From the Principal's Desk

A well-earned break at the end of a busy term!

Allow me to begin this entry to our newsletter with a heart cry of "Congratulations!" to our student, staff and families alike. Term 3 is always quite challenging. Having completed their foundational learning in the first half of the year, every student undertaking a year-long subject is encountering some of the most taxing - because the most complex - ideas and drawing on the most difficult skills as part of their learning during this term. Senior students are also under significant pressure due to the assessment program which goes with Unit 3 & 4 VCE studies. 

Given all of this, it has been a delight to see the joy with which our students have continued to engage with those elements of school life which are maintained outside their classrooms. That includes everyone from the crowds of folk who supported our Unit 2 Business Management students during their Market Day, to the many students who bought flowers and sent notes to different people in the school during Kindness Week. 

Attention and Action

As part of the Kindness Week activities, our School Captains have been collecting toys for families in need, and it's wonderful to see so many of our students thinking beyond themselves at a time when it would be easy for them to let stress and a significant workload make them inward looking and oblivious to the needs of others. 

This willingness to bring their attention to some issue that is important and bigger than themselves, and then to take action in response to that issue, is the sort of behaviour we aspire to see in all of our graduates. When in our School Vision we assert that we "want our graduates to be ambitious, ethical and responsible citizens who conduct themselves with humility and compassion" this is exactly the sort of behaviour we have in mind. 

Attention and Action come in many forms!

As usual when I am crafting these articles, I find myself reflecting with pride on the diversity with which our students demonstrate their engagement in the world and in their studies. In this newsletter alone you will be able to share with me my pride in our Bollywood Club dancers, the students who presented the school in the ICAS English Competition and the National History Competition, the students whose musical talents were further developed through their involvement in the Victorian School Music Festival, those who helped to make Book Week such a success, and of course our always-impressive sports people.  

What is staggering is that this is just a fraction of the events and activities which our students have participated in since the last newsletter. Our inter-house Debating competition has come and gone, for example, and by the time this is published the winners of the Staff v Student Debate will also have been decided. A group of our students recently attended a visit to the Islamic Museum of Australia, and a different group participated in workshops run by the University of Melbourne Global Health Society. Our Year 11 students enjoyed the 2026 Ball, and our Parents and Friends Association held their annual - and always delightful - Parent/Student Badminton Competition.

It is a pleasure to reflect on the diversity of the experiences which our students participate in through their decision to embrace the challenge and say "yes" to these many opportunities, and I commend them for it.

A Reminder for our Year 12 students

Our Year 12 students are no doubt well aware that the September holidays are the last opportunity they will have for a break before the end of year examinations. For most Year 12 students, this holiday period functions more as a "swot vac" (i.e. a vacation from classes but not from study) than as a true holiday.

While I agree that most of our Year 12 students will need to use this holiday period to consolidate their notes and make themselves ready for the dedicated examination preparation which will be needed next term, it will also be very important for them to rest both physically and mentally. 

We recommend that all of our Year 12 students have some days in their holiday period which are officially "days off" already identified and blocked out. Planning to work every day of the holidays is a good way for them to set themselves up for exhaustion, guilt and a sense of failure. Instead, they should make sure that there is time to enjoy being the non-study version of themselves, resuming their scholarly work in the second week of the holidays and establishing a sensible study timetable which will allow them to enter the exam period feeling physically and emotionally well in addition to being intellectually prepared.

Your feedback is important

As part of our normal review processes, Nossal High School has recently updated some of the core policies relating to Child Safety in the school. These policies are always available to you to read via our school website at

Policy & Privacy - Nossal High School

(https://www.nossalhs.vic.edu.au/about-us/policy-privacy/)

and we are very interested to hear from you if you think that our approach to this vital element of school life can be improved in any way. 

The reality is that nearly every policy we have relates in some way to ensuring that our school is a safe place for our students, but you may be interested in some of the changes which have appeared in the core Child Safe policies:

• Child Safety Code of Conduct
• Child Safety and Wellbeing Policy
• Child Abuse (including grooming) - Identification and Response Policy and Procedures

These have been updated to reflect some refinements which have recently been made to the PROTECT resources, which you can also consult if you wish to do so.

If you wish to provide feedback on these, or on any of our policies or processes, please feel welcome to email the school at nossal.hs@education.vic.gov.au or to me directly at tracey.mackin@nossalhs.vic.edu.au.

Happy Holidays!

Finally, I wish all of our families - and those friends of the school who may be reading these lines - a happy and healthy end of September. By the time we return we will be in the second month of Spring and the Spring Equinox will be behind us. In fact, we will have entered daylight savings time again, and the momentum towards Summer will be properly established. I hope that when our students, staff and families return, they can do so with a sense of rejuvenation and reinvigoration, and I wish each of you all the best in the interim. Thank you for your efforts this term!

Tracey Mackin

Principal