Important Reminders

Some Important Reminders from last week.

Attendance and the Census

The first and most crucial element of our Student Expectations & Agency policy is Attendance. For a student, every day absence and every class missed leads to a learning gap that needs to be caught up. We understand that some absences are unavoidable, especially for illness, but in all cases we ask that parents inform us in a timely manner of the reason for the absence (best via Compass), and that students ensure they catch up on tasks missed. 

This information is also critical for the school census, when schools provide their full student cohort count to the Department of Education, in order to establish our final funding for the year.

If your child has missed classes, it is an expectation that they check the published Lesson Plan on Compass to complete the required activities, and of course to check with their teacher for any other key requirements.

For Senior Students, an obvious solution is to use their study spares, Wednesday afternoons, after- or before-school study groups with classmates, or some of the many additional sessions offered by their class teachers.

Parent Contributions

Our thanks to the significant proportion of Mullauna families that have paid part or all of their contribution to the college for 2024. If you have not yet done so, can we encourage you to consider making these payments, even if just in part – payment plans are available. These additional funds ensure that we can maintain our quality programs despite the obvious public school funding shortfall we are faced with, particularly in Victoria.

Homework club is back

Homework club is running again this year on Thursdays after school from 3:15 to 4:15pm in the library for Years 7, 8 and 9 students, but senior students are welcomed to join too. This will be run by either Mr. Luke Di Venere or Ms. Gloria Cheung each week. 

And a reminder that our Senior Sub-school team keeps the study centre open until 5pm most school days for senior students to work in, and the library is also open every afternoon until 4.30pm for study or quiet reading.

2024 AIP – our Improvement Plan for 2024

Our Annual Implementation Plan (AIP) for 2024 was presented to school council on Tuesday evening and has now been endorsed by council president Liesl Coulthard and by the Department of Education. It spells out our improvement goals and strategies for the year ahead.

We will make it available to the school community soon via the college website; one factor that we hope to improve on in this year’s Parent Carer Guardian Opinion Survey is:

This school has a clear understanding of its strengths and areas for improvement.

While 70% of our parent respondents agreed that we do, a quite sizable 27% were neutral, so we hope providing access to the plan and encouraging parents to access it will help us to shift those 27% across with the 70%!

Previously, staff undertook a session in faculty teams to engage with the improvement strategies relevant to them in their classrooms and to develop action plans to bring them to fruition for our students. In coming weeks, they will do the same in a variety of other teams, for example, Heads of Faculty (the Learning & Teaching team), Wellbeing, the two sub-schools etc.

Our Literacy Leadership duo of Tamsin Davidson and Naomi Jallais also led a literacy skills session with all teaching staff, and linked these to the ten High Impact Teaching Strategies (HITS).