From the Principal

Welcome to Term 1

Welcome back to all our families and in particular, I extend a very warm welcome to all our new families and staff, joining our Auburn High School community.  Our school enrolment numbers continue to increase, with Auburn High becoming the school of choice.  We now have over 700 students at our school.  

Congratulations to our 2021 Year 12 students, who despite the challenges they faced last year with COVID-19, managed to achieve the highest scores for VCE at our school to date.

We were very excited to welcome back our students last week and thank you to families and students for your compliance with the wearing of masks and Rapid Antigen Testing. We are all doing what we can to minimise the spread of the virus and keep our school community healthy and safe.  Kristie Satilmis sent an update to families last week regarding our COVID safe processes in line with DET guidelines.

On their first day back for students, we ran a special morning program to ease them into the daily routines.  Tutor Group teachers spent the first period going through timetables, uniform, our school values and expectations.  Students also had time to consider and discuss our school values and attributes, our Auburn Learner Qualities, which set the expectations.

New staff

• I would also like to welcome back all our staff and thank the many staff (including Education Support staff and the leadership team) who have worked over the past two weeks to ensure we have had a smooth start to the year.  We welcome the following new staff to our school:  
• Sarah McCrum – Art/Visual Communication
• Jeffrey Wang – Mathematics
• Sonia Boyer – French
• Damian Lynch – Legal Studies/Business Management
• Alisha Kirtley – Psychology/Humanities
• Charlotte Dibben – Art/Digital
• Zoe Cunningham - English/Humanities
• Nancy Zhang – Mathematics
• Roz Mountain - Mathematics/Science
• Fiona Thomas - Finance/Administration

There are brief biographies on each of the new staff in this newsletter.

Lunar New Year

Last week we celebrated the Lunar New Year with our International students.  Many of our International students have not seen their families in over two years, due to the pandemic, and we wanted to celebrate this significant event with them.

This year is the Year of the Tiger, and it embodies courage and bravery, so the new year symbolises resilience and strength, something we all have demonstrated over the past two years.  Erica Jin, Year 12, performed a traditional Chinese Tea Ceremony called “The Taste of Spring”.  Yula Yao, Year 11, demonstrated Chinese calligraphy and wrote on Spring Couplets.  Sally Bui, Year 12 and Emma Luong, Year 11, spoke about how they celebrate the New Year in Vietnam and the importance of the family reunion dinner and providing gifts.

We gave every student a red pocket with a little gift which symbolises sending of good wishes for the year.  Thank you to Jean Zhang – International Student Coordinator, for organising the celebrations, and the gift bag for all.

“Meet the Teachers” virtual parent sessions Thursday 17th February via Webex

On Thursday 17th February at 5:30pm, we will be hosting virtual parent evenings for all year levels.  As per DET guidelines, we are limiting visitors to school and running information parent forums remotely for the first four weeks of term.  Information will be sent to families via Compass with the relevant link to your child’s year level.  We will be running a separate session for each year level and introducing their tutor group teachers.  I strongly encourage parents and students to attend these sessions as this is an opportunity to find out more about specific programs at these year levels and to ask questions.