Principal Team Report

Principal Report Newsletter February

Hello Everyone,

Welcome to 2026 and a new school year! On behalf of the College, we welcome all students, our Year 7 cohort and those who have joined us at other year levels. It is also my pleasure to welcome our new School Council members:

• Thomas Burton: student representative
• Sashaangan Pakeerathan: student representative
• Amy Warden: parent representative
• Kevin Swartz: parent representative
• Tania Desfosses: parent representative

As we begin the new year, I would also like to reflect on our school vision:

We believe our core responsibility, as an educational learning community, is to give students the opportunity to achieve self-actualisation, which is the fulfilment of their unique talents and potentialities. This also means that as individuals and global citizens, each young person who enrols at our school has the right to achieve excellence in their learning; that they respect the rights of others to learn in a safe and inclusive environment and where respect is the cornerstone of all our actions. We believe that by nurturing personal wellbeing students have the resilience and perseverance to harness creativity in a proactive and collaborative way for the betterment of themselves and the world around them.

It is a privilege and a huge responsibility to educate a young person. We know that they live in an increasingly complex world where knowledge and skills are the foundation of their future lives. We also know that the values they hold, their capacity for citizenship, empathy and understanding will play such a vital role in that future too.

As parents and carers, we want our children to thrive and to prosper. Under State Government legislation all students are expected to be engaged in secondary education until they are 17 years of age. Only in exceptional circumstances will young people be granted an exemption for fulltime work if they are under 17. This is a complex process as the stated goal of the State Government is to ensure that students complete their VCE or the VCE Vocational Major. The risk factors, such as under-employment or work place uncertainty increases dramatically for those students who do not complete their secondary schooling.

To support families and students with pathway planning and careers, we invite you to make an appointment with our Careers Practitioner, Mrs Voula Jakubicki, and it is never to young to start! Please read our Careers Newsletters and please let us know if you have any questions about courses.

A big thank you to parents who attend our Welcome Assembly. It was a lovely introduction for our new students, the acknowledgement of our 2025 High Achievers and this year for our Executive leaders to begin their journey of representing the student body. Mrs Melissa Robinson will be facilitating Student Leadership, and we know she will bring her extensive expertise and care for our students to the role. I would also like to acknowledge Ms Kerrie Lay who facilitated a fantastic Swimming Carnival. Unlike many schools now, we continue to expect and invite all our student body and teachers to attend. I did loose count of all the ribbons Mrs Anderson and I awarded. It was also just brilliant to see those who participated, supported their house and just swam their guts out in the pool! We look forward to seeing all our students at the Athletics Carnival later in the term.

We are really pleased to see students using their students planners. Please have a read parents and carers of the policies and processes clearly documented within it.

Our College Open Day is Wednesday March 25 with the Presentation, followed by a tour at 11:15am, followed by another tour in the afternoon. I cordially invite all families to attend so that can see the changes we have made to our site over the last 12 months, much of it made possible by your support of through the College Building Fund.

We are trying to improve our College website, and we would really appreciate your feedback on how we can improve this communication tool for you.

We really hope that your student or students have made a positive start to the year and on behalf our teachers and educational support staff, we look forward to working with you on our shared purpose of educating our young people.

Take care

Fern Brisbane

On behalf of the Principal Team