Principal's Message

Dear parents, families & guardians

Welcome back to Term 3. 

I hope that you have all had a relaxing and enjoyable time together over the holidays. 

The lead up to the end of Term 2 can be quite busy for staff and students as there are exams and deadlines for students and of course the assessment and reporting process for teachers. As such the break would have been an opportunity for recharging all of our batteries. 

Our whole school assembly held, on the last Thursday of school, was inspiring in so many ways.  The assembly had an environmental focus and our special guest was an 'Environmental Warrior', 11 year old Nina Warren who gave a confident and passionate speech about the steps she had taken to set up a recycling station for e-waste in her local area and how every young person at MGSC can also make a difference to the environment.  If one young person can make a difference, imagine what 1100 students from one school can do.  I encourage all students to lead the way in environmental conservation by reducing single-use plastics and disposing of waste appropriately.

Whilst there wasn’t any staff or students on site over the holidays there was certainly a lot of activity taking place. The work to prepare the oval for the all-weather running track, high-jump pit, triple-jump pit and the soccer and football goals continued to take place and I was treated to a site inspection of the work completed so far.  We will be sharing some photos with you all at different points in the construction.  As I have mentioned before, we received a grant of $200,000 (ex. GST) from the Pick My Project community grant program and we have contributed the remaining $400,000+ from locally raised funds to complete this project. We are committed to promoting a healthy lifestyle to our students and this will be one more way that we can support students to be engaged in fitness into the future.

There were also upgrades to some of our more mature portable buildings over the break as we replaced old windows that were not able to be opened with sliding windows. The next stage will be to paint these portables.

I would like to acknowledge the endeavours of five of our music staff who gave up half of their holiday break to escort 49 students from Years 8 to 12 on a tour to New Zealand. Tim Veevers, Sue Cook, Stuart Campbell, Alexandra Mikhailova and Blanka West were the teachers who coached, guided and supported the students on the trip. The students competed in the prestigious Rhapsody Rotorua Festival of Youth Music which provided an excellent exposure for the College on an international stage. It was also an incredible opportunity for the students to prepare and perform in a one hour repertoire and workshop with leading music educators. Whilst in NZ they also took part in a workshop and rehearsal with students from other schools from around the world. Performing at, and attending this event, was very rewarding for our students and provided them with many valuable learning opportunities. In addition to the musical benefits of the tour there was also many cultural benefits such as being exposed to aspects of Maori culture (Karakia, dancing and traditions), geology (geysers, bubbling mud and volcanoes) and New Zealand farming.  I have been fortunate to have read the many emails of praise and thanks from parents and regarding the experience.

I welcome back to the school Greg Wallis, Luke De Munk, Anne Gamble from Long Service Leave.  It is also good to see Isabel de san Sinforiano and Shannon Lee back at MGSC as they take over from Angela Xu in Art & Technology Domain this semester.  I welcome Barbara Kerr who has taken over from Cassandra Gibson as the flute and woodwind teacher. Thank you Cassie for her contribution to the college over the past year and wish her all the best with her future endeavours.

All the best for the rest of the term.

Kind regards

Linda Brown