School Council Update 

Dear Northcote High School families and friends,

We hope that, like ours, your families are looking forward to the return to face-to-face to learning at Northcote High. School Council is pleased to provide you with this update.

Principal Selection

School Council has been working with the Department of Education and Training to seek a new principal for Northcote High School. Advertising has now closed and the selection panel is in the process of reviewing applications and shortlisting applicants for interview.

As previously reported, if we are successful in appointing a new school principal, that person’s likely start date will be term 1, 2022. 

We look forward to updating the community in coming weeks, but in the meantime, we extend our thanks to Chris Jones for his continued role as Acting Principal and to the leadership and admin team at NHS, who have really stepped up to keep the school ticking along!

Building progress

The Masterplan Project Control Group have now almost finalized the updated Masterplan and identified our priority project for the capital funding. The spatial analysis has concluded and we have identified the priority project as a multi-story STEM centre and new resource centre, approximately on the site of the current library. The next step in the process is for the architects to create more detailed schematic and design plans. 

Respectful behaviours: School Community Code 

The DET and the School Council have identified the need for a respectful behavior policy and guidelines. We’re aware that as a community, having been physically separated from each other, and being under so much extra pressure with from-home schooling, polices are required to add clarity, transparency and encourage respectful interactions between all school community members. 

As a starting point, we are pleased to launch the Respectful Behaviours within the School Community Policy, a copy of which follows this School Council update. Hard copies of these will also be displayed at school.

We’ve also updated the school communication policy and the complaints policy, which we will formally launch in coming editions. Please email info@nhs.vic.edu.au if you have any questions about this process. Note the info@ email isn’t a distribution list. All messages are treated confidentially and only forwarded to the relevant persons in order to best answer your query.

School Council wishes to thank the Community Code Working Group, which has done a wonderful job of bringing together a number of policies into an easily understood and accessible guide.

Farewell and good luck to the class of 2021

 School Council wishes our year 12 students a very fond farewell and all the best for upcoming exams and exciting adventures ahead.  We know that the last two years (your final high school years!) did not quite go as expected with all the lockdowns and uncertainty, but we are in awe of your resilience and determination, which we hope will make the next chapter all the sweeter!