Acting Principal Update

Dear Families, Students and Community Members,

We have definitely had a week of ‘four seasons in one day’! Whilst it was windy enough to make us go and take our flags down, we had no other issues at all, and our arborist had cleared all of the fallen branches before recess. 

Everything is now back how it was: a big thank you to Simon Cummins and our site staff for sorting that all out for us.

School Review

I am pleased to share with you that the School Review process has now been completed. I would like to extend my sincere thanks to all members of the Mordialloc College community who were involved. This thorough process allowed us to reflect on our achievements and identify areas for growth. The review is a vital part of our continuous improvement journey, ensuring that we provide the best possible learning outcomes for our students.

For those unfamiliar, the School Review involves a comprehensive evaluation of our school’s practices, achievements, and goals. The process brought together staff, students, and families to provide valuable feedback to inform our future direction. The result of this process is our new School Strategic Plan for 2025-2028, which will outline our key priorities and objectives for the next four years. This plan will be shared with you during Term 4, and I encourage you to take the time to familiarise yourself with it as it sets the course for our ongoing commitment to your child’s success at Mordialloc College..

VCE French 

Our VCE French students have achieved some great results in the Berthe Mouchette oral competition. There were over 1000 entrants from schools all over Victoria, with one of our students, Leilani Tovia, receiving a perfect score and qualifying for the finals. Multiple Mordialloc College students also got scores in the Excellent range for both sections (9-10 out of 10 possible points). On the competition day the assessor was amazed at how well-prepared our students were, which is great feedback for them! It is wonderful to see the confidence boost in all the students in preparation for the rest of their VCE studies. A big thank you to Bella Barker for arranging this.

Rail Safety

As part of our ongoing commitment to keep your children safe whilst  they are out in the wider school community, we invited Rail Safety to share information to students around transport laws, public transport etiquette, information about the safety zone and emergency intercom, standing behind the yellow line, and the dangers of trespassing. 

A big thank you to Metro Trains for taking the time to deliver such a knowledgeable, and engaging session to our students. More information can be found at Metro Community Education. 

Parent Teacher Interview Day 

With over 3000 appointments attended throughout the day, I think we can agree that this was a big hit! A huge thank you to families who were able to attend, we really do recognise the importance of working closely with you to support your child’s every success here at Mordialloc College. 

We did contact families as regards staff absences during the day; if this has created an issue for you as regards you not being able to find out something specific about your child’s progress, please email us on mordialloc.co@education.vic.gov.au with details of your child’s name, subject, normal classroom teacher and query so that we can provide you with some information in this space.

Year 7 2025 

I am really proud to share that we continue to be the school of choice in the area, and we are nearly full for Year 7 2025. Over the next two weeks, we will be holding SEAL interviews, and working through data to select our Year 7 2025 classes. We have a wide range of supports to welcome our next generation of families into our Mordialloc College community; if you have any ideas about how we as a community can further support our new families, please reach out and let me know.

Koei Veritas-Sister School Signing Ceremony 

At the end of Term 3 we have a group of staff volunteers and students travelling to Japan for our very first international trip since COVID. Our students are giddy with excitement, and as you can imagine there has been a tremendous amount of work to pull all of this together. Part of this has been us establishing a relationship with the Koei Veritas school in Chiba, Japan; this partnership will encourage our students to learn together by sharing language and culture. Our students and teachers are especially excited for their upcoming visit to Koei Veritas’ culture festival during their tour of Japan.

A part of this agreement was a signing ceremony that occurred via the magic of Webex; Eleni and Cynthia will take over the signed documentation and hand it to our sister school when they visit Japan at the end of September. A big thank you to Cynthia Leung and Eleni Capp for organising this relationship, and also for continuing to fly the flag for Japanese provision at Mordialloc College. 

Staff Professional Learning Day

As a school, we have Professional Learning days where all staff focus on a key improvement area. On 16th August, our focus was Inclusion, with both Teaching and Educational Support staff receiving professional learning from Colette Davis (Principal at Avenues Education) and Alana Singh (Inclusive Curriculum Coordinator).

Colette’s research-based session focused primarily on the wellbeing strategies required in classrooms to support student capacity for learning. FISO 2.0 tells us “that wellbeing is the development of the capabilities necessary to thrive, contribute and respond positively to the challenges and opportunities of life”, and this ethos will continue to drive our relationships for learning culture at the school.

As a system level leader, it was great to have Colette’s expertise to clarify the relationship between wellbeing and learning, and to further inform the planning that we have been involved in as we continue to evolve learning opportunities that support us to teach students at their point of need. Colette left us with some amazing resources that staff have already started to integrate into their planning, and a promise to return so that she can continue to support us as we embed these strategies into our classroom culture.

In the afternoon, Alana focused on supporting staff to better plan for students who require additional adjustments to perform alongside their peers. In Term 2, Alana was employed as our Inclusion Curriculum Coordinator, and she has continued to impress us as she has worked diligently alongside Student Services and teaching staff to better inform curriculum adjustments that are an integral part of Individual Education Plans. 

Whilst school is always a bit odd with no students in it, the work completed on this day really does stand us in good stead to better provide for students.  A huge thank you to all involved for this information-packed day. 

I really do hope you have a great fortnight.

Rachael Stone

Acting Principal