Principal's Reflection

Welcome

Welcome to our first newsletter of 2025.

After a busy holiday period, we are off and running and what a start it has been. Many families might not be aware that just one week out from our first day, Mr Kelly and I were sweeping away floodwater from the library after discovering a burst water pipe in the ceiling above our canteen. Our canteen manager Kerryn also came to the rescue, helping to clean and re organise the spaces to ensure we could still provide food service on day 1. 3 weeks later, we have dried, sanitised and re-opened some spaces, while we also wait for final approval to lay new carpets, paint and plaster in our primary music room and part of the library. I am so appreciative of Mr Fell, Ms Foreman and all the staff who have supported around the canteen and library to keep programs running despite the inconvenience.

Special thanks also to Mr Kelly who has rebuilt the timetable countless times to accommodate all of the movement that has been required to ensure everyone has appropriate learning spaces while we finish the repairs. There have been a lot of late nights behind closed doors, but the show must go on!

Motivation everywhere!

Aside from this little hiccup, I sincerely hope that students and families have felt the same sense of calm and order that has been evident this year. Our preps all seem so incredibly settled and even though there are always wobbles, their ability to bounce back and continue building stamina is a joy to observe. We are always so proud of our newest students! Likewise, our largest ever Year 7 cohort are already looking like they have been here forever and the first day nerves seem to be a distant memory. Their confidence is growing daily and I appreciate the smiles, waves and conversations I have been able to have during yard duties. I also look forward to visiting the year 7 camp that will be here before we know it.

At the senior end, I also had the pleasure of attending part of our Year 12 retreat. I especially enjoyed learning from Ms Newton's lesson on ‘Atomic Habits’ based on the book by James Clear. The lesson encouraged students to think about the compounding effect of tiny habits that can be changed to result in remarkable outcomes. In the session I joined, our students were discussing an improvement strategy made famous by British cycling coach Dave Brailsford. His theory, called the “aggregation of marginal gains” focused on finding all of the small, seemingly irrelevant adjustments that are often neglected or overlooked by other competitors. When attended to, on top of the common training and improvement strategies that were already used, these marginal gains took the British team from an underperforming, apathetic culture, into an era of absolute dominance on the world stage. While I have to note there are still questions about how far they pushed boundaries, the theory remains sound. I was so excited to hear the students thinking about the small adjustments they could make now, to set them up for dominance later in the year. Equally, our Year 11 students seem to also have hit the ground running and after their experience with Project Hope, they too seem motivated and ready to push the limits of personal expectation and achieve beyond what our school has seen before. I hope we can keep that spark alive because with that mindset, we may jut have our best year yet. The Altona College momentum just keeps building!

On a personal note, I have since reflected on those lessons and intend to do my very best to model the same strategy. If our whole community can attend to small shifts toward excellence in every endeavour, we may very well still fall short of competitors, but we will do so with heads held high knowing that we are undoubtedly on an improvement journey that will make us formidable in the very near future. If you can’t already tell, I am so excited to be a part of this next phase of our schools continuing improvement journey and I hope you will all join me with enthusiasm, commitment and genuine passion for this incredible place we all share.

Cultural strength.

Our momentum is not only shifting in the academic space. We are investing in cultural strength too. Our recent welcome to country not only marked the beginning of the school year, but also a new connection with elders from the Bunurong Land Council who are keen to engage with us to improve our whole school connection to country, while also ensuring we are building systems and strategies to promote self-determination, cultural strength and community connections not only for our Koori families, but for all members of our community, whatever their history or culture may be. Provided the motivation is grounded in inclusivity and the outcomes are aligned to improving the achievement, wellbeing and engagement of our students, all input is welcome. Our senior student leaders will meet with me to form some initial action plans next week. We are also working towards primary learning and leadership experiences with Uncle Josh and Uncle Mark later in the year also. They are especially interested in helping our younger students explore art, dance and story telling to build knowledge in an engaging and creative way.

House Culture and some timetable adjustments.

In the secondary school, our vertical structure and adjusted timetable have undergone some final revisions and adjustments throughout the final weeks of term 4 last year and as late as last week when I spoke with Department of Education & Training staff to ensure our strategies would serve us well in light of current and future Department initiatives. So far, our adjustments include:

1. Introduction of vertical homeroom structure from Years 8-12 (not affecting curriculum based classes which remain in year levels from P-9 and include accelerated options in Years 10-12)
2. Alignment of homerooms to our house colours
3. Inclusion of vertical school activities and events to build student connections and confidence across year levels

Although our community were consulted and ultimately supported an early dismissal for secondary students, we have decided not to proceed with this strategy. Instead, we have developed an improved program that we feel will meet the same wellbeing needs, whilst better addressing future growth, timetabling, community and departmental needs. These activities will be broad, with a simple criteria: They must be designed to enrich the Achievement, Wellbeing and/or Engagement of all students. To staff this program, we will remove the 15 minute daily homeroom (totalling 75 minutes per week), replacing it with extra transition and break times, then add it to the single Wednesday afternoon period, allowing for a full 75 minute vertical homeroom period. This session will also accommodate assemblies, activities, education programs and at times, assessments. Primary class time will not be affected by the change and although there will again be a small overlap of 10 minutes at lunchtime. We are confident we can provide more than adequate access to all our play equipment and facilities. A draft of the new bell times is included in the newsletter, but results in no change to our 9.00am start and 3.15 finish. We will launch this at the commencement of Week 4 – Monday 24 February, though most families will notice very little difference in their children’s daily schedules.

A greener school

Speaking of school council contributions, I am also excited to announce that we now have a very large solar system soaking up the last of the summer sun. Partially funded by the Greener Government Schools program, the system has been fully installed and will be partially repaid from the savings it will generate on our electricity bill over the next couple of years. This incredible addition to our school has been made possible through the work of former school council president Kade Dillon. Kade had a passion for sustainability and found the grant, wrote the application and worked with leadership to compile all of the appropriate documentation before submitting. After obtaining approval, it has taken until now for all of the appropriate compliance and procurement to be resolved. Over the January break, Block F and Block C were fitted out and the system is now operational. All of our electrical systems will now be powered first by what is generated by the system, topped up by the grid when needed and sold back to the grid over weekends and school holidays.

I hope everyone will join me in acknowledging and thanking Kade for being generous enough to donate his professional skillset and time to leave a lasting impact on the College! If this story inspires anyone else with a professional skillset that they think might benefit the school, (landscaping and earthworks, soil levelling would be especially welcome in the near future) please reach out and I will be glad to speak with you about upcoming projects and initiatives.

School Council

Over the coming weeks we will also form our 2025 school council. Further announcements will follow, but in the interim, I want to sincerely thank Sarah Brooker, our outgoing president. Sarah has been a huge support for me and our council all acknowledged her leadership contributions. Her work was described by one councillor as ‘an inspiration to watch and learn from’ and also that it ‘made me feel so much more confident being a part of school council even though I wasn’t sure if I would know what to do’. All of our councillors have certainly known exactly what to do under Sarah’s leadership and I cannot express enough gratitude for her effort.

Sarah Prismall’s term has also ended and I acknowledge her significant contribution. Having formed the Friends and Family of Altona College sub-committee, Sarah has been instrumental in bringing together like minded parents and establishing some wonderful fundraising and social events. We hope the legacy will continue.

Additionally, Tania Sinclair has supported us for the past two years and chaired the finance committee. The school budget grows every year and having parents’ view and discuss our financial processes also ensures full transparency and compliance. This technical support is always appreciated. Well done Tania. 

Casey Sperling, Taleea Limbrick and Madsion Bowring round out the exiting members of council and have also contributed as staff and student representatives. Casey poured endless hours into supporting the voice and ideas of families and our student’s perspective is always crucial in school council decision making. I am very fortunate to have worked with such a great council and look forward to the formation of our 2025 team.

Finally, thankyou to those who have pushed through. I will attempt to keep future iterations a little shorter and hope that the following newsletter pages capture the many things I haven’t squeezed in. As always, please reach out to staff for matters of students support or log general enquiries through reception. In the most serious cases, our Leadership team will triage and ensure the best support is provided. I am always here to support and will make time for families at the earliest convenience.

I hope we all have a wonderful 2025.

 Keep up the momentum!

Warm regards,

Nathan Guthridge

Principalv