Principal's Report

It gives me great pleasure to welcome our college community to Term 4 of the 2022 school year.  Daylight savings is with us and the days are starting to get longer and we hope this will bring with it some warmer and drier weather for the term ahead.  I hope that you all had a great holiday break and enjoyed some time with family and friends.

It is hard to believe that we have our senior students entering their final few weeks of classes with us before entering exams, the world of work or taking a well-deserved break before exam results and university places are announced later in the year.  With this in mind, we wish our Year 12 students every success with the final weeks of their studies and encourage each of our VCE students to maximise the preparation time that they have in the lead up to exams.  

For our Year 12 VCAL students, we encourage you to complete those last few work tasks and competencies, before heading off to the world of work and the challenges that lay ahead in your desired pathways.  Regardless of the outcome of your final weeks of school, you have almost completed 13 years of formal schooling and you should all be extremely proud of this achievement.  Don’t let yourselves down now, make the final weeks count as you set yourself up for a pathway beyond school, be this an apprenticeship, TAFE course, university or the workplace.  Remember, our team are here for you over the weeks and months ahead, this may be to support your studies, revise course options or to discuss what’s next.

Whilst we are talking about our senior students, we must congratulate all of our students studying a VCE Unit 3/4 subject for coming in over the holiday break to sit their trial exams.  The trial exams are a vital; part of students preparation for their final exams and all students will receive feedback on their trial exams.  A huge thank you and expression of gratitude is extended to our staff team of Melissa, Annette, Joshua, Helen, Michelle, Eric, Laurie, John, Hanifa, Nimma and Dean whose support of students through trial exams at this crucial time of the year is much appreciated.

For our students in Year 7-11, you haven’t been forgotten and Term 4 is no less important for you. This is your opportunity to show our teaching team just how much you have grown over the last twelve months. Teachers will be using a number of strategies over the term to measure your growth and achievement levels.  You can ensure you are putting your best foot forward by attending school unless you are unwell, being ready to learn each day with your required materials and by showing resilience and perseverance as you tackle the tasks and activities put before you.  

The year is not yet over and you have the next 11 weeks to really showcase for us your growth and achievements for 2022.  Work with your teachers as a partner and they will provide you with every opportunity to shine.

Preparing for 2023

Whilst we are still very much in the here and now and supporting each student to achieve their potential during Term 4, we are also very much in the planning and preparation phase for 2023.  I am delighted to be able to share with you the announcement of our new College Values to take us into 2023 and beyond.  After much consideration, taking into account the valuable feedback of students, parents and staff can now announce our 3 core College Values as Respect, Resilience and Care.

Over the weeks ahead our team will be working to link these core values into our School Wide Positive Behaviour Support systems and processes across the College, this will include identifying the core behaviours that reflect these values and how we will teach these core values and expected behaviours to our students in 2023.  This work will commence next Wednesday 12th October with our Curriculum Day that is focusing on how we continue to build a Positive Climate for Learning across the College for all of our students.

Our new College Values will be supported by the announcement of a new College Vision Statement in the coming weeks and all of these underpinned by College Mantra of Learning for Life.

NAPLAN Individual Reports

During the last week of Term 3 we sent home via mail the 2022 NAPLAN Individual Reports to each of our Year 7 and Year 9 students. Congratulations to all students on their efforts. I would also like to thank our dedicated teaching staff for their ongoing commitment to excellent education for our students.

Three Year 9 ESC students received certificates to recognise their individual NAPLAN achievement levels, congratulations to Aribah Kamal, Victoria Liew & Zahra Mohammadi.

Staffing Update

The commencement of Term 4 has seen two staff members return to the College after a period of family leave. We are delighted to welcome Kylie Doumtsis and Grace Edis back to our team.  We are also pleased to welcome Sarah Chambers to our teaching team, with Sarah joining us as a Physical Education teacher, sports coordinator and wellbeing tutor for the reminder of the year.

Tutor Learning Initiative 2023

Our College was delighted to hear the announcement at the end of Term 3 that the Tutor Learning Initiative will continue to be funded by the State Government in 2023.  This is fantastic news and ensures that we can continue to provide a layer of additional support for those students most in need of support with their learning.  

Over the term ahead we will be planning the delivery of our 2023 Tutor Learning Program and identifying students that will be involved in this work from the start of Term 1 next year.

Brad Moyle

College Principal