Principals Update

Dear parents, guardians, staff and students our community has spoken.

The values we hold most important to us are, Achievement, Respect and Community. Staff, students and parents were asked through a Compass survey to identify the most important values and these were identified. The vision and the mission of Mornington Secondary College is the next step in the process in identifying what we as a College are aiming for.

New Timetable for 2020

The end of year is fast approaching and the 2020 timetable will begin 25th November. Staff have been working extremely hard behind the scenes to ensure the new timetable restructure is in place. In August I wrote to you outlining the new timetable and the reasons for the change. In short, we needed to find an extra 12 minutes of instruction per day. I also wanted to address the imbalance of curriculum offerings. Humanities subjects such as History and Geography were not offered to all students in the middle school, but now they can be.

The new timetable has addressed both of these concerns. The day will still finish at 3.15, however each period will be 75 minutes long. Recess and lunch will be 35 minutes each and all students in Year 9 and 10 will be enrolled in History and Geography.

Senior School

Within the senior school all students will be enrolled in Assessment Blocks. During this time, students will sit SACs and participate in other activities deemed necessary for that year level. For example, health and wellbeing sessions and career pathway interviews. Year level assemblies will also occur during this time. The assessment blocks will be fully staffed and the roll will be marked. Each assessment block for Term 1 has a schedule and at no time will students have no work to do. It is a requirement, all students remain at school during the assessment block. The assessment blocks will stop the disruptions to class time and deeper learning is possible.

Students at Year 12 will also participate in study tutorials. They will all enrol in 5 subjects and each subject will have approximately 40 minutes of a study tutorial each week to prepare themselves for the class. During this 40 minutes students may complete exercises using Edrolo. They may watch a video, ready to discuss its theme in class with other students and staff. They may even read a chapter of their text/novel so they are up to date when they go to class. The study tutorials will also be staffed and each student will work with the teacher to establish good work habits and set goals. Progress checks will also be available every 6 weeks for each student. The study tutorials are designed for all students to work independently. Greater learning and teacher time can be used during scheduled class times, rather than reading the novel, or something similar with their teacher. This method is called the flipped classroom.

The work completed in the assessment blocks and study tutorials will not replace homework. Students in senior school are expected to do 2-3 hours of homework per day, including weekends.

A breakdown of subjects is included below:

Victorian Government Initiatives

There are a number of new initiatives the Victorian Government have released and Mornington Secondary College has benefitted. These include:

Mental Health Practitioner

We have recently employed a fulltime Mental Health Practitioner, Michelle Alsop. Michelle brings with her a wealth of knowledge and experience in this area. Her role includes direct counselling support and other early intervention services, coordination of support for students with severe needs and whole of school prevention and mental health promotion activities.

Maintenance Blitz

All Victorian Governments schools will share in $515 million to maintain existing school infrastructure over the next 5 years. The funding is to be used for maintenance and minor works, looking after the grounds and ensuring essential safety measures are in place. This will include a safe tree program and the upgrading of electrical safety switches.

MYLNS

The Middle Years Literacy and Numeracy Support (MYLNS) initiative has enabled the employment of a Literacy Improvement Teacher and a Numeracy Improvement Teacher. Their role is to work specifically with Year 10 and 11 students who need further assistance in these areas.

The Student Excellence Program

This is the latest initiative with the Victorian Government announcement of $60.2 million to further support all Victorian students to improve academically, particularly the high ability students. Teachers will have access to a new ‘one-stop-shop’ of online resources including professional learning modules and a teaching toolkit. This will provide teachers with practical, evidence-based resources to better support their high-ability students. These resources will be released over the course of the 2020 school year.

For the first time, schools will be able to refer their students to a range of funded and high-quality challenge and enrichment opportunities outside of school through the new Victorian High-Ability Program and the Victorian Challenge and Enrichment Series. To allow time for design and logistics, the first intake of students to these programs will be in Term 3, 2020.

Mobile Phones

In June 2019, the Minister for Education announced a new Mobile Phone Policy that will come into effect from Term 1 2020. The new policy is a ministerial policy formally issued by the Minister for Education under section 5.2.1(2) (b) of the Education and Training Reform Act 2006.

students who bring mobiles phones to school must have them switched off and securely stored during school hours
the school must provide secure storage for mobile phones that are brought to school

Students will not be able to use their phones for the duration of the school day. This includes recess and lunchtimes.

We have now updated our School Council approved policies to reflect the Department of Education's changes. The School Council approved policies are attached and are also available on the College website via the following link https://www.mornsc.vic.edu.au/ .

Linda Stanton

Principal

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