From the Principal 

There has been a definite change in the weather recently with a distinct chill working its way into mornings at the college. Whilst you might anticipate this posing a challenge for students and staff to roll themselves out of bed and get moving, we are not seeing this emerge as an issue with attendance at the college, mostly being quite good and, in fact, an improvement on previous years. Of course, this has probably been the longest period of continuous face to face learning that we have experienced in a while so, perhaps this is a result of that. 

We have quite a few students at the college who are sitting on 100% attendance, which is something that we want to celebrate. Whilst the numbers below do not identify individual students, these students will receive acknowledgement through PERMAH awards for engagement on Compass. 

Students with 100% attendance in each year level

Total – 68 students or 9.9%

Year 7 – 15 students or 13%

Year 8 – 10 students or 7%

Year 9 – 10 students or 8%

Year 10 – 17 students or 12%

Year 11 – 9 students or 9%

Year 12 – 7 students or 10%

Positive COVID cases

There have been no recent changes to the processes behind students testing positive for COVID or for being close family contacts. We continue to experience COVID cases at the school and we are recording these according to Department policy. Please continue to remain vigilant for symptoms and if these occur, make sure to use the RATs. Students with COVID symptoms even when a RAT is negative, should not attend school until their symptoms have gone. With new variants of this virus emerging in recent weeks, it is likely that cases will continue to be experienced. Most of the cases that we are seeing seem to be quite mild with students experiencing only mild symptoms, which is encouraging. 

I will keep the community informed of any changes to the current processes as a result of changes in DET policy as they occur. 

Coverage of senior classes

I am sure that many of you will be aware of the staffing shortages that are occurring across the education workforce at the moment, largely as a direct result of COVID -19 and the impacts that this is having on teachers and students. 

Schools are having to be very flexible and responsive in order to cover classes and Heathmont College is no exception to this. So far, the strategies we have put in place include booking more emergency teachers more regularly, merging classes where possible and where practical, principal class taking extras (I am currently supervising a year 12 class as I type this report, for example) and attending excursions, prioritising teachers being in class over taking time for professional learning and using Education Support staff to staff excursions and events. Despite these strategies, we still have days where it is very difficult for us to cover all classes as the pool of available emergency teachers is limited and, at times, these teachers are also unable to work even when booked in advance. 

There are still a small number of additional strategies that we can employ including cancelling camps, excursions and sports events however, we feel very strongly that these should only be cancelled as a last resort as our students have missed out on these experiences for too long over the past couple of years. 

One further strategy that we are employing though is to reduce the level of coverage we are providing to VCE classes when a teacher is away. I would like to clarify that this strategy will not likely impact on student learning any more than the current arrangements due to the nature of the VCE program. When a VCE teacher is absent, they do and will continue to leave work for students to complete on Compass. The supervising teacher that is allocated to the class is rarely a teacher with the expertise required for that class and is not able to provide much support for the learning. Where possible, we try to merge the class with another class of the same subject so that the teacher of the other class can provide expertise to these students however, for many subjects that we run at the college, this is not an option.

As a result, we are going to continue to have VCE classes run and students will have their attendance marked for each session so that their data will not be impacted. Students who need support to complete the set work will still be able to seek this from other teachers at the school with the required expertise where possible (they may, for example, be able to visit another teacher of the subject in their class or at lunch or recess time). We will aim to cover classes, where we can, for at least a part of each session so that students can also get direct support. Students will also be able to access the senior study area or library as appropriate to get additional resources. We believe that our senior students are responsible enough to operate in an independent manner within these arrangements and we will make sure that they know where to go to for support if needed. Administration staff (including the principal staff) will also continue to provide support where we can (to be honest, I much prefer sitting in a year 12 classroom to type up my reports than in my office!). 

Please be assured that our students continue to be our first priority and our VCE students will continue to get the support that they need to achieve their best results. Where a teacher is absent for an extended period of time, we will still look to cover these classes with a qualified replacement. 

New Values artwork

To support our new values, Simone Thomson (Aboriginal Artist who supported our students to design the Indigenous garden project adjacent to the stadium) has developed the following graphics. These will be displaying in classrooms soon in place of the RESPECT values. 

New School Council

As occurs each year, we have changes to our school council members. This year we welcome Lauren Tippett and Jack Lynch as our DET representatives (replacing Jessica Elliot and Nina Ling), and Andrea Johnson returns for an additional term. 

Our AGM is being held on Tuesday night and after this meeting, our office bearers will be elected. 

Working Bee

The college held its first working bee for quite some time this term and we had a number of families attend and support the college. A big thank you to all families who came along, enjoyed a sausage and helped with weeding and gardening and general clean up and tidy. An additional thank you to Ms Nina Ling and Mr Shane Hunt who organised the event.