Principal's News

From the Principal

This year, the student Attitudes to School survey will be conducted at Ringwood Secondary College over the period Wednesday May 24 to Wednesday 16 June. The survey takes around 25 minutes to complete and occurs during your child's class time. The Department has updated the survey for 2017 to include important new measures that are known to influence student engagement and performance. This online survey utilises a purpose built secure online survey tool. Each student will be provided with a unique login to complete the survey that may be used by the Department to combine data for research purposes only. Your child’s privacy and the confidentiality of your child’s survey responses will be protected at all times. No identifiable student personal data is included in the survey response file nor in any data results reported back to schools in term 3. If you would like more information please visit the Department of Education and Training website:

http://www.education.vic.gov.au/school/principals/management/Pages/performsurveyat.aspx.

During the past fortnight students from years 7 and 9 undertook  the annual NAPLAN National testing program. The original plan to complete them online was abandoned following each State withdrawing from the trial due to some potential issues that were identified in April. The pen and paper tests ran smoothly and we will now need to wait until September to receive any feedback. Hopefully we can move to the online platform in 2018.

The recent Generations in Jazz Mount Gambier programme was a great opportunity for our music students to pit their talents against other ensembles from across Australia. Whilst we were not placed in any of the divisions, it was great learning experience for all involved and each ensemble played well. A huge congratulations to Charlie Lodge Year 8 (Percussion) on winning the prestigious Ross and Jenny Blanchard Development Award to assist them in developing their talents towards being a finalist in the James Morrison Jazz scholarship.

We were also well represented at the recent State swimming finals. Sophie Caldwell of Year 12 won 5 events and broke 2 State records in the 200m Individual Medley and 400m Freestyle. An outstanding achievement By Sophie.

Our Year 7 students performed brilliantly in the Da Vinci Decathlon held recently at Camberwell Grammar School. Congratulations to both teams on outstanding achievements and I am sure you will read with interest the report provided by their teacher Mrs Niven in the newsletter.

In the coming weeks, our Year 10 and 11 students are preparing for midyear exams as they round off semester 1 assessments and during the last week of term all Year 10 students will be undertaking work experience and over 120 year 11 students will be participating in the Central Australia trip. Many of our Year 11 students have also been practising for the Deb Balls that were held last weekend and again this weekend. The support of our PCTA is gratefully acknowledged.

Excitement continues to build around the staging of this year’s production of Chicago. Ticket sales are open to the public on May 23 through www.rscproduction.com.au

May is known as Budget month for both State and Federal governments. The State budget continued to invest in Education with significant resources being provided to cover the new Enterprise agreement and funding for the development of new schools. There were no specific Ringwood announcements but we hope to finalise planning for the next stage of our masterplan during the remainder of this year in anticipation of further funding in 2018.

The Federal budget has now been released with the focus on school’s funding being Gonski 2.0, which will roll out over the next 10 years. Each school can now determine exactly how much it is anticipated it will receive under the new funding plan, with the release of an online schools funding estimator. https://www.education.gov.au/sites/education/files/sch/calc/index.html . The overall quantum and process is an improvement on previous arrangements, but the amount allocated still falls significantly short of what the Opposition previously promised, to the tune of $1.1 million for Ringwood Secondary College, in the period 2018 and 2019.

Michael Phillips

Principal