Principal's Report
Principal -
Mr. Tristan Lanarus
Dear Westall Secondary College Community,
Welcome back for 2020. I hope you all enjoyed a relaxing holiday period and have now settled into the new school year. A special welcome to all of our new students in 2020 and especially to our Year 7 cohort as you commence your first year of Secondary College. I trust that with our Sub School Model, focus on positive and respectful relationships and school care values, that your transition into Westall has been smooth and positive. Our care values and other key aspects of how our school operate are displayed in every classroom via our new “Westall Way” signs.
As part of transition and setting our standards and expectations for 2020, we recently held three events. The Year 11 and 12 Study Camps and activities were a great success and helped to build strong relationships that will support the students throughout the year. Our new Year 7 students have settled well and the Annual Transition Day at the Enchanted Adventure Garden in Arthurs Seat, was a fun and important part of this process.
Along with new students, we have a number of new staff. Welcome to Jason Tickner (Senior School Leader), Divinna Arasu, Naomi Walkley and Pritika Priya (Maths/Science), Rebecca Tomkins, Kayla Hume, Ruth Rosenberg and Juliette Reim (English/EAL/Humanities), Gary Bottomley (VCAL) and Jessie Liu (Chinese WELC aide).
Student Leadership, Voice and Agency in our school is so important and it was great to see our School Captains say a few words to the whole school on our first day assembly. Baran Uysal and Arnetta Wijaya are the 2020 School Captains with Yvonne Hoang and Chris Ly as Vice Captains. Nabil Muhammad (Sport), Brenda Heng (Art) and Talia Shipp (VCAL), complete our Senior Leadership Team. Thida Nguon and Mai Dinh are our Middle School Captains for 2020 and Zoi Spiliopoulou and Larni Fountain are our Junior School Captains.
Our Student leaders and broader Student Representative Council (SRC) have already gotten to work refurbishing our old canteen to run Breakfast Club on Tuesday mornings. Incidentally, our new, shared canteen with Westall PS is proving a real hit with healthy and tasty food at affordable prices.
The old International House is another space we will re-purpose. We are currently getting advice and quotes to redesign this building into our Parks and Gardens learning area. The Parks and Gardens crew will also develop a new indigenous garden at the front of Balook this year, which will include a running water feature.
We currently have a total of 625 students at Westall SC. This has grown every year from 410 in 2015. Each year our school brand gets stronger and the programs we offer get better and better. It was pleasing at the end of 2019 to again be recognised by the Department of Education as a high performing school, for the second consecutive year. I look forward to another successful year at Westall this year.
We want you and need you to be an active part of this success and the great school we are building at Westall. Membership of School Council is the best way to hear about all the inner workings of our school and drive decision-making. I urge you to consider joining us. Meetings are only for about an hour on a Wednesday afternoon, twice per term. Please call me at the school to discuss or complete the attached form and submit to the school.
Until next time!
Tristan Lanarus
Principal