PRINCIPAL'S REPORT

As we move towards the end of March it feels like this month has been on fast forward! NAPLAN, Year 8 camp, the start of the 2023 State School Spectacular, Year 12 Wellbeing Day, exciting excursions to enhance learning for our senior students to the BioLAB in Belmont, Year 10 Outdoor Education Day hikes, Elevate presentations for our Year 12s, public speaking preparation and lots of learning in between has been jam packed into the past fortnight. 

Hectic school life combined with a busy home life has been contributing to that feeling from so many students and staff that they are feeling tired. As we move to the final few weeks of term, I have often been reminding students and staff to keep bringing their "A Game" to school and not our “B Game”. Our “B Game” is all the stuff that is out of our control. It often looks and presents stressed, distracted, inefficient, heavy, slow, argumentative, and often defensive. 

The challenge is to stay in our "A Game" when we are looking positive, energised, focused, present and focusing on the things that we can control. The challenge for our students and staff over the next few weeks is to identify what they need to do to stay in their "A Game" as we roll into the school break.

Year 8 Camp

Our Year 8 Camp is currently underway in the Strathbogie Ranges in Charnwood. It’s been pleasing to hear that our students and staff are enjoying themselves after their first day and night in camp this morning. A big thank-you to all our staff who are supporting the camp.

Mobile Phones

A reminder to all students and parents and carers of the school’s mobile phone policy. The policy means phones brought to school must be switched off and stored securely during the school day in the safes provided at the commencement of each day in our daily mentor meetings. The phones are collected at the conclusion of the school day from their mentor teacher at 3pm.

The aim of this policy is to provide:

• a safe environment to learn without inappropriate mobile phone use (including cyberbullying) or distractions
• greater opportunities for social interaction and physical activity during recess and lunchtimes
• The use of technology is important, but the risks and benefits from its use need to be managed.

Students can apply for exemptions for health reasons as the only exception to this policy. Please contact the school on 5277 1177 if you would like to discuss your child's exemption to this policy for health reasons.

Be Bold, Be Heard Forum

A group of our Year 8-10 female leaders joined with several schools from across Geelong to attend the first Be Bold, Be Heard forum for 2023 on Wednesday 22 March at GMHBA Stadium. The first forum for the year was aimed at bringing the leaders together from each school to discuss attitudes to school and perceptions for female students. The forum provided a chance for each school to share their own school perspective and actions on their 2022 data, to analyse some common themes, workshop what success would look like for each of the schools’ actions and to share how each school can help each other be successful. On the day, the girls heard from many wonderful role models in our community to support them to act in their own schools. We are looking forward to seeing some wonderful projects and actions now take place from these leaders in our school. A big thank-you to Ms Sullivan and Ms O’Shannessy for supporting the students.

College Council

Monday 20 March saw our Western Heights College members meet for our AGM and our first general meeting for 2023/2024. We will profile our Councillors during our Term 2 newsletters. We thank them for their generous time and support of the College.

Following our School Council Annual General Meeting conducted on Monday evening, our office bearers for our current Council are:

School Council President – Tania Briese

School Council Vice President – Justine Rutherford

We congratulate both these ladies and wish them well in these roles.

Recent School Councils have been very collaborative, supportive, and focused on improving all aspects of the College. I am confident that our current School Council will continue to work on behalf of our entire College community to help us meet the challenges of our quest to continually improve all aspects of College operations. I would like to personally thank all Council members for being so willing to be involved and generous with giving of their time.

Student, Parent, Teacher Learning Conversations

On Wednesday 5 April between 11am-7pm and Thursday 6 April between 9am-1pm, we will conduct our learning conversations for our Year 7-12 students. These interviews will be in person (parents can also request an online meeting via Google Meet (online) if this is more convenient for them – please request this with the teacher prior to the time so a link can be provided). Parents/Carers will be able to make appointments for these conversations by booking via Compass. This will be a great opportunity to gauge some feedback on learning progression for students at the completion of Term 1. We look forward to catching up with you and thank the many parents and carers who have already made appointments so far.

Fiona Taylor

Principal

Child Safety at WHC

Western Heights College is a child safe organisation committed to protecting students from all forms of abuse.

Our College has stringent protocols in place and endeavours at all times to be fully compliant with the Child Safe Standards set out under Ministerial Order 870.

Our College has the following documents and policies in place to achieve compliance with the Standards. All of these documents are available for downloading on our website or contact the school for a copy. 

1.       Commitment to Child Safety

2.       Child Safety Policy

3.       Child Safety Code of Conduct

4.       Child Protection Policy and Procedures

Annual privacy policy reminder for 2023

Our school collects, uses, discloses and stores student and parent personal information for standard school functions or where permitted by law, as stated in the Schools’ Privacy Policy.(found on the college's webpage)

Please take time to remind yourself of our school’s collection notice, found on our website. For more information about privacy, refer to: Schools’ Privacy Policy — information for parents and carers on the webpage. This information is also available in 10 community languages:

* Amharic

* Arabic

* Dari

* Gujarati

* Mandarin

* Somali

* Sudanese

* Turkish

* Urdu

* Vietnamese.