Principal's Reflection

Dear Families, 

What an amazing start to 2024!

Firstly, I would like to thank everyone for their patience as we started this school year. We have inducted several new senior leadership staff and supported new prep and year 7 cohorts through the varying complexities of transition. Adding to that compliance tasks have been abundant including both OHS and financial audits that were passed with flying colours thanks to our amazing admin team. We are also working on a range of new routines, policies and systems that will support strong communication and responsive practice both now and in the future. I have a lengthy series of reflections this term and will endeavour to keep them more concise in future, however, I haven’t been able to contain my excitement to convey how much effort has gone into this term. I hope the subheadings can support the time-sensitive readers among you.

Our wonderful students

Before I move on to many of the executive items I need to share I want to start by acknowledging how proud I am of our students this term. With 700 students starting the school year I can confidently say that the overwhelming majority have made a positive start with strong attendance, positive relationships, promising learning growth and most importantly – beaming smiles that bring our classrooms to life.

There have been some significant events and challenges within our community that have created uncertainty and concern throughout the term and I acknowledge that sometimes privacy and process prohibit the open flow of information that we sometimes become accustomed to in modern media. The recent events on the Altona Pier mark one such event that caused outrage in the community. Our admin team received several quite aggressive phone calls from community members assuming our College was at fault. 

Although we maintained a calm and respectful stance on the matter, we politely informed those callers that no member of our College had been involved and the new pier attracts tourists from various parts of Melbourne, particularly in the summer months. I encourage families to keep enjoying our wonderful community but maintain a healthy awareness of where our children are and the conduct they are engaging in.

Likewise, students do make mistakes at school and sometimes, the choices they make are confronting. As adults, it is vital that we model a calm, respectful and composed approach to such circumstances and ensure we ground our decision-making in evidence from reliable sources. As a College, we will always act in the best interests of our students. In many cases, this work requires careful consideration of the private and very personal circumstances that affect the personal safety, wellbeing and engagement of every student and family we serve. In most cases, the outcomes of thorough investigation result in carefully crafted responses that ultimately aim to see all of our young people learn and thrive. In the most complex cases, this takes time and may appear to get worse before it gets better. My advice to the bystanders observing these cases is to ground your thinking in empathy and consider, what would I expect the school to do if my child were in the shoes of the other and I was their parent, advocating for their best interests. In the event that you do so and find yourself still feeling uncomfortable about what appears to be happening, please reach out. While we may not be able to disclose detailed information, we will certainly make best efforts to ensure your child is safe, engaged and supported to continue learning.

With this said, I return to the important point. Our College has 700 incredible young people, all of whom are on their own personal journey toward being the best version of themselves they can be. I hope this newsletter and those that follow highlight the overwhelming success of term one and look forward to regularly celebrating and acknowledging our wonderful students as the year continues.

Our new Leadership

Although most of our community have now interacted with our leadership team, I am very pleased to formally announce our College Leaders for 2024. In addition, I thought it important to note a few key changes in the senior leadership structure. Firstly, the role of Senior Assistant Principal, filled by Mathew Kelly recognises the deep knowledge of our school and community that he has acquired over many years. Mat will play a key role in supporting me with the executive management of the school including policy, finance, compliance and strategic resource management.

The addition of two new Assistant Principals has meant that both Tara Dunstan and Felicity Maxwell have joined our team. Both are experienced leaders both in schools and at a regional level. Both have experience leading literacy and numeracy improvement, coaching pedagogy, and leading department initiatives. Together, they form a formidable pair with a laser focus on the learning and wellbeing of our students.  

The Department Funded Mental Health in Primary Schools initiative sees Casey Sperling shift some of her focus into the Primary mental health space where she will continue support Wellbeing and Inclusion across P-6. Racheal Ibbetson also joins the team to focus predominantly on student achievement and brings a wealth of knowledge and experience, particularly in the Literacy space.

Hamish will continue his focus on student Engagement, having established a comprehensive careers and pathways program. Many of our long term families will remember some of the pivotal work Hamish attended to in previous years, particularly surrounding Year 8 and 9. We look forward to his impact on engagement, attendance and pathways throughout the secondary school. 

Michael Sperling continues his work on Student Voice and Agency but is also supporting some strategic work around attendance, engagement and VCE management. Currently, his focus on student voice has resulted in some new student feedback tools that will allow our teachers to measure their impact on student engagement, wellbeing and general satisfaction with classroom practice.

Luke Hodgart and Xavier Barker will collaborate to focus on responsive teaching across years 7-10. Their work in the Inclusion and Achievement space will be pivotal in supporting our staff to ensure that lessons are responsive to student needs and ability.

Our wonderful coordinators provide immense support at the middle leadership level and will most likely be your most frequent point of contact beyond the classroom level.

Therefore, our 2024 College leadership is as follows:

College Executive:

• Business Manager: Debra Dorgan
• Principal: Nathan Guthridge
• Senior Assistant Principal P-12: Mathew Kelly

Principal Team:

• Principal: Nathan Guthridge
• Senior Assistant Principal P-12: Mathew Kelly
• Assistant Principal - Secondary: Tara Dunstan
• Assistant Principal – Primary: Felicity Maxwell

School Improvement Team (in addition to Principal class)

• Student Wellbeing Leader: Julie Giles
• Mental Health & Wellbeing Leader – Primary: Casey Sperling
• Student Pathways: Hamish McGee
• Student Voice & Agency: Michael Sperling
• P-6 Achievement: Rachel Ibbetson
• 7-8 Inclusion & Achievement: Luke Hodgart
• 9-10 Inclusion & Achievement: Xavier Barker

Year Level Coordinators:

• Year 7-8: Blair Clearihan-Jervies & Joanna Meletis
• Year 9-10: Rhett Dadswell & Zoe Harrison
• Year 11-12: Laura Newton & Kristen Polglaze

Learning Area Coordinators:

• P-2: Casey Paten
• 3-6: Jodie Broughton
• English: Brianna McNally
• Humanities: Vu Le
• Mathematics: Matt Salisbury
• Science: Deena Kaltmann
• Health & Physical Education: Tenielle Talbot
• Arts/Technology: Anish Lal

I sincerely hope the balance of established leaders, newly recruited expertise and internally promoted talent reassures our community that Altona College continues to be a place of excellence and will keep striving for outstanding outcomes for all of our students. 

Communications Strategy

We are currently working through a review of our communications strategy, with a summary report to be tabled at school council once complete. The review will consider various aspects of communication across the school with a clear goal of improving the quality, consistency and parent awareness of the various mediums used to organise, collaborate, problem-solve and celebrate across our community. Some key focus areas will include:

1. Website
2. Newsletters, Bulletins and Social Media
3. Compass newsfeed and push notifications
4. Events, excursions and school calendar
5. Email and phone correspondence (noting the recent push for the right to switch off)
6. Privacy, complaints and conflict resolution

For now, some immediate changes include a new newsletter which will be published in Week 3 and Week 8 of each term that will focus on celebrating the wonderful achievements and contributions our students, families and staff make to our school community. We hope that by reducing the frequency, we can increase the quality of content and significantly increase the number of families downloading and reading it.

Having said this, we know timely access to information is also critical and so in light of the reduced frequency of newsletters, we have implemented a weekly bulletin to be published every Friday. This will be limited to essential information that directly affects family planning (events, excursions, alternate uniforms, lunch, transport, or dismissals etc). We hope this will help reduce anxiety around key events and hopefully support attendance and engagement also.

The final change for now is an increased emphasis on Social Media, while the negative connotations are abundant, we also recognise that small samples of content accessed on demand are also more desirable to some families. Our hope is that we can push small samples through our official facebook that will later be celebrated in the newsletter, thus catering to the differing needs and interests of our families.

School Capacity and Enrolments

As our College continues to grow in both resource and reputation, we have faced increasing demand for enrolments from well beyond our local school zone. In previous years, our enrolment management plan has been incredibly strict, due to the ongoing capital works. Having completed stage 2 last year, we currently have an enrolment of around 700 students, with a renewed capacity for over 800 students. Although we are first and foremost a school for the local Altona Community, this renewed capacity does leave some margin for parent choice. We will continue to advocate for our neighbouring schools as fantastic choices for local students, however, we also recognise that as we grow and our results continue to improve, the benefits of P-12 education will continue to be a point of interest for families. We will work diligently to monitor our growth and your personal feedback while trying to support parent choice where we have the capacity to do so. 

The Prep and Year 7 enrolment process will be managed in accordance to the statewide timeline, while all other year levels will remain open to enrolment where capacity allows it. We expect that our increased capacity will support the continued growth and viability of both Primary and Secondary programs and encourage you to support friends, family and neighbours to get their enrolment requests in early to avoid disappointment. 

Further information will be shared during Open Evening presentations, with the website to be updated with available tour dates for the commencement of term 2.

School Council

As previously mentioned in Compass posts, we had strong interest in this years school council. School council plays a vital role in bringing parent voice and accountability to the College and I am deeply appreciative of the investment already shown by our team. Our school Councillors for 2024 are:

• Sarah Brooker: President / Community Category
• Julia Gaitan-Majkic: Vice President / Parent Cateogry
• Tanya Sinclair-Camilleri: Treasurer
• Nathan Guthridge: Principal
• Taleea Limbrick – Student Category
• Madison Bowring – Student Category
• Sarah Prismall: Parent Category
• Marita Mercer: Parent Category
• Charmaine Russell: Parent Category
• Casey Sperling: DET Category
• Laura Newton: DET Category
• Casey Aldridge/Altona Early Years Hub Management: Community Category

Special thanks to Sarah Brooker who despite a wealth of community engagements, has taken on the role of President for the second time. Sarah will be well supported by Julia as her Vice and Tanya as Treasurer and I can’t wait to see what the team can deliver! Our first meeting highlighted some initial priorities around buildings and grounds, fundraising, policy and procurement and the promotion of sport and the arts. As we form committees we will work towards ensuring future newsletters share some feedback from our Councillors and I know they are already looking forward to hearing from parents, staff and students who are interested in supporting future projects. Stay tuned for updates.

There is so much more to share, but I will let the pages that follow speak for themselves. I wish everyone a positive conclusion to term 1 and look forward to sharing further reflections in Week 3 of next term.

Warm regards,

Nathan Guthridge 

Principal