NGSC Newsletter

ASSISTANT PRINCIPALS’ REPORT

ASSISTANT PRINCIPALS

Paul Dawson and Bradley Headlam

Brad Smallman and Sarah Bridges

2023 School Captains 

The College takes great pride in announcing the 2023 School Captains. 

All applicants are to be congratulated on the quality of their applications, interviews and speeches. It proved to be a very rewarding, yet challenging task for Mr McDougall, Mrs Durran and Mr Dawson.

 

Congratulations to the 2022 Captains: 

 

School Captains

Mackenzie Martin and James Smith

 

Vice Captains

Academic – Emily Heitman

Arts – Alana Stretton

Sports – Faith Qoon

Community/Culture – Bailey Griffin

 

We wish our 2023 Captains well in their transition to the next phase of their lives and know they will benefit from their leadership experiences. The new Captaincy Team have already started their tenure replacing this year's captains who will be now focusing on their exams. As a school community we are sure they will lead in 2023 with pride, embracing and modelling our school values.

Sports

State Public School Athletics, our best result in years. 

Individual Bronze medals:

  • Patrick Sager – 400 m
  • Ben Day – Hurdles
  • Sam and Jack Warelow, Munashe Mudzekenyedzi and Ben Day – 17 Relay

Ribhya Syan has made the Under 19 Victorian Cricket Team. If you see Ribhya around the school, please congratulate her on this outstanding achievement.

Celebration Day

The Class of 2022 had a lovely morning celebrating the end of 13 years of schooling. Student costumes were very creative, and they enjoyed morning tea with staff. The School Captains spoke to the whole school assembly, acknowledging the importance of friendship developed over the last six years and wishing each other well as they embark on the next phase of their lives.

Staff awards were a hit again. A highlight was the announcement of Mr Dawson’s retirement by a student who appreciates the support (“kicks up the bum”) that helped ensure he is in a positive place.

The cohort must be congratulated for the respect shown to the school community.

VCAL Interviews

VCAL students took great pride in presenting their achievements over the past year. They spoke with confidence about their work/projects and how they faced challenges. As Assistant Principals we always love reflecting on the growth of students and listening to their future aspirations. My favourite was hearing from an EAL student who spoke about how accepted she felt and how the curriculum allowed her to develop her English skills at her own pace. After three years learning English, she is hoping to head to TAFE to study aged care.

Sarah Bridges

Multicultural Day

What an amazing day to showcase our diverse and inclusive school community. Even the weather favoured us. Many dignitaries celebrated with us at the opening ceremony. The First Nations Smoking Ceremony, African drummers, Bollywood dancers and Karen dancers complimented our choir, who sang an original song, written by teacher Glenda McGrath, ‘Woven Together’. Students proudly wore their national costumes and School Captains, Martin Salazar and Ae Tablay Htoo, shared their own journeys.

There were many stalls and events for our students, and 700 primary school students, to enjoy it all. Thomas The Tank Engine and the human inflatable soccer balls were a great hit, as was the cake stall. The staff team beat the students in a footy match and some staff agreed to be ‘dunked’ in cold water as a part of a VCAL initiative!!

 

Thanks to all the staff for their amazing efforts.

Disengaged students

Significant effort has been put into supporting disengaged students in 2022. The process has been effective for the most part. However, COVID-19 has presented us with new challenges as avoidance of school can be the preferred outcome to overcome challenging school or social circumstances. Recently attendance interviews were held with Wellbeing, Careers and an Assistant Principal, to provide students and families with options and assistance to re-engage with education. 

 

This has helped on a couple of levels:

  1. Identified supports for students
  2. Identified some goals towards a particular job/pathway
  3. Motivated family and student to overcome obstacles to get to school
  4. Recognised that school is not the most appropriate environment/pathway at this stage
  5. Other opportunities have already been sourced
  6. Anxiety is presenting as a challenge for many disengaged students reinforcing the need for a strong transition program and SWC supports

Be Bold Be Heard - Celebration Day

This is the final chapter in the Be Bold Be Heard initiative in 2022. This event will be to share the results of actions in schools with other schools and our community leaders. Invites to participating students to be given out Monday 31 October. A big congratulations to all so far. 

An example of the success of the program is where we had Edie Graham and Sarah English present a uniform reform for girls in sport. They presented alternative options and the School Council approved recommendations immediately. Mrs Bridges then had the uniforms on show in the C corridor the same week and students are excited about these changes already.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Course Counselling and Timetabling

The timetable has been a challenge and with the changes associated with staffing new face to face guidelines, it has not been made any easier. Our Timetabler is working feverishly on the exam timetable, commencement and the 2023 timetable. So here is what you need to know:

  • Exam timetable to parents and students by the end of this week
  • Commencement information will be shared with parents and students within 2 weeks
  • The 2023 timetable is still pending finalisation of some roles and responsibilities
  • Students have got a sense of their subjects, there is potential for change depending on student numbers in particular subjects
  • If a student wishes to make changes, they can do so through the Sub School, but we encourage them and parents to be directly related to the pathway of the student (not friendship or teacher based). These can be done up until the start of the school year. PLEASE NOTE THAT ROOM IS TIGHT AND HENCE NOT ALL OPTIONS CAN BE ACHIEVED.

Camps and excursions

With the new teacher’s agreement, there has been an introduction of Time in Lieu for staff on camps. It is a great initiative, but early interpretation indicated that this was going to have an impact on the School Camp Program. Following an extensive review, we have put a plan in to ensure minimal impact to our Camps and Outdoor Education programs and maintain the learning opportunities within such programs hereafter.

Orientation for new students (8-12)

At this stage we look to introduce nearly 20 students to Years 8 to 12 in 2023. We hope to expand our Orientation to include SWC, Careers with discussions around booklists, fees, etc and with an interpreter as required (likely to be 13 or 14 of December).

Uniform

It is pleasing to see that the majority of the students are wearing the uniform professionally and taking this positive approach and attitude into their classes. All students are to be in full school uniform until the end of the year and we would appreciate the support of parents in this area. If you require financial support with the school uniform, please do not hesitate to let us know.