Andrew Chisholm

Assistant Principal

Dear Parents and Students,

Our new Year 10 students have taken part in their course confirmation for 2025. This group comes from 107 schools, and it is great to see a number of students from rural Victoria again joining JMSS.

The past few weeks have seen several events and opportunities for our students, including the Australian Science Fair, Engineering Immersion, Global Challenges, UN Day, and our first-ever Pharmaceutical Science Immersion. This week sees the orientation program for 2025 begin for our current Year 10 and 11 students. Students will be able to get a“head start” on their courses for 2025 by familiarising themselves with VCAA study designs, background material and assessment styles. All students will have some tasks to complete over the break to better prepare themselves for the upcoming academic year.

Booklists for 2025

The booklists for 2025 have just been released and information has been sent to all families regarding this. Campion is again our booklist provider, and parents may choose to spend their school savers bonus here. Emails regarding this have also been sent to families.

Year 12 Results

All students completing Year 12 subjects in 2024 are able to access their results on the 12th of December. We do hope that all students completing Year 12 subjects will achieve results that match or exceed their expectations.

For year 12 students there have been several communications via compass and emails to inform students about the processes related to change of preference and early round offers. Change of preference closes at midday on Saturday 14th December and early round offers are released on the 23rd of December. There are opportunities to book counseling sessions with Ms. Carter to discuss Year 12 results and Change of Preference. These have also been communicated to students.

Year 11 students wanting to pursue a University Extension subject in 2025 have a week to submit their applications after Year 12 results are released. It is important to get these applications pre-filled out prior to December 13. Formscan be handed to the VCE managers anytime from now.

Monash Design Prize

On November 21, 2024, Ms Vida represented JMSS at the 2024 Monash Design Prize Award celebration to see one of our Year 12 students Skye Sriratana win the 2024 Award.

The judges of this award considered all the entries very carefully, and selected Skye’s weightlifting project as the winner based on the thoughtful application of ergonomic design principles. The judges were impressed by her clear, well-articulated “reduction of injury” narrative, alongside the phenomenal application of working technology.

They were inspired to see a fully working prototype in the video Skye produced. Skye fulfilled the challenge to “Design for Good” through caring for the sporting community, many of whom use weights as part of their training regimes. As a weightlifter, to avoid unnecessary back injuries from manually picking up, moving and loading weight plates onto a barbell avoid these injuries, Skye created the Weight Plate Loader, a full-sized working robot prototype, to replace manual handling techniques for loading weight plates.

Congratulations Skye!

Finally, I would like to congratulate Abbie Goff and the student magazine team on their efforts in completing another brilliant school magazine this year. Again, the magazine provides an excellent coverage of all the events and achievements that have characterised the 2024 JMSS year.

Andrew Chisholm

Assistant Principal