From the Principal 

It has been a very busy start to the term with Open Night in Week 1, whole school Cross Country in Week 2 and then just a busy Week 3. It is hard to believe that we are already into week 4 of term 2! 

Currently in the college, the Houses are all revisiting our values and identifying those values that we share. This is part of a wider whole school process of revisiting our school values. We have had our school values in place for quite some time now and these are well overdue for a revisit. This is an ongoing process and will take some time but expect to hear much more about it over the coming months. 

There are some very important events that occur in term 2, particularly around student subject choices and career planning that it is important for all members of the community to be aware of. Firstly, we have NAPLAN for years 7 and 9 happening this week. 

Course selections and career counselling 

Later in this term, students in the senior years will start to consider pathways for next year. This will start with the current year 11 and 12s with the current year 12 starting to look towards what courses or careers they might investigate for next year and the year 11s considering their subject choices for next year. Right now is the time for any year 11 students looking to make a change to their course content for next semester to be notifying Ms McMurray or Ms Ling regarding this. 

This term, there will be course and subject information nights held for families to ensure that all students are able to make solid, informed choices about the courses and the subjects that they choose for 2022. You may have heard a little bit in the media about changes that are coming to the senior secondary school programs. It is true that the VCE and VCAL courses are merging into a ‘Senior School Certificate’. This does not mean, however, that VCAL or applied learning options are removed but, rather, that they are going to be given equal footing alongside VCE studies. At this point, the details have not been shared with us beyond that these changes will occur in a staged way – similar to how the VCE was introduced in place of the HSC (for those of you like me who are old enough to remember that time). As further information is released to schools, I will continue to keep you updated about these key changes to the school system. 

Ms McMurray is overseeing the careers and course selection processes for all students and any questions about this should be directed towards her in the first instance. 

Please keep an eye out for further Compass posts about course counselling events and processes.