Principal's Report

Welcome to this edition of our newsletter.

Term three started positively on the first day with a whole school assembly, our Year 12 VCE undertaking Day 2 of their Study Skills Program at the University of Melbourne and Year 12 VCAL students completing their METEC Driver Training Program. The assembly was an opportunity to publicly thank Mr. Chris Knight, the leadership team, staff, and students for their great work during my absence.

The changing learning landscape has continued this term and no doubt will continue until a major proportion of the population is vaccinated. Nevertheless, feedback received from staff, students and parents has provided strong endorsement of our remote learning teaching practices that have been informed by feedback, surveys on our experiences during previous lockdowns. Most students have been committed, engaged, and have stayed strongly connected with their teachers and peers. We continue to follow up with students who are struggling with our student services team who are absent from WebEx sessions or who are not submitting work. We are hopeful that the current circumstances that Victoria finds itself with COVID-19 continues to improve, so that tomorrow’s announcements might allow us to welcome our students back this week.

It is unfortunate that we were once again forced to cancel or reschedule several planned activities. We thank all students, parents and carers for your flexibility and understanding throughout the past two weeks.

As a college we always follow the most recent Department of Education and Training (DET) operational guidelines and ensure that we adopt the most recent COVID safe advice.

Where events are not able to proceed organising teachers always look at the possibility of rescheduling which involves liaising with providers as well as consulting our events calendar.

I would like to acknowledge the hard work, persistence, and flexibility of staff who, in some cases, have needed to reschedule and organise an activity several times. As soon as we are aware if a specific activity can proceed, we will communicate this to our community. Please be reminded of the importance of regularly consulting 'Newsfeed' on Compass, particularly during this current environment, as it remains our primary mode of communication.

We would be remiss if we did not acknowledge the work staff undertook following the premier’s late announcement for the current lockdown, despite receiving notice after students had left school for the day, teachers transferred their resources for online and were ready to support students the next morning.

We are proud that our team are continuing to lead the Knox Government Schools VCE Revision Program. This program has evolved and is free for all students undertaking Unit 3 and 4 VCE studies from Knox Government Schools.

Mrs Gail Major

Principal