Principal's Report

Leigh HUNTER

Acting Principal

Welcome

First off, I would like to wish Evan Miller a great time away from the College while he is on leave. Evan returns at the beginning of term three, in the interim I have moved into the role of Acting Principal. As a result of this change, we have appointed Stephen Jarvis to the Acting Assistant Principal role for the last six weeks of term two. Welcome Stephen to the role.

NEVR Concert

I would like to acknowledge and congratulate the music staff who were involved in the NEVR concert at Hamer Hall on Wed 29th May. The NEVR concert is a huge event where schools from throughout the North-Eastern region of Victoria come together to form ensembles to perform. This year there were over 700 participants. Once again, we had large number of students involved with one student, Gemima Nicholson, having the honour of a solo performance playing her cello. The audience were very appreciative of Gemima’s performance.

Ros Patti and I attended the evening, which was an amazing program. We both highly enjoyed the excellent quality of performance by all students. Congratulations to Chris Mitchel and the music team on their continued work to create an outstanding music program that allows students to shine.

Exams

Mid-year exams are occurring from Friday 7th June through to Friday 14th June. All students from years 7-11 will be undertaking exams. The exams will be running using full exams conditions where students will be either in the Community centre or the VCE centre for their exams. This experience serves to give students an opportunity to display their learning and understanding, but also gives them valuable experience in sitting exams in the same conditions they will face when undertaking VCE exams for year 12. We find that students who have had exposure to this process repeatedly are better adjusted to deal with the pressure of delivering in formal exams for year 12. We encourage all students to put their best foot forward in preparing and undertaking their exams.

Attitudes to School Survey

This week and next all students will be completing the annual Attitudes to School Survey. The College highly values the contributions from our students and actively utilise the feedback we get to shape our future work. The data from this survey contributes to the College strategic plan and our Annual implementation plan each year.

We know that Highvale is a wonderful school and recognise that the students we have do a great job in creating the positive culture. However, we also recognise there is always opportunities to continue to improve and the information we gain from the student surveys helps us to shape that work. Thank you to the students for taking the time and consideration of their feedback.

Curriculum Day and Public Holiday

A reminder that Monday 10th June is a public holiday and Friday 21st June is our next curriculum day. On this day staff will be undertaking assessment and reporting in preparation for end of Semester reports. Students are not required on site for either of these days as there is no program running.