Principal's Message
Dear Students, Parents and Carers,
We Grow Through Connection
Dear Students, Parents and Carers,
What A Wonderful Term One! It is hard to believe that Term One has come to a close – where does all the time go! We have achieved so much already this year, and we look forward to working as hard as we can for the remainder of 2024 to further improve student outcomes.
Learning is our Priority. We want to see our students grow and improve their learning across their subjects and we as a College are committed to working with families to supporting our students in this learning growth.
The School Wide Positive Behaviour Support Program (SWPBS) theme of the ‘3Ps’ have been very successful in Term One. We expected our students to be Present, Punctual and Prepared and we thank students and families for supporting this theme. Our SWPBS theme for Term Two will be Respect and we look forward to working with our students in using this theme.
It has been a big week outside of the classroom at PSC this week with our College Photos (Monday 25 March), the Parent – Teacher – Student Conferences (Tuesday 26 March) and the College Athletics Carnival (Thursday 28 March) all featuring prominently on the College Calendar. We thank students and families for their support of these important events.
The NAPLAN Assessments for 2024 have now been completed and we thank Amanda Peterson and Travis Bhandari for all of their hard work in leading and co-ordinating these important Literacy and Numeracy Assessments. We also say ‘well done’ to our Year 7 and 9 students for participating in the NAPLAN Assessments this year. The College expects that the results from the NAPLAN Assessments will be made available to students and families in mid 2024.
I thank students and families for attending and participating in the recent Parent Teacher Student Conferences (Tuesday 26 March). This was a great opportunity for families to learn more about student progress across subjects to this point of the year. Accompanying the recent Parent Teacher Student Conferences was of course the Term 1 Student Report made available to families via Compass last week (Friday 22 March). We would encourage families to read through the Term One Student Report to help reflect on the learning to this point of the year, and to review and set some learning goals for the remainder of 2024.
I can give a quick update on our Capital Works Program for the College. We continue to hold meetings with representatives from the Victorian School Building Authority (VSBA), the Department of Education and Training (DET) and the architectural firm engaged on the Program. I am expecting that future planning meetings will become more specific to design features relating to the Program with building to commence later this year or early in 2025. Families are invited to contact me at the College on pH – 5945 1433 if they would like to know more about our Capital Works Program.
We provide so many co-curricular opportunities for our students here at PSC. In recent times for example, there have been incursions, excursions, sporting activities and various Lunchtime Clubs in operation. We also learned recently that our PSC College Production in 2024 will be The Wizard of Oz – a very exciting opportunity for our students.
Interest in our great school continues to be strong with many prospective families attending our College Tour Program on Wednesday mornings. Importantly, we will be holding our Open Night on Tuesday 23 April (5:00pm to 6:30pm) at the College which will provide a wonderful opportunity for our community to learn more about our great school.
We thank families for their ongoing support of our great school. Working in partnership with our families, we continue to achieve terrific results for our students. We recognise the importance of an orderly learning environment, we have high expectations of everyone in our College Community, and we will continue to focus in on the things that matter most such as learning, wellbeing, together with providing opportunities for our students in areas important to them.
Please enjoy the Term One school holiday break. Please stay safe and be sure to catch up with family and friends wherever you can. I look forward to the leadership and work ahead for the remainder of the year in our quest to further student learning outcomes. Learning is our Priority so let’s continue to have the College, students and families working in partnership to best support student learning growth ; as per our College Motto, ‘We Grow Through Connection’,
Regards,
Aaron
Aaron Smith
College Principal – Pakenham Secondary College