one of the 7Q students who showed her a poster she made. Tessa was deeply moved and thought we could show our support to our students with a display of ribbons on the fence. The ribbons are in the colours of the Afghanistan flag. Thank you to Shaima, Zaraa, Meriam and Ali for helping.

Kerri Souter

Acting Principal, McGuire Campus

For the Greater Shepparton Secondary College Leadership Team