Principal's Update

Dear Families, Students and Community Members,

Victorian Education Excellence Awards 2020

Congratulations to Andrew McConchie, our Director of Literacy Improvement and English Learning Area Leader, for winning both the Outstanding Secondary Teacher Award and   The Lindsay Thompson Award for Excellence in Education in this year’s Victorian Education Excellence Awards!! These awards were conducted online this year with a live stream to invited guests. It was very exciting to watch on the night and very endearing to have Andrew accept his awards from his caravan - his office during remote learning. It is an absolutely sensational result and we congratulate Andrew on this significant recognition. In addition, it is the first time in the history of these State Education awards that a school has taken out the most prestigious award in public education (The Lindsay Thompson Award) two years in a row! An outstanding result for the College, recognition of the excellent work we all do, and cause for celebration for everyone.

Student Leadership Positions 2021

We have conducted our selection process for many of the student leadership positions for 2021 so they can be formally taken up from Headstart. I congratulate all students who went through an extensive application process where candidates delivered a speech to their year level (then a voting process is completed by students and staff), wrote a short application and were interviewed by a panel of three (for Senior School – Jo Greenhalgh, Aaron Davis and me; for Middle School – Daniel Williams, Mick Haber and me). I am pleased to announce the successful candidates who will form the new student leadership team.

Senior School

College Captains – Meike Berg and Lorenzo Mortimer

College Vice Captains- Celina Lum and Bianca Davidson

VCAL Captain – TBC

Environmental Captains – Matthew Grice and Abigail Brown

Visual Arts Captain – Natalie Politova

Performing Arts Captains – Tahlia Peacock and Tomas Graves

Sports Captains – Matthew Parsons and Aidan Boyd

Special Events Captain – Sophia Sharman

International Students Captain – Elaine Deng

House Captains:

Bunurong – Hannah Geers-Watson

Iwala – Ben Mencaraglia

Kalura – TBC

Yerlonga – Matilda Wilson

Middle School

Middle School Captains: Charlotte Zaph and Lachlan Welsh

Middle School Vice-Captains: Caity Ford & Jose Marques Vaz Serra

House Captains: Still to be selected

Congratulations to all students who nominated and went through the selection process for these important positions. In addition to these positions, students have the opportunity to nominate for Middle School House Captains and Year Level SRC positions soon.

Orientation Day

All of our new students starting next year in Year 7 will be having Orientation Day on Tuesday 8 December. This is a wonderful opportunity to make some new friends, become more familiar with the College and get to know the Year 7 teaching team. My thanks to all staff involved in running or supporting this program, especially our Year 7 Coordinators Andrew Potter and Julia Hockey; and Director of Middle School Daniel Williams. As in previous years, we are running a special transition program in the lead up to this day for students in Grade 6 identified as at risk in transitioning to secondary school. This is being run over two days this week by our Wellbeing Team. It also involves our Year 10 Peer Support student leaders for 2021, who will  assist on Orientation day too. This program has been so important in ensuring Orientation Day isn’t so daunting for them and they feel confident about the start of the next year.

Tutoring Program

Mordialloc College is receiving just over $279,000 in funding for the implementation of the DET tutor program in 2021 to assist in supporting students whose progress has been limited due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. This funding will complement what we already have in place with our own intervention program at Years 7 and 9 and MYLNS funding intervention at Years 8 and 10, along with our own Speech Pathologist working two days a week to support a small group of students. It is possible that students who are already getting support from one of these programs will also need additional support from the tutoring program. 

We are currently working through a process with staff to identify all students across Years 7-12 (2021) who haven’t progressed or demonstrated growth as we would have expected or predicted for this year. This may be social-emotional, engagement, literacy, numeracy and/or thinking skills. Most likely tutors will be in the classroom to co-teach – supporting a small group of students in a class, rather than withdrawal. Identified students will receive 3 x 45 minutes of support a week for at least the first 6 months of the year. All parents of students selected for any of our intervention programs and now the tutoring program will be contacted to give their consent for their child's participation.

Lifting of Restrictions

We can now have parents onsite as long as we apply the square metre rule for adults. Year level assemblies, graduations and other school gatherings can occur at full capacity if attended exclusively by students and staff. Graduation ceremonies, assemblies and other school gatherings on school sites involving EXTERNAL guests (like parents) are subject to gathering limits (including students, staff, and visitors) of 150 indoors or 300 outdoors, with a density quotient of one per 4m squared applicable to adults - thus we needed to pre-record our Awards Night. Face masks must continue to be worn indoors unless a medical exemption applies. Face masks also continue to be required while outdoors in a school setting.  As I am sure you will understand, it is quite difficult for students to maintain a 1.5m distance from each other in the school yard at recess and lunchtime, thus masks remain compulsory for students at recess and lunchtime for the rest of the year. Students must also wear them if using public transport.

Awards Night

To recognise and celebrate the achievements of our students across all year levels this year, we are pre-recording this event using Woohah Productions. This will be available to all families to watch in the next week or so, with a permanent record being made available for all within our school community. Students who have been nominated for Academic Excellence Awards, Sport Awards, Music and Art awards, various subject awards and our special sponsored awards were invited to attend our pre-recording session in the Performing Arts Centre on Tuesday of this week. This was staggered throughout the day to include each year level with their respective Year Level Coordinators and Principal Class.

Given our Awards night usually goes for 2.5 - 3 hours duration at the City of Kingston Town Hall, we needed to streamline the event this year, given it is a pre-recorded event (with approximate running time of up to 90 minutes). Students who were nominated for Endeavour awards had these awards presented to them during the last few weeks in our Year Level Assemblies.

Due to the amount of editing required, the final product may not be available to share with our community by 10 December as first thought. I will notify everyone as soon as it ready and share the link to view on our YouTube channel. It is also not possible under the current guidelines to have our usual array of musical and dance performances. However, we will be able to showcase some snippets from the Performing Arts.

My thanks must go to Marina Walsh, Amelia Hargreaves, Sonja Hill and Catherine Boulton for all their work in putting the event together for us. It was wonderful to welcome back our Dux from 2019, William Hampson, to speak as part of this event. William is currently studying Commerce at Melbourne University. I have included a photo of William in this report, along with a photo of all our Year 7 students who received an Academic Excellence award – 87 students out of our cohort this year of 248 Year 7 students. I will publish the names of the Dux of each year level in my next article in two weeks’ time as I prefer to have everyone watch these announcements on the video first.

Student behaviour to and from school

A reminder that we expect all students to proudly demonstrate our school values of Personal Best, Respect, Responsibility and Integrity in all actions and behaviours both in school and out in the community at all times. We have high expectations of all of our students and ask that parents reinforce this at home in support of the school values. We ask all students to be mindful of their role as responsible young citizens in our local community, whether catching public transport, riding their bike or walking to and from school. 

Last few weeks’ arrangements and Reports

Congratulations to all students for their positive engagement with our 2021 Headstart program to date. The 2021 Headstart program concludes for all students on Friday 11 December. It is compulsory that all students attend school for the three weeks until the end of the Headstart program. From Monday 14 – Friday 18 December an alternative program will run for students in Years 8-9 (7&8 2020 students). If your child will not be attending during this week, please contact the College.

Semester 2 2020 reports will be available via the Compass Parent and Student Portals on Wednesday 2 December, and 2021 Headstart progress reports will be available on Friday 18 December. Please contact the College if you have any trouble accessing the progress reports or if you would like a hard copy. I hope parents take the opportunity to discuss the report/s with their student/s including appropriate actions to put in place to address any areas for improvement highlighted.

Ms. Michelle Roberts

Principal