Principal's Report

Principal's Report 

Principal Report 

We’ve enjoyed an action packed beginning to Term 4. I am sure we have plenty of fantastic events and learning opportunities to thrive and enjoy before the end of 2025. I am recognising many of our students who are working hard to achieve our best. Some important updates and key events below.

Staffing

It has been fabulous to have some new additions to the Collingwood staffing team.

• Thomas Hurle - joined as English/Humanities teacher - Year 8 MYP, Year Business, Year 9 Language Acquisition. Welcome Thomas.
• Jeanette Williams has replaced Rob Redfern who is on long service leave in Term 4. Jeanette is an experienced Food educator.

It is also wonderful to welcome back our Principal - Angela Watters. Angela has returned on Wednesday and Thursdays for the remainder of the school year as part of the handover period on her return from family leave. I am sure she would love to see you all.

We bid a fond farewell to Mihi DeSilva earlier this term. Mihi contributed to our secondary maths and science over a number of years. We wish Mihi all the best for his future endeavours.

We are busily planning the staffing and timetable. We will be able to give a more detailed update in the next newsletter of our arrangements for 2026.

School Performance Report

A very positive report for the school. Collingwood College moved from Medium level in 2024 to Improving level in 2025, overall.

Learning Measures are medium level overall. Wellbeing Measures are Improving level overall with many of the measures being rated in the High category.

Notable measures:

• Year 7 to 9 relative growth outperformed State significantly and similar schools - this was for Numeracy, Reading, Writing, Grammar and Punctuation and Spelling. Nearly 85% of students in Year 9 who sat the NAPLAN experienced medium or high growth. This is well above similar schools and state level (75%).
• All Wellbeing measures improved - student voice and agency, emotional awareness and regulation, managing bullying, stimulated learning and school connectedness, all improved according to our students in 2025. Both Primary and Secondary measures improved.

We will be using this data to further build our professional learning plan for 2026.

MYP Accreditation

Margareth Harris (MYP consultant) visited the school on 16th and 17th October to assess whether the school is ready to take the final step and become verified as an International Baccalaureate (IB) World School.

I am proud to say that Margareth was super impressed with the MYP curriculum and program that has been created at the school  and believes we are ready to make the application for verification.

The final step could take up to 12 weeks. We expect to make the application by the end of the year and then become verified in Term 1, 2026. All going well will be a verified IB World School in 2026. This is a huge achievement for the school.

I would like to acknowledge the leadership of Lori Michael who has led this initiative for almost 3 years to get to this point. There has been incredible support from the secondary staff and willingness to embrace the IB Philosophy to get to this point.

Year 12

We acknowledged our Collingwood College students with a leaving gathering and assembly on the 23rd October.

I want to acknowledge the Year 12s who were enrolled at Collingwood College in 2013 for Grade Prep year.

Owen Casey, Attay Dogan, Sabi Donovan,  Luca Giampetrone, Skyler Hope, Connor Hyslop, Tarkyn Janssen, Indiana Moyes, Nell Ryan, Kai Stephenson-Lum, Kami Ware, Tiggy Willison- Allen, Jasper Harbright, Otto Avent, Isabella Lovisotto, Henrietta Brewster and Meimi Taumata.

We are very proud of you all as you stand together about to graduate from Year 12.

2 years ago, as you graduated Year 10 and off to the bright lights of Wurun Senior Campus, we knew you were about to embark on the final journey to achieve your final leaving certificate. We knew then you had the skills, knowledge, passion and enthusiasm for the task ahead, and thus you have proven that you were ready and able to meet this significant challenge. Potentially, the biggest challenge of the education journey so far.

You have met this challenge, probably not without setbacks or hiccups, or without mistakes and missteps. I can tell you now, that you will have learnt more about yourself from these situations than from any A+ or high score that you achieved. Often adversity allows us to find out about character strengths, the attributes we can call upon in any situation, and I’m certain, achieving your Year 12 certificate means that you have found out a lot about yourself. This is what will take you with you to the next challenges of life and learning.

I want to let you know that you have a whole community who will be cheering for you tomorrow, in the next few weeks, and the next few months, and even in the years ahead as we find out about your achievements, your next steps, the courses that you are in, the jobs that you end up applying for. 

So you go with our best wishes, all the best of luck and much love and support. We are proud of each of you and hope you get to celebrate this amazing achievement with your closest and dearest. You deserve it!

Production

Congratulations to our entire cast and crew of the production - Twelfth Night. Despite weather challenges - the final product was one of high quality and excellent entertainment. Many in the crowd loved the banter and imagination of our performers. Ticket sales were high, we thank all families and community members who attended and supported our young performers.

A big shout out to Sarah Adams and the many other teachers who assisted in our Arts and Technology team. Thank you to all volunteers as well. Without your support, a production isn’t possible.

We are now looking forward to the renovation of our Theatre space, starting in December. In 2027, we will be able to have our first school production in this space. I am sure Sarah and the team will have some creative ideas about where and what for our school production in 2026. More information towards the end of the year.

China Trip

This was a very successful trip. It rekindled sister school relationships with four key schools across China. This was our first trip since 2019. Congratulations to all students who attended and thank you to Xiaoming Li, Liria Stratus and Dale Perichon who were instrumental in raising money, preparing the trip and then supporting them during the 17 days. Hopefully we can continue this long held tradition in the future.

Kind regards,

Chris

Chris Millard

Acting Principal