Principal Team Report

Dear MC Community,

Welcome to March and to Autumn! Did you do anything to celebrate 29th February, the extra day in the leap year yesterday? It’s also ‘hump week’, Week 5 of nine, and we’re heading for a long weekend next week.

Here at MC, it has been a week focussed primarily on learning & teaching, with fewer interruptions than other weeks, and also on collaboration, with several staff meetings and other groups coming together to focus on our improvement work for the year ahead. Our many teams are currently engaged in developing their Team Action Plans to meet our Annual Implementation Plan targets for 2024.

I had the pleasure of attending the Inner East Area principals forum, which takes in all the state schools in the Monash, Waverley, Whitehorse, Manningham and Boroondara LGAs. With over 260 principals, assistant principals and regional staff in attendance, it demonstrated again what a strength we possess as a supportive, collaborative and student-focussed system. We were briefed on system goals for the year, and discussed such complex issues as attendance and barriers to it, challenging behaviours, disabilities, racism, antisemitism, islamophobia – all issues that affect our diverse and inclusive state schools. Of course, the challenges of the failure of both levels of government to fully fund state schools were highlighted. We will certainly continue to engage with our state and federal politicians to remedy this inequity.

MC Open Night – 6pm, Thursday 2nd May - Save the Date

We have commenced planning for the evening when we open up the college to celebrate our community and showcase it to the public. All past and current Mullauna families are invited to join prospective families in engaging with our students and staff, and take the opportunity to view our new F Bock building.

School Council

Our AGM and first meeting of the new council will be held on Tuesday 19th March. At this meeting, we will present the draft Annual Report to the Community for discussion and also be briefed by the VSBA (Victoria Schools Building Authority) and the team from Architects, the Stage 2 architects.

We have few changes to the make-up of council for 2024, with all current parent members continuing / re-elected, but with an additional staff member, our Year 10 Coordinator Alister Graham, joining Lisa Larmour. Our school captains will support our two elected and one co-opted student representatives by rotating through meetings as ex-officio members.

Parent representatives: Fiona Allen, Sharna Booth, Liesl Coulthard, Lisa Garnett, Jacqui Pontefract and Elisabeth Waycott.

Co-opted Community: Esther Harrison and Rebecca Reed.

Student representatives: Teiva Levy, Angus Pappas and Leroy Szabo.

School Captains (ex-officio): one or two of Alexia Anemikos, Camryn Dixon, Jack Fortington and Keira Pontefract.

Staff Representatives: Michael Bray, Alister Graham, Lisa Larmour and Jeff McMillin.

Executive Officer: Harry Ruff

Minute Secretary: Nat Rieger

School Canteen - Survey Feedback Required

We are keen to gather some feedback from all members of the school community regarding our school canteen. As we plan the designs of the new canteen as part of Stage 2 building plans, we are keen to gather this feedback to allow us to improve both service and amenity. This feedback will be shared with the canteen management.

Please complete the survey, by clicking on the provided link below: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/DCJ5V3V

Mobile Phone Ban – Includes the Canteen

Just a reminder to all members of the community regarding the Mobile Phone Ban in all government schools. The ban has been in place now for almost five years. This ban applies to all areas of the college between the class times of 8.50am to 3.00pm, including the canteen at recess and lunch. Students should either secure their phone in their locked (!) locker or simply leave it at home.

The canteen team has been advised not to accept payment from mobile phones and staff on yard duty will be monitoring carefully for compliance. Cash or a physical debit card is the only method of payment at the canteen. Signage will be added to the canteen to remind students of this ban.

Debit cards are easily obtainable; families can ask at their bank or could consider options like an Australia Post prepaid Everyday Mastercard.

Assessment & Reporting

Led by Jacquie Brush on Tuesday afternoon, staff worked in faculty teams to engage with our new extended range of Learning Habits to be included on both the Interim Reports (Terms 1 and 3), and the full Semester Reports (terms 2 and 4). Having the same five on all four reports will allow for easier comparison and tracking for parents / carers.

In addition to Effort and Classroom Behaviour, staff will now also give a rating that will acknowledge three additional important aspects of learning, with the actual labels yet to be determined:

Persistence
Producing
Seeking & Implementing Feedback

We thank Jacquie Brush, Monique Chisholm, Tamsin Davidson and Trevor Barkla for their work in researching and developing these new criteria. We will continue to develop and improve our assessment and reporting work and will keep the community informed as this work progresses.

Local support from Coles Mitcham

Our Adolescent Health Nurse, Rebecca Bradshaw, has managed to secure much-needed support from our local Coles in Mitcham. This takes the form of a donated $50 gift card to the school, which our Wellbeing team will use to purchase food items to support students. If you use our local Coles store, you might like to thank the team there for their support in person.

Lunchtime Activities - ART CLUB starts next Tuesday 5th March

Art Club is going to be on a Tuesday this year and starts next week on 5th March! This year we’re offering a new format. Each week we’ll alternate between a more structured activity and a free session for students to choose whatever art related activity they would like to do.

Art club will be held in D Wing, so we hope to see you there.

Miss Holmes and the Art Captains (Lauren, Leroy and Caitlin).

We wish you all a pleasant weekend as we head toward a much-anticipated long weekend next week!

Harry Ruff, Jeff McMillin and Michael Bray

The MC Principal Team

Coming 2024 key dates:

Friday 1st March – Mid-term edition of Links published

Monday 4th March – Group and Catch-up Photos

Monday 4th to Friday 8th March (Week 6) – Year 9 Morrisby Pathways Interviews

Monday 11th March – Labour Day public holiday (long weekend!)

Tuesday 19th March – School Council AGM & Meeting (on site)

Tuesday 26th March – Student Learning Conferences – no scheduled classes

Thursday 28th March – Last day of Term 1 – Student Out-of-Uniform Day and normal 3pm dismissal

Monday 15th April – First day of Term 2

Thursday 18th April – School Athletics Carnival – no scheduled classes

Thursday 24th April – school Anzac assembly

Friday 25th April – Anzac Day public holiday and Halliday Park Dawn Service

Thursday 2nd May – MC Open Night

2024 Term Dates

Term 1 - 29 January to 28 March

Term 2 – 15 April to 28 June

Term 3 – 15 July to 20 September

Term 4 – 7 October to 20 December

Library

March 2024

Interesting Reads