Acting Principal 

During this past fortnight, our college has been humming along with a variety of exciting activities   and events taking place. 

Firstly, I would like to congratulate and announce that Ms Kat Carmody has been appointed as the Acting Assistant Principal of Senior School and Teaching and Learning.  Kat is familiar with the Senior School and as many of you may know, she has been the Sub School leader of year 11 and 12 for several Years. Kat also held the position of Curriculum Coordinator for many years and comes with a wealth of experience and skills in these areas.  We welcome her to our LSC principal team.

Last week was Science week, and we had wonderful lunchtime activities throughout the week, including an amazing “Who Done It? “Mystery activity on Tuesday Lunchtime. It was fantastic to see so many students and staff participating. There really was an air of excitement about all thing’s science. 

Thank you to families who attended our information evenings this past fortnight, it was so lovely to get to meet some of you. I am confident the information provided may have supported decisions about subject choices into years 9, 10 and senior school   Considered subject choices support students to do their very best at school while the experience breadth of choice in subjects and start to form an idea of post-secondary school options. 

We also held our semester two Learning Conferences this week. Again, it was nice to see so many families with their children attend either face to face or online for these important conversations. When parents and teachers work together, student results improve incredibly. Asking questions about your child’s progress, completion of homework and attitude to learning is a huge factor is ensuring that students understand that we all have their learning at front and centre.  Their motivation, curiosity for learning and resilience to overcome learning struggles improves.

Students need to be at school each day. When they aren’t, they miss out on the valuable learning opportunities and fall behind their classmates. They also need to be on time; first class starts at 8.40. Please support the college in both instances. If students fall behind in their attendance they may be at risk of failing their subjects.

On Friday I had the absolute pleasure of opening the annual 20th Local Parliamentary Convention that we as a school organise and host.  The event was held at Plenty Ranges Arts Centre again this year. Five local secondary schools were invited to join our students to ponder the big question of our times, “Is social media as dangerous as free speech?” Professor Andrea Carson, from Latrobe University opened the proceedings with a wonderful keynote address. Students learnt about our political system and participated in their very own referendum as a conclusion to the day. A very big thank you to Mr Sam Kotsopoulos for his passion and organisation for this event.  He has ensured that for these past 20 years, our students have had the opportunity to further their Legal studies knowledge in a most practical way through the rich real-life experience that The Local Parliamentary Convention brings. 

Thank you to Ms Sakelaris, Ms Sally Ryan, Ms Bicanic, and Ms Siryani for their huge organisational effort to ensure all things ran smoothly and that all students had rewarding and   valuable experience.

We also hosted the Open Chess Zonal on Friday. We had students from several schools far and wide compete in a chess competition in our college Hall. Again, it was fantastic to see students participating in such a rich extra curricula event. Thank you to Mr Bavcar and Ms Domm for their passion and support in ensuring that students from Lalor secondary college get to participate in such rewarding activities.

On Monday the Annual Parent/Guardian survey opens. Families have been sent emails with their login and link to participate in this survey. The portal is now open and will remain open until Friday the 19th of September. The annual Parent / Caregiver / Guardian Opinion Survey offered by the Department of Education and is seeking your feedback. The survey is designed to assist schools in gaining an understanding of families’ perceptions of school climate, student behaviour, and student engagement. The survey is optional, but we encourage and appreciate your participation.

Our school will use the survey results to assist in identifying areas for improvement and professional development needs in the school, to target school planning and improvement strategies. 

All families are invited to participate in the survey.

The survey will be conducted online, only takes 20 minutes to complete, and can be accessed at any convenient time on desktop computers, laptops, tablets or smartphones. 

Laura Forster 

Acting Principal