Assistant Principal's Update

Dear Parents, Carers, Community Members and Students,

Term 2 2020 will certainly be remembered for many years to come. It will be remembered as the month when almost all of the world’s schools shut their doors, and when those that could transitioned to ‘remote learning’. By mid-term 185 countries had shut their schools, affecting 90 percent of the world’s students. This was without precedent in the last 100 years of public education. However, every crisis presents opportunities, and the Mordialloc College community has certainly risen to the challenge.

I have observed students and teachers adapting to new ways of learning and teaching and, moreover, understanding more about themselves and their peers and colleagues. I have seen collaboration soar and a deeper sense of mutual care and support develop. I have seen increased resilience and determination, particularly from our Year 12 students who are now working towards their end of year exams with increased certainty and focus. These are all attributes that will serve our community well into the future.

Our Wellbeing Team and Year Level Coordinators have been working hard to support those students who were struggling to stay connected and up to date, and this support has been extended to their return to school and face-to-face teaching. On behalf of the College Leadership Team, I would ask that we continue to look out for all members of our community and engage support, advice, and guidance wherever necessary to ensure we are all connected during the holiday period and beyond.

Subject Selection

A scaled down version of the Senior School Subject Expo is being held this afternoon after school. This will give students in Years 9 and 10 a valuable opportunity to speak to teachers and Learning Area Leaders about the subjects on offer at the College for 2021.

This year we are asking students to pre-select their subjects before our formal course counselling sessions next term. This will not lock students into their choices but give us a better indication of which subjects our students are interested in studying so that we can refine our offerings by the course counselling days. While we are limited by resources, I believe we offer a fantastic range of subjects at Mordialloc College and we have had a very high success rate of getting students into their preferred subjects. This new component of our subject selection process will hopefully increase this further.

Key dates to remember:

Pre-selections:

Year 11 into 12 will close at 4:00 pm on Wednesday June 24
Year 10 into 11 will close at 4:00 pm on Friday June 26
Year 9 into 10 will close at 4:00 pm on Wednesday July 1

Course Counselling Days:

Year 8 into 9 – Online elective selection in the week of July 20-24
Year 11 into 12 – Tuesday July 21
Year 10 into 11 – Friday July 24
SEAL into Years 10 and 11 – Tuesday July 28
Year 9 into 10 – Thursday July 30

At this stage we are unsure of how social distancing and DET requirements will affect the course counselling days but we will be sending out information to the school community when it comes to hand.

While the road to the end of the year now has some additional uncertainty, we will continue to do our part to ensure a safe and healthy working and learning environment wherever possible. We are still hoping to be able to offer Work Experience for our Year 10 students, our traditional end of year celebratory events for our graduating Year 12 students, and camps and excursions for all students. However, if we are unable to do so, we will look to new ways to celebrate our achievements and to provide additional out of class learning experiences for our students.

We can be proud of what we have achieved and will continue to achieve as a community and I wish you all a safe and well deserved holiday.

Andrew Moffat

Assistant Principal