Welcome to Term 4

Our most recent Newsletter informed parents, students and the community of the retirement of our long standing and highly respected Principal David Finnerty.

I write to you now as Acting Principal and will be in the role until the end of Term 4 2018. It has been a privilege to work as part of the Executive Leadership Team with David, and under his mentorship, I feel I am well prepared, and am very excited to take on the very important role of leading this wonderful community at Hampton Park Secondary College.

Following on from this, Ms Vanessa Dennis will be undertaking my role as Assistant Principal in Term 4. I am sure the college community will join me in congratulating her upon her appointment to this position.

The start of term four has been a very busy one, especially for our Year 12 students and teachers who are finalising course content and beginning revision for exams. The VCE students have undertaken a series of practice exams in the last week of Term 3, including a three hour English exam that has been marked an by external examiner. Many students showed their diligence and commitment to their studies by attending Year 12 holiday classes and catch up exams. I would like to thank Mr Cameron Christiansen in particular, and the Year 12 teachers, who ran classes and gave up their holiday time to administer these.

Interviews for Senior VCAL students began in the second week of term, so the first week saw them very busy completing outcomes and getting prepared to present evidence of their learning to an interview panel. Certificate students will have an Expo to present their learnings also.

Friday October 19th is the final day of scheduled classes for Year 12s and the Secret Mystery Excursion Day is on Monday October 22nd, which is a great opportunity for the cohort to celebrate and enjoy themselves before the exam period. The final assembly for Year 12 students on Tuesday October 23rd and Thursday evening is the Valedictory Dinner, which overall makes it a very busy week!

After these celebrations, a serious and focused period of exam preparation will begin for VCE students, beginning with a 3 hour practice English exam on Wednesday October 24th. We encourage all families to support their Year 12 students by having a quiet study area and a regular study schedule organised.

We wish our VCE students the best for their exams and want parents and students to know that our support continues after exams and after VTAC offers have been made. VCAL and Certificate students will be working with the HPSC Careers team and with the support of families to investigate further study, pre-apprenticeship or work placements and we wish them well in their future pathways.

Our Student Leadership selection process is currently underway under the guidance of Ms Dennis, and the new College Captains for 2019 will be announced soon. I would like to take this opportunity to thank and congratulate all student leaders in 2018 who have made some wonderful contributions to college life this year. We appreciate your extra commitment and involvement that makes HPSC the great school that it is.

If you have passed the front gates recently, you will have noticed the sign indicating that our school will be undertaking a building program. This is wonderful news for the College as we continue to upgrade and innovate student learning spaces. The down side of a building program is the disruption during construction which will begin in the next few months. We will however attempt to minimise this for staff and students and we look forward to the new spaces coming on line. A big thank you to Mr Youssef who has taken charge of the building project and is administering it so capably.

On a final note, I hope all families can take the upcoming Cup Day opportunity to spend valuable, quality time together, enjoying each other’s company and our great outdoors.

Melbourne Cup Eve

November 5th

Historically, a large number of our families take the opportunity to have a long weekend attached to the Melbourne Cup Holiday.

As a consequence, Hampton Park College will be running an alternative program with combined classes for the remaining students on Monday, 5th November. This will ensure that absent students will not be disadvantaged on their return to school. Consequently no new content will be introduced to students on this day.

If your family is planning to spend the time together please enter this absence as a 'Parent Choice' on your Parent Compass as soon as possible (preferably before Friday October 27th) Alternatively you may send a note with your student prior to Nov 5th and it will become your official absence note which is required by DET.

If your student does attend on Monday Nov 5th, the following program will be in place

Years 7, 8 and 9 - Alternate Maths, English, Humanities and PE classes
Year 10 and 11 - General study

Please make sure your students attend school with appropriate equipment (laptops and PE uniform).

Karen Shiel

Acting Principal

Central Australia Camp 2018