PRINCIPAL'S REPORT

Term 3

Principals Newsletter Report 26/8/24

 

Another busy 2 weeks for our college full of fantastic learning, extracurricular activity, and preparation for our Year 12’s to start to finish unit 4 learning content, prepare for exams and finishing of their secondary education. It sure is a busy time for our students in Year 12 and hopefully our students are “embracing the here and now” and are focusing on the strong routines around studying that they have set up over the past year or even just starting them – it’s never too late. Let’s face it, there’s never really a perfect time to do something is there? We need to release the idea of a perfect situation, holding us back from starting something. Preventing us from feeling ‘ready’ to simply have a go and learn by doing. In the words of ‘The Happiness Project’ author Gretchen Rubin, “instead of pushing yourself to an impossible ‘perfect’ and therefore getting nowhere, accept ‘good’ to simply make a start! We wish our year 12’s well as they start to complete the last 5 weeks of their secondary education.

 

Book Week

Last week was a highlight for the avid readers in our community, both students and staff, as we celebrated Book Week. We had dress up parades, DJ’s, Authors, Primary School student visits to our library and a whole host of other activities arranged by our library and English staff last week to celebrate the magic of reading. A big Thank-you to Ms. Choong for her energy organising the day.

 

Curriculum Day (Pupil Free Day)

 

Tuesday 3rd September is a curriculum day for all staff. There will be no timetabled classes on this day and a pupil free day.

 

Geelong Kokoda Youth Program 2024

 

In 2 weeks’, time, Kane Washington (Year 11) and Ricki O’Shannessy (Assistant Principal) will be representing our school community in the Geelong Kokoda Youth Program. Both Kane and Ricki have been training for 7 months for this program and we wish them both every success in trying to complete one of the worlds hardest and most difficult treks.

 

State Finals

 

Good luck to our Intermediate Boys and Senior Girls AFL Teams who will play off this week in state championships for AFL. We are so proud of them and wish them well in their endeavours.

 

Good luck also to our Junior Intermediate and Senior basketball Teams taking part in the rounds of the Victorian Basketball Champions Cup this week. We wish them well.

 

Learning Conversations

 

Our Year 7 - 12 Learning Conversations will be conducted Thursday 18 September between 11am and 7pm and Friday 19 August between 9am and 1pm. These conversations will take place on-site and in person but there will be the flexibility for parents and carers to request with the individual teachers an online/or phone interview if that format is more suitable. This will need to be requested after making an interview time with an email to the individual teacher via compass. The teacher can then send you a link for these online interviews.

 

 

2024 Parent/Caregiver/Guardian Opinion Survey

 

Our school is conducting a survey to find out what parents/caregivers/guardians think of our school. The Parent/Caregiver/Guardian Opinion Survey is an annual survey offered by the Department of Education and Training that is designed to assist schools in gaining an understanding of families’ perceptions of school climate, student behaviour, and student engagement. We encourage all families to participate in this survey. Our school will use the survey results to help inform and direct future school planning and improvement strategies.

 

A random sample of approximately 30 per cent of parents/caregivers/guardians have been selected to participate in this year’s survey. The Parent/Caregiver/Guardian Opinion Survey will close on Friday 20 September.

 

The survey will be conducted online, only takes 20 minutes to complete, and can be accessed at any convenient time within the fieldwork period on desktop computers, laptops, tablets, or smartphones. The online survey will be available in a range of languages other than English. These include Arabic, Vietnamese, Simplified Chinese, Chin (Hakha), Hindi, Japanese, Somali, Turkish, Punjabi and Greek.

 

Thank-you to all our parents, caregivers and guardians who have already completed the survey.

 

State School Spectacular

 

Next weekend our fantastic students involved in the State School Spectacular will perform at the National Tennis Centre. I am so excited to see our students perform in this wonderful opportunity of performing arts and music. Well, done to our students who are performing and to Amanda Dickson and Matthew Bolton for their wonderful support of our students. I will look forward to sharing more news about this activity in our last newsletter for the year.

 

Bill Turner Cup Final 8

 

Well done to our Soccer Bill Turner Cup team for making through to the final 8 round last week unfortunately going down in a close 2-1 match against Illawarra Sports High School. All students and coaches should be very proud of their effort this year.

 

 

Enjoy your week and take care,

 

Fiona Taylor

Principal