Welcome to our Final Gazette for 2023!

With classes all but finished now and everyone packing and cleaning up ready for the holidays, the school campus has a very different feel to it. I know that the common perception is that this time of year is about winding down, however, there is still so much that needs to be done to make sure that everything is ready for 2024 that it certainly doesn’t feel like we are winding down in any way. It does feel much more like Christmas is getting closer though with lots of festive preparations occurring about the place.

The last few weeks of term were quite hectic with many things happening including our student leadership camp, step-up programs, sporting activities, Year 9 Odyssey week, Year 7 Orientation Day and so many other events. It was great to meet our new Year 7 students for 2024 on Tuesday and know that we have so many new members of our community starting with us in February.

Student achievements:

This week we had the chance to celebrate the end of the year with staff, students and parents at our awards ceremony.

This year, has been one of many, many achievements.

In 2023, we have seen students from all year levels at the college achieve their best across a range of fields including academics, sports, leadership, performing arts and community engagement.

We saw improvements in the number of students attempting formal assessments such as NAPLAN and an overall improvement in school performance as a result, we had students achieve well in academic competitions such as the Maths Olympiad and debating competitions against other schools, with our debating team repeatedly winning against some fo the most affluent private schools in the state. We have just found out that many of our Year 12 students have performed to very high levels in their VCE and VM programs and are now planning their next steps into the world beyond school.

In the sporting arena, numerous students competed for the college at state and district levels and broke previously recorded school records across a range of sports. We saw students go on to compete and win at state and national levels in their chosen sports, from baseball, to tennis, to indoor cricket and go karting.

Our student leadership program, this year, stepped it up a notch with more students being actively involved in formal and informal leadership activities and events. We had students involved in peer mentoring programs, attending camps for junior year levels and then continuing that mentoring formally in SWEL classes and through other programs to which they volunteered their time and expertise to help support younger students to find their place. We saw the evolution of the Heathmont Talks program where students shared their ideas with each other leading to student-run initiatives such as the microwave program out of the new canteen area in the performing arts centre. We continued our successful leadership camp last month with students from across years 7 to 10 attending and working through a formal leadership development program to support them to step up in 2023 and continue the fantastic work that was led this year by our school captains and house captains.

In the performing arts space, we opened our new Performing Arts Centre and have seen this used for dance and drama classes, lunch time clubs, instrumental music lessons as well as instrumental music evenings and performances and year level assemblies. Next year, this space will be able to be used for even more performances and celebrations of the brilliant work being done across the school in the arts. The recent exhibition of the art and technology work that was displayed last week was a great example of the fabulous work that is happening within these curriculum areas.

In addition, we have seen various groups of students lead and execute fundraising initiatives for different charities: we’ve had sausage sizzles and out of uniform days, market days and bake sales, trivia nights and games days, all to help to improve the world for somebody. Once again this year, we also held our colour run to raise funds for seating around the basketball court area.

We have seen multiple excursions, incursions and camps proceed this year and allow students to step beyond the classroom and expand their world view, confidence and resilience. We’ve had members of our community visit places as far away as Darwin (on central Australia tour) and our staff attend Yirrkalla in North East Arnhem land to present the work we are doing here at Heathmont College to a national audience.

Looking to next year and beyond, we will continue to build the student run programs such as mentoring, leadership and initiatives. We will further enhance the capacity of the performing arts space to be used to show the community what our students are capable of and have many plans to improve our facilities and learning spaces.

We will continue our work to improve our sense of belonging and connectedness with our school and community alongside our literacy and numeracy outcomes.

We will also see our international tour (to Bali) resume for the first time since COVID 19.

We will build on the successes of this year to make 2024 even better.

I feel, as leader of the school, that I need to say some very special thank yous as none of what I have just listed could have been achieved without the tireless efforts and support of a lot of people.

Firstly, I have to thank all of the staff who work on any and all of the programs I have just mentioned. Our teachers and support staff are the reason we can do all of the things that we do.

Their willingness to put in and work for the best interests of their students is something that is very special and is the reason we have been able to offer so much this year. The school leadership team also need recognition here in all that they do to support me as well as the wider staff to get things done and run so many different programs and activities.

Secondly, I have to thank the students who have acted as leaders across the year. Our school captains who have led the school community proudly and effectively as well as those students who have stepped up to lead in ways both small and big. Students are an integral part of the working life of this school and we intend to continue to grow our student involvement across all parts of the school in 2024. I would like to take this opportunity to explicitly thank all students who have taken on a role to lead parts of the school such as the development of the school Gazette (newsletter) and the various community and leadership forums and camps. The future of the Heathmont College student leadership program is something that I see a being a really exciting piece of work for the coming years and I look forward to working directly with students next year to build this to be even bigger and better in 2024.

Lastly, I want to thank all members of our community. A community is more than the sum of all its parts, it is like a living, breathing organism and the more that we work together to make sure that it has what it needs to work at its best, the better our community grows and thrives. At Heathmont College, we aim to “empower our community to achieve its best and thrive in a changing, future focused world”. This is our vision for the future, it is our vision of what we want to see HC become and be and all of us are needed to bring this vision to life.

At the end of Monday’s assembly, our staff also sprung a bit of a surprise on students. There is footage and further information, later in this publication if you are interested……

Award winners:

Athlete of the year -Archie Gordon (Year 8)

Year 7 RSL Award – Milly Wyrostek

Year 8 RSL Award – Sunday Logan

Year 9 RSL Award – Layla Insley

Year 10 ADF Award – Paiges Johnson

Year 11 RSL Award – Maddison Butler

Year 7 Values Award – Tyler McIntosh

Year 8 Values Award – Archie Rodrigues

Year 9 Values Award – Grace Maniscalchi

Year 10 Values Award – Ashlan White

Year 11 Values Award – Stephani Morgans

Monash House Award – Archie Gordon

Hollows House Award – Bella Whittam

Gilmore House Award – Patrick Knight

Flynn House Award – Darcy Cook

The Rene Luneman Memorial Award – Milly Wyrostek

College Dux:

At our assembly, we were also able to announce our college Dux for 2023 is Jascha Karau, with an ATAR of 91.05.

Congratulations Jascha! Jascha is the first Year 12 student since 2005 to be awarded both Valedictorian and Dux. An amazing accomplishment that I know she worked very hard for, demonstrating that a positive attitude backed up with persistence and hard work will pay off.

It is important to recognize that Jascha achieved this impressive result without sacrificing the things that she loved doing to enable her to study. She continued to be involved in student leadership, school activities and events and the performing arts. She also ran our Gazette team to produce these publications each week.

Kerryn Sandford

College Principal

Merry Christmas!