Principal's Message

‘We Grow Through Connection’

Dear Students, Parents and Carers,

Welcome Back for 2023!  This is our first College Newsletter for the year and already in the first few weeks of Term One there has been plenty happening at Pakenham Secondary College!

We have been happy with the smooth and settled start to the year.  Students are in uniform, they are prepared for class and they are embracing the teaching and learning program provided.  I thank our hardworking staff for their caring and organised approach, and our families for their ongoing support – we all work well as a team and this has allowed for a great start to the year.

Term One is invariably a very busy term.  We have already had Incursions, Excursions, Interschool School Sport, College Photos, our Swimming Carnival and a Whole School Assembly in the first few weeks of the school year!  Furthermore, our Lunch Time Clubs are back up and running for 2023, our planning for our involvement with the State Schools Spectacular and our new College Production (Back to the 80’s). We have been preparing for our Wellbeing Dog in ‘Max’ to arrive for his first day later in the term.  All of these co-curricular opportunities of course support and compliment the important teaching and learning that is happening in the classroom.  Please view photos relating to some of these events as part of this Newsletter.

As previously reported, we welcomed the Victorian State Premier in Mr. Daniel Andrews last week to our great school.  We were very happy to show him around our great school discussing the teaching and learning together with showing him our buildings and grounds.  He was very generous with his time allowing for photos with students and staff, and dropping into classrooms as part of our tour of the College.  I also discussed with the Premier the State Government’s multi million dollar funding commitment to further improve our buildings and grounds – we hope to learn more from any announcements relating to the up and coming May State Budget.  It was an exciting day for the College and our students and staff enjoyed his visit.  We thank Mr. Andrews for taking the time to visit our great school.

Annual privacy reminder for our school community

Our school collects, uses, discloses and stores student and parent personal information for standard school functions or where permitted by law, as stated in the Schools’ Privacy Policy.

Please take time to read our school’s collection notice, found on our website at this link. We ask parents to also review the guidance we provide on how we use Microsoft 365 for Education safely at the school and what parents can do to further protect their child’s information. If after reviewing the guidance, you have any questions or concerns regarding your child using Microsoft 365, please contact the school. 

For more information about privacy, please refer to: Schools’ Privacy Policy — information for parents. This information is also available in ten community languages:

* Amharic

* Arabic

* Dari

* Gujarati

* Mandarin

* Somali

* Sudanese

* Turkish

* Urdu

* Vietnamese

Any queries about the Department of Education and Training’s Privacy Policy can be directed to our General Office on pH – 5945 1433. 

We have been through the Department of Education and Training (or DET) process to establish membership of the next period of our College Council, 2023. Membership details are provided below:

At the time of writing, we still have a DET, Parent and Community Representative Vacancy to fill and it will be the plan of Council to in time co-opt suitable members of our College Community into these positions.  We thank the membership of our new College Council that they are about to undertake on behalf of the school.

It is timely to recognise and thank some of our long serving members of College Council who will not be continuing:  Josephine Hughes and Emmanuel Merambeliotis. 

After so many years of wonderful service to the Pakenham Secondary College Community, Emmanuel Merambeliotis will be retiring at the end of Term One.  More will be shared about Manny’s exceptional contribution to the PSC Community closer to the end of term, however I take this opportunity to thank and recognise Manny for all of his hard work over an extended period of time.  Manny has been with PSC for 17 years and his contribution to PSC has been outstanding.  It is clear that through his work and leadership, Manny has sought to make a positive difference in the lives of so many of our students.  Manny is so very well regarded by the Pakenham Secondary College Community and he will be sorely missed by students, families and staff.  We thank Manny for all that you have done for the Pakenham Secondary College Community. 

We say 'well done' to our new Year 7 Students for 2023 as they have settled in so well into school life at PSC!  They are reporting to our Home Group Trial in the mornings (8.45am), they are in full uniform, and they are attending each of their classes with the correct resources ready to learn - our new Year 7 students are certainly demonstrating the Pakenham Way!  Keep up the great work Year 7.

We continue to further improve our College Buildings and Grounds.  New TV Monitors have been installed around the College to help keep students and staff informed, painting of the Gym foyer and changerooms has been completed and air conditioners are to be installed into our Food Technology classrooms.  We have plans to relocate our Student Wellbeing Department to a more central location within the College, to re-purpose some of our teaching and learning spaces into more discrete classrooms and our VET Horticulture Students continue their great work in further improving the College Grounds.

Increasingly, we are seen as the school of choice in our local area.  With over 50 years of experience and tradition, families are wanting to know more about our great school and what we have to offer our students. A 20% increase in Year 7 enrolments for 2023 shows the interest in our College.

We have high standards at Pakenham Secondary College and we expect our College Community to meet them.  Our dedicated and committed staff who continue to plan and work as hard as they can to provide a high quality teaching and learning experience for our students.  Our students are aspirational and we want to help and guide them to reach their goals.  Our families continue to be of great support to the College – we value the excellent partnership we have with our families.

Our great work as a College Community is featuring more and more prominently given our excellent communications.  We are using a number of platforms that are accessible by students, families, staff and the broader community.  Please continue to use Compass, our Website and our Social Media sites to learn more about what is happening at Pakenham Secondary College.

I am very happy with how we have started the year and I look forward to the work in 2023 that speaks to further improving the learning and wellbeing outcomes of our students.  Please be reminded to contact the General Office on pH – 5945 1433 if you have any queries or if you need any assistance; we are here to help.

Thank you everyone,

Regards

Aaron

Aaron Smith

College Principal – Pakenham Secondary College