Principal's Report

Year 12 Graduation

The Year 12 Graduation, held on Thursday evening was a lovely way to thank and farewell our Year 12 graduates. The West Peak function room was filled to the rafters, with around 150 family, friends and staff to help our graduates celebrate the achievement of completing the Victorian Certificate of Education or the VCE-Vocational Major. It was lovely to see the stress of the final year of high school lifted and smiles on everyone’s faces. I am sure our whole community will be wishing this wonderful group of young people all the best for their future endeavours.

Thank you to West Peak for hosting such a large group, Le-Anne McCraw and Jo Macklan for making this event happen and to all others who helped make the evening such a success.

Band Concert

Friday evening saw the Junior and Senior Bands showcase their talents with what they have learnt and been working on over the year. With perfect weather, the Jessie Hollonds Studios were the backdrop to the performance, with families setting up ‘picnic style’ on the grass. Each band performed a number of pieces of various difficulty and each member was presented with a certificate at the end of their performance. The Senior Band will be left with some holes next year, as a total of 7 Year 12s finished up this year, but with a strong group of Grade 6s coming through, hopefully the gaps will be plugged easily.

Well done to Belle Hungerford, Music Program Coordinator, for making this opportunity for the students to perform and her work in teaching the students, and to Le-Anne McCraw for her assistance.

Stepping up – Advantage Program

With our Year 12s gone, our current Year 10 and 11 students will begin the next year of their schooling, starting the coursework for 2024 from next week. The next 2 weeks are not just about starting next year’s work, with a range of other important and useful sessions, such as stress management, general health and wellbeing and careers planning, to round out the learning.

While the Year 11 students are stepping up, they are not allowed the privileges afforded to Year 12s during the Advantage Program, as there are school policies and agreements that must be agreed to and signed at the start of the new school year. So for the meantime, students are expected to be in full uniform, cannot go to the street during lunchtimes or drive to school just yet.

National School Wellbeing Program

Having forgotten that I had applied for this program earlier in the year, it was a lovely surprise to be told that we had been successful in the grant application! Our school has been a part of this program in the past, previously called the National School Chaplaincy and Student Wellbeing Program, but lost the funding at the end of 2021. This funding will support the school to employ a wellbeing person, to help support our Wellbeing Team for 2024.

Asbestos Removal Program

The Department of Education is committed to removing as much asbestos in schools as is practical, especially if it is of a higher risk. As such, works are currently being planned to remove asbestos containing materials in our school. These works are currently being planned to start around the 8th or 9th of January, 2024 and are expected to take around a week to be completed. During this time, the school property and sections of the grounds will be out of bounds, until the hygienist has provided an all clear assessment, determining the property safe. Notices with more information will be provided in due course.

Notice of School Council meeting

The last school council meeting for this year is on Wednesday at 6pm in Room 9. Community members are welcome to observe the meeting.