PRINCIPAL'S REPORT

Term 3

Principals Newsletter Report 

 

Week 5 marks the mid-point of the term and I hope that our students are enjoying their Semester 2 subjects and extra-curricular activities. I hope during the past few weeks you have really embraced the success of our Australians. It has been super exciting to see our Australian athletes perform so admirably on the world stage and inspire the next generation of youngsters to become involved in sport and physical activity. Our students have certainly been energised by our Aussie’s performances of the last few weeks. I will look forward to catching up on some sleep and tuning in to watch the Paralympics commencing in 2 weeks.

 

The Year 12 student cohort has started a ‘countdown’ as students enter the last 35 days of school remaining before they undertake their exams. 

 

Celebration of Success Awards Ceremony

 

Congratulations to all our award winners from last Friday’s celebration of success from term 1 and 2. Over 100 students received academic achievement or endeavour awards for their work. It was fabulous to be joined by over 200 or so of their parents and carers as we awarded and acknowledged this wonderful work by our students during semester 1.

 

2024 NAPLAN results

This year’s 2024 NAPLAN results have recently been mailed to all our Year 7 and Year 9 families. Some Year 9 students received achievement certificates because of their results at Fridays Celebration of Success Awards Ceremonies. The Year 9 Achievement certificates are designed to celebrate students who receive the highest level, irrespective of where they start. Certificates are jointly signed by the minister for education and the VCAA CEO. It was pleasing to see our results have shown some gradual improvement from the last few years.

 

 

Staff PD (Pupil Free Day)

Tuesday 3rd September will be a pupil free day. All staff will be participating in a professional learning day with Dan Petro.

 

Zero Tolerance of Discrimination/Racism

Western Heights College strives to provide a safe, inclusive and supportive school environment which values the human rights of all students and staff.

 

We are committed to creating a school community where all members of our school community are welcomed, accepted and treated equitably and with respect regardless of their backgrounds or personal attributes such as race, language, religious beliefs, gender identity, disability or sexual orientation so that they can participate, achieve and thrive at school.

 

Western Heights College acknowledges and celebrates the diversity of backgrounds and experiences in our school community and we will not tolerate behaviours, language or practices that label, stereotype or demean others.

 

We will take appropriate measures, consistent with our Student Wellbeing and Engagement and Bullying policies to respond to students who demonstrate these behaviours at our school.

 

Students who may have experienced or witnessed this type of behaviour are encouraged to speak up and to let their teachers, parents or carers know about those behaviours to ensure that inappropriate behaviour can be addressed timely.  

 

Mount Buller Ski Trip

Last week we conducted the first of our very successful Ski Trips to Mount Buller. The students were met with a fresh dump of snow and perfect sunny days for the trip. A big thank-you to Cameron Parker for organising the trip along with Ben Joustra who attended.

 

 

 Parent Opinion Survey

 

We will be soon sending out a random sample invites of 30% of our parent cohort to complete the 2024 Opinion Survey via a Compass Newsfeed. I again ask you to please take the time to complete the survey as your opinions are important to us and will contribute to the future planning and organisation of our school. The online survey is expected to only take 20 minutes to complete.

 

Learning Conversations Term 3

 

Parent Teacher Student Learning Conversations are later this term (last 2 days of term) with bookings opening soon. It's always a great opportunity to meet and speak with teachers to hear about how students are progressing. As always, we strongly encourage students to be part of these conversations to contribute and reflect on their learning to date and be part of setting goals moving forward.

 

Book Week

 

We are looking forward to celebrating book week this week in our college. A big thank-you to our staff in the library who are running some wonderful events at lunchtime this week to celebrate and highlight reading and literacy.

 

Mobile Phones

 

Students are not to be using mobile phones in schools in Victoria according to the Ministerial policy formally issued by the Minister for Education under section 5.2.1(2)(b) of the Education and Training Reform Act 2006 (Vic).

 

Students are reminded that they must lock their mobile phones in the lockers provided for them. The phones must not be in their pockets and be used on the school site. There are no exceptions to this rule unless you have a formal medical reason to have this phone on you during the school day.

 

 

Good Luck for the State Final

 

Good luck to our Year 9/10 Boys who will contest the state Herald Sun Shield this week V’s St Kevins. This is an outstanding result to progress to the final in the first year that we have contested this competition. Our intermediate Boys and Girls will also be playing the QF and SF for the SSV competition this week. Our Senior Girls Hockey team will also be contesting the state final this week along with our senior boys’ and girls’ netball and intermediate girls netball teams. We are very proud of our students for again reaching this level and wish them and their coaches well as they represent our college.

 

Terrific Soccer Results

Our U15 Boys Bill Turner Cup Soccer Boys and Coach Joey Didilcia have progressed to the quarter final stage of the prestigious Bill Turner Cup Competition. This competition has been conducted for 45 years and is a competition for the best schools (government, catholic and independent schools) across Victoria, NSW, ACT and Queensland. The boys will travel to Albury again next week to play matches over 2 days in the quarter final. We are so proud of them and can’t wait to hear of their results with hopefully a spot in Newcastle before the end of term.

 

Have a wonderful next fortnight,

 

Fiona Taylor

Principal