PRINCIPAL'S REPORT

Dear Parents and Carers,

It’s a been busy start to Term 4 as we farewell our Year 12 students from formal classes, support other year levels to finalise learning programs and prepare for exams and Head Start. It is a very busy time for the College and while some may think we are ‘winding down’ for the year, the truth is that Term 4 is in many ways our busiest time!

Year 12 Final Days.

Last week we celebrated the end of Year 12 with an amazing group of young people. Our scored VCE students are well into the swing of exams and our VCE VM students worked hard to complete their final tasks for the year.

Last Monday saw our annual Year 12 farewell assembly; an opportunity to reflect on the year and look back at the journey of these students from the time they commenced at SCSC. It was wonderful to see so many parents and family members come along and share the final assembly with their children.

The morning after the assembly, a team of teachers and leaders held a final end-of-year breakfast for our Year 12s at the Torquay Tigers club rooms. It was a fun morning with lots of laughter and an amazing amount of egg and bacon rolls being consumed!

We look forward to our final celebration with the 2024 Year 12 students and their parents and carers at the Valedictory Dinner on November 28th at GMHBA Stadium.

School Staff Survey.

Each year the department of education offers all school staff the chance to participate in a broad ranging survey to gage the level of positive endorsement staff feel toward all elements our work including school climate, teaching and learning, professional learning, leadership and staff wellbeing. There are over sixty individual factors measured.

In summary, staff at SCSC are reporting their highest levels of positive endorsement of the work across all factors measured. Our staff are reporting positive endorsement significantly higher than similar schools and state averages. It is a fantastic outcome and a reflection of our staff commitment and belief in the work we are doing and the changes we have initiated in 2024.

This data, in conjunction with our similarly high positive endorsement on the Student Attitude to School Survey (reported earlier in the year), give the clear message that Surf Coast Secondary College is a happy and healthy community of learners and teachers.

School Performance Report.

Last week the Department of Education released the annual School Performance Report for every government school. These reports share the government’s assessment on how each school is performing in two overarching domains - ‘Wellbeing’ and ‘Learning’.

In the ‘Wellbeing’ domain, SCSC was achieved a ‘High’ performance rating - this is the highest level possible! Of the six measures in this domain, four were reported as ‘High’, one as ‘Improving’ and one as ‘Medium’. The one area identified as ‘Medium’ was ‘Attendance Rate’. Next year we will be launching a range of new strategies to support our students and parents/carers to improve school attendance together.

In the ‘Learning’ domain, our overall assessment was ‘Medium’. Of the nine measures assessed, six achieved ‘Improving’ (the second highest level) and three were ‘Medium’. This data shows significant growth over the previous few years and is an extremely positive sign that our learning program results are moving in the right direction.

Overall, this is an excellent ‘report card’ for our school and a just reward for the highly focused work we are doing. I’d like to extend my personal thanks to all our students and teachers across every year level for these amazing wellbeing and learning outcomes.

Despite these excellent results we will continue to work together as a learning community to ‘embrace challenge and achieve excellence’ in all that we do!

Thanks for reading.

Take care,

Shane Elevato

Acting Principal.