PRINCIPAL

Dear Parents/Carers, Families and the College Communities

Staff and students have been busy over the past week and more with ongoing preparations for Open Day next week. This, combined with Country Week training, Sea Trek preparations, EST exams for Year 12s, plus the normal range of activities make for a busy time of the year. 

Open Day Expectation

It is an expectation that students are present on Open Day and something that we make very clear from the start of the year. We do understand that sometimes there are events that a student is committed to and must attend. In this case we expect parents to contact either the Principal or the Vice Principal to seek exemption.  Students that are absent on Open Day without an exemption will have the day recorded as unapproved leave. 

On Open Day itself, students are expected to remain on site until 3.00pm unless they have authority to leave early via the Vice Principal and we ask that parents support us in this.

Student Recognition 

This week we received a commendation from Minister for Education Dr Tony Buti MLA and Lisa Rodgers, Director General Department of Education. The commendation recognises the excellent performance of our 2022 Year 12 cohort when looking at their progress and achievement across WACE and training using their Year 9 NAPLAN results as a predictor of success. We know that we do a great job of assisting students to progress and develop across a wide range of learning areas, but it is lovely to gain such recognition. As usual I commend our staff for the work they do to ensure we improve every one of our students. 

Celebrate 70 years of Harvey Ag 

This year marks the 70th year of our school. You may be aware that we started as a wing of the local junior high school and used the workshop and boarding facilities of the old Australian Army training facility. Those same facilities were used to imprison Italian Internees during the WWII; an interesting but sad history. 

In the early days, the school didn’t have its own farm land so students were allocated to local farms for their practical skills. Over the decades, farm land was bought, new facilities built and the school and its students became increasingly specialised.  

In 1998 we split from the Harvey Senior High School to become the Harvey Agricultural College. The Wokalup property was purchased in 1999 and the College entirely rebuilt at Wokalup in 2012. The programs and facilities that give us so much pride today are the result of 70 years hard work by past staff and students and families plus our various community groups, especially the Agricultural Advisory Committee.