From the Principal's Desk

It is hard to believe that we are already halfway through Term 3, as the past few weeks have really flown by. Term Three is always challenging and exciting as we have several important and enjoyable whole school events that are both highly useful educationally, team building, and very affirming of our school community. We also head into some significant assessment periods and the final few weeks of formal classes for our Year 12 students, who only have a comparatively short time remaining before the final exam period is upon us. Then, they will have completed their schooling, heading off to university and further studies for the majority. We encourage our Year 12s to keep an eye on the Careers channel to ensure they are aware of deadlines and news available to them.

The funds collected from the PFA events are used for significant projects in the school. We appreciate these resources.

House Performing Arts Festival – Thursday 29 August

This is a whole school event where the four Houses and all students undertake a friendly and highly structured performing arts competition around a designated theme - this year, the students are focused on the decades - Pegasus, 1960s, Garuda, 1970s, Phoenix, 1980s and Griffin 1990s. The program, presented at Robert Blackwood Hall at Monash University, involves all students in each House and features a range of performances and interpretations that are judged by an external panel of experts. It is a celebration of our creativity and diversity.

The program and performances are student-instigated and led, and the school has been full of groups of students rehearsing and singing and making props. The entire Year 9 cohort will perform as a Choral ensemble publicly for the first time, and you will see some memorable and brave presentations during the show. This is not a highly polished school production - this is the entire school participating and (hopefully) having a lot of fun while showcasing some known and perhaps as yet undiscovered talents. It builds the House spirit within the school. We encourage you all to attend - it is a very entertaining and joyous spectacle. Parents are welcome to buy tickets for this event, which will commence at 5.00 pm on Thursday, 29 August.

Tickets can be purchased at: 2024 Nossal House Performing Arts Festival - Monash University Performing Arts Centres

Don’t forget to complete the consent for you:

Nossal’s Got Talent (NGT)

At this time of year, the Monash University Global Health (MUGH) club organises an annual event that invites students to participate in an extravagance of music, dancing, and performances. This year, there were over ten entries, which ranged from music and dancing to storytelling. It is an opportunity for our students to perform in front of an enthusiastic audience of their peers and teachers. Students performed over several days before the finale. This year's winners were a Year 12 music group; several other students were commended for their performances and participation in the program. You may read more about this event in later pages.

Year 9 City Program

Year 9 students are involved in an extended investigation program called the Nossal Extended Research and Discovery task this year. The three days in the city are designed to allow students to commence their research into the topic. “What is the future of Victoria?” The final product of this inaugural project will be a video presentation and creative responses.

Students will spend Tuesday, August 13th, to Thursday, August 15th, investigating and exploring a big question they have created. This involved them working collaboratively and independently, making their way to and from the city each day, and moving around the CBD with minimal supervision while conducting research, interviewing people, and visiting businesses and support services. This year, students will be expected to use the primary and secondary data during this week for a more substantial project that will be presented at the end of the year. This terms 9Time sessions have been preparing the students for this week.

We look forward to seeing the results of their endeavours. We thank Mr Labrooy and Ms Young for their work in setting up the new project. We also thank the many staff who will be in the city to support the students in this learning journey.

PFA: Father’s Day Badminton Tournament

Parents and Friends Assocation had their Father's Day Badminton Competition on Saturday, August 10th for Nossal parents and the children. They have several teams enthusiastically competing this year. They will vie for an impressive trophy and bragging rights for the next 12 months. We commend Shankar for his leadership in this event.

The PFA will also run a Father's Day stall at the school at recess and lunchtime on Wednesday, August 28th. We are grateful to all the parents who will volunteer to set up the stall, and we ask that you encourage your students to buy bargain gifts for their dads and help the PFA raise funds for the school. The PFA will raffle a large hamper with some homemade specialties, chocolates, lollies, and other yummy items. Please do not miss out!

We are always grateful to the PFA for their contributions to various school projects around the school. The new House flags have arrived and will be used at the upcoming House Performing Arts Festival. The SRC greatly appreciates the Student Representative Council Banner. The students use this banner every morning during breakfast club.

Breakfast Club

Breakfast is often called ‘the most important meal of the day’, and for good reason.

As the name suggests, breakfast breaks the overnight fasting period. It replenishes our supply of glucose to boost our energy levels and alertness while also providing other essential nutrients required for good health. Research shows that a child's ability to concentrate in class, self-regulate, and learn is negatively impacted if they are hungry.

This year, our Student Representative Council (SRC) and the Duke of Edinburgh students took on the responsibility of organising and running the club. Last term, the program ran three days a week, but this initiative has been expanded to every day of the week. The student volunteers arrive by 8:00 am and stop just before tutorial time. They offer a selection of cereal and toast with various spreads; on a Thursday, we are all lucky because Mr Boileau cooks cheese toasties for all. The cheese toasties are very popular with the students. Foodbank donates these items every three weeks.

If students have forgotten their lunch and do not have money for the canteen their Heads of House also have supplies of healthy snack type food, we encourage them to talk to someone in the Wellbeing team.

Parent Survey

WE WANT OUR PARENTS / CAREGIVERS / GUARDIANS TO TELL US WHAT THEY THINK!

Our school is conducting the annual Parent / Caregiver / Guardian Opinion Survey offered by the Department of Education and is seeking your feedback. The survey is designed to assist schools in gaining an understanding of families’ perceptions of school climate, student behaviour, and student engagement. The survey is optional, but we encourage and appreciate your participation. We have had a fantastic response to this survey in past years.

Our school will use the survey results to assist in identifying areas for improvement and professional development needs, as well as to target school planning and improvement strategies.

The Parent / Caregiver / Guardian Opinion Survey is now open online until Friday, August 30th, 2024. A link has been emailed to all families and can also be found on Compass.

All families are invited to participate in the survey. A link has been emailed to all families and can also be found on Compass.

PLEASE NOTE: Only one parent/caregiver/guardian from your household is invited to complete the survey on behalf of the student’s family.

The survey will be conducted online. It only takes 20 minutes to complete and can be accessed at any convenient time on desktop computers, laptops, tablets, or smartphones.

The online survey will be available in English and ten other languages, including Arabic, Greek, Hakha Chin, Hindi, Japanese, Punjabi, Simplified Chinese, Somali, Turkish, and Vietnamese. Resources are also available in additional languages to assist parents/caregivers/guardians who speak a language other than English at home.

The survey results will be communicated to parents/caregivers/guardians through the Annual Reporting. If you would like more information, please send an email to Ms Fiona Vanstan (Acting Assistant Principal) at Fiona.Vanstan@nossalhs.vic.edu.au

Uniforms and Mobile Phones

Nossal High School has a culture of excellence, and students, parents/carers and staff speak with pride about belonging to our School community. Our culture of excellence is about more than academic success: being a member of our school community also means we are all responsible for upholding our shared vision and values through our actions. Students are expected to wear the school uniform proudly.

We seek the support of parents and carers to ensure that their student upholds our shared responsibility of wearing the uniform with pride. Another example of community members taking responsibility for upholding our shared values would be students taking responsibility for following the Department of Education’s ‘no mobile phone policy’, which is designed to provide a safe environment for all students to learn.

The policy also aims to build a learning community where students are not disengaged from their learning or their social responsibilities at school due to using devices such as mobile phones and the like. Smartwatches are covered by this policy as well.

When mobile phones are seen at school, they are handed to reception by a teacher. This is documented on Compass, and we have a three-stage system to ensure that the students follow the school policy; the details can be found in the Student Handbook 2024.

The school must abide by the guidelines set out by the Department of Education, and we hope that parents and carers can support the school with consistent messaging at home.

Mobile Phone Policy

Dress Code Policy

Coming Events...

We look forward to Book week in Week Six (6). As always, a large number of activities have been organised for the week. This year's theme is “Reading is Magic” These include author conversations with authors such as Alice Pung and Danielle Binks. There are several activities such as the Spelling Bee, Writing competitions for poetry, 5 Worders, 50 Worders and Short stories. Ms. Lal has organised several other activities, too. The dress-up day will be on Monday, August 19th, 2024. Students are encouraged to dress up as their favourite book character or wear multicultural outfits. There will be a parade to judge the best-dressed characters. Students and school community members are encouraged to get into the spirit of the week. We are grateful to Ms. Lal for her excellent organisation of this important event.

The PFA also has its annual Bunnings Barbecue, which will be held at Fountain Gate Bunnings on Saturday, August 17th. Parents are encouraged to donate something to this barbecue via this link?? or call during the day to grab a sausage and meet the wonderful, hardworking PFA members and students volunteering for this important event. We are looking forward to seeing you there.

NAPLAN Results

Recently families should have received their Year 9 student's achievement record for the 2024 Year 9 NAPLAN . If families have not received a copy of the NAPLAN results , please contact the school to update your personal information including address, phone numbers or student medical information. You can refer to the "From the Office" page in the Nossal Newsletter which is published fortnightly to Update your details at:

Contact Us

Telephone: 8762 4600

Email: nossal.hs@education.vic.gov.au