Welcome to 2026

It has been an overwhelming positive start to 2026, welcoming in our new Year 7 cohort and staff.

As we have done over the last decade, we welcomed our 225 new Year 7 students into their first whole school assembly to applause. We set them the challenge of adopting our school values as their own and making sure that they commit to their secondary studies and graduate to applause at their final assembly in 2031.

I have received numerous positive reports from staff about our new Year 7s and even had the pleasure spending some quality time with many of them at their camp this week.

In addition to the positive reports about our Year 7s, our senior school teachers have been impressed by the commitment of our senior students towards their studies, with many teachers indicating that they have already had an unprecedented number of students seeking additional work, revision activities and feedback in the lead up to their first School Assessed Coursework.

Staffing Update

This term, we have welcomed the following new staff to our College:

Teaching Staff

Amy Crilley (VM / Maths / Y7 Coordination)

Ting Li (Maths)

Ella Keating (Art)

Margarietta Fernandez (English)

Kai Norris (English)

Sneha Srinivasan (Physics/Science)

Student Support

Ben Ward

Isabelle Philpot

Zac Bowling

Rory Wagner-Watts

Andrew Mottek

Tim Martin

We also welcomed back Adam Slater following a stint as Acting Principal at Mornington Secondary College and Ashlee Griemick who has re-joined us and is leading our Mathematics Domain.

Easing into Adolescence

The Department of Education has recently put together a range of resources for parents to understand and support their children through adolescence. The resources have been developed in conjunction with the University of Melbourne and renowned adolescent psychologist, Andrew Fuller. You can access the resources via this link.

Holiday Works

Each summer school holidays, we take the opportunity to undertake maintenance upgrades that are difficult to do when the staff and students are onsite. On the recent holidays, we were please to be able to:

re-ashphalt the main section of school roadway
re-carpet Year 9 Centre and Drama room
Install in-ceiling projectors and speakers throughout the Year 9 centre to improve classroom layout
New furniture upgrades in 6 classrooms
re-paint carpark spaces
re-surface basketball courts and PAC flooring
deep clean PAC seats
Removal of numerous at-risk branches and trees (replaced at a 1:5 ratio)

Free Public Transport for under 18s

People under the age of 18 in Victoria can now travel for free on trains, trams and buses anywhere, anytime, with the new youth myki card. Young people and their parents or guardians can purchase a youth myki for $5 online at the Transport Victoria website. Purchasing a youth myki is easy. Simply create or login to your existing myki account to purchase and register the youth myki. Then wait for it to arrive in the mail. If you'd prefer to purchase in person, youth myki cards are available at most staffed train stations. You cannot buy a youth myki card at a myki machine. All young people aged 5 to 17 years will need to carry a youth myki card and tap on and off each time they travel. A youth myki card that is registered and purchased online will be valid until the child turns 18. A youth myki purchased at a station is valid for 4 years. FIND OUT MORE

Extra Curricula Activities

I am constantly proud of the lengths that our staff go to, to run extra curricula activities and open up spaces outside of class time for students to engage in areas of personal interest.

To assist students and families to know what is available, this year, we will be updating what's on each term so that students can find things to get involved in.

In addition to activities in the flyer, students also have access to the following each day:

Stadium at lunch times
SportsHub (sports equipment at lunch)
Library (various activities)
Senior Study Centre
Year Level Centres

Annual Implementation Plan

Our teachers are already making steady progress against the College's Annual Implementation Plan which is designed to achieve our strategic goals during 2025-2028.

In 2026, we have identified 2 key actions and 8 tasks to improve student learning and engagement outcomes.

1. Strengthen teacher capacity to use VTLM 2.0 and VC 2.0 aligned assessment tools and processes to improve student learning outcomes:

Teachers develop and implement consistent assessment rubrics based on VC2.0 and VTLM 2.0.
Teachers utilise student learning data to provide responsive teaching and compare their assessment.
Teachers provide useful feedback based on developed collective agreement on CATs and SACs to support students to reflect on learning and action improvement.
Teachers support Goal Setting initiative and run Student Led Conferences as a way for students to be able to discuss and reflect upon their learning.

2. Enhance teacher capacity to design

instruction to foster student engagement and agency:

Teachers apply professional learning on Positive Classroom Management Strategies (PSMS) and High Impact Wellbeing Strategies (HIWS) to their lessons.
Teachers actively engage in PLC cycles for PCMS/HIWS classroom practice including classroom observations and feedback.
Teachers contribute to and utilise an 'instructional playbook' with an early focus on Opportunities to Respond, PCMS, HIWS and assessment practices.
Mentor teachers apply agreed practices to monitor and support student attendance.

Open Night

We are hosting our Annual Open Night on Wednesday 25 March at 6pm.

Our Open Night is a great opportunity for us to showcase our school prospective parents and future students.

Updated Parent Handbook

Our Parent Handbook has been updated to reflect updated key contacts, a small number of staffing changes and updated to procedures for 2026. You can use this link to access the handbook and save as a favourite.

https://www.prsc.vic.edu.au/parent-handbook/

Traffic Management

With an increase in our student population over the last few years, there has been a noticeable increase in the traffic before and after school.

If you are driving to school to drop off or collect students it would be appreciated if you could:

Use the roundabout or carpark to turn around, avoiding the use of neighbours driveways.
Consider picking up students in Whatley Street (over the bridge) or Milroy Crescent (back of school).
Encourage your child to walk or ride to school

Other Tips

Park in bus lane if you are visiting between 9am - 2.45pm
When using the bus bay to drop off students, please drive as far forward as practical to avoid congestion behind you.
Avoid parking in front of the gate for Driveway 2.

In the coming weeks, we will be replacing the parking signs at the front of the school to avoid confusion about when and how to use the restricted parking / bus bay.

In pleasing news, the Frankston City Council has now committed funding for a bike path connection between our school and the bike path running between Frankston and Carrum Station. This would take a large number of bikes off Eel Race Rd and surrounding streets each day.

eBikes

We have seen a noticeable increase in the number of students riding eBikes and eScooters. While many eBikes and eScooters are legal, these forms of transportation for students present significant safety risks compared to conventional bikes and scooters.

When is it a legal eBike?

Provides power when pedalling up to 25km/h
Maximum of 200watts
Can be used as conventional bike

When is it a motorbike and must be registered?

Output that exceeds 200watts
Can't be used by pedalling only
Provides power beyond 25km/h

It is clear that many eBikes being used by commuters exceed the restrictions for legal eBikes and it is therefore important that parents are aware of the bikes being used by their children to ensure their safety and avoid breaking road rules. Further information can be found by visiting https://transport.vic.gov.au/road-rules-and-safety/bicycles/electric-bikes.

eScooters

eScooters have different rules to eBikes and it is important that parents are aware that riders must be 16 years or older. Other rules include:

Use of e-scooters is legalised in Victoria.

You can legally ride an e-scooter in Victoria if you:

ride on shared-use paths (not on footpaths), or
ride on roads that have a speed limit up to 60km/h
are at least 16 years old
wear a helmet
do not travel more than 20km/h
do not use your mobile phone
do not carry a passenger (dinking).

Further information can be found via this link.

Private Property & Accidents at School

The Department of Education requires parents/guardians to be reminded each year that:

they are responsible for paying the cost of medical treatment for injured students, including the cost of ambulance attendance/transport and any other transport costs; and
parents/guardians can purchase insurance policies from commercial insurers
the Department of Education does not hold insurance for personal property brought to schools and it has no capacity to pay for any loss or damage to such property.

Child Safety

Schools play an important role to ensure that students are safe both at school and in the community.

At Patterson River Secondary College we ensure that we meet our Child Safe Standards obligation and ensure that educators understand their obligations and report concerns.

We also play a role assisting community members who might have concerns about the physical or mental safety of one of our students outside of school. If you ever have any concerns about a student, then please do not hesitate to contact a staff member or one of our designated Child Safety Officers:

Principal - Daniel Dew
Assistant Principal - Lisa Cavey
Wellbeing Leader - Kelly Maxwell

You can find out more information by viewing our policies (available via our website) or

www.education.vic.gov.au/protect

Annual privacy reminder for our school community

Our school collects and uses student and parent personal information for standard school functions or where permitted by law, as stated in the Schools’ privacy policy and the Schools’ privacy collection notice.

Our Photographing, Filming and Recording Students policy describes how we collect and use photographs, video and recordings of students. The policy also explains when parent consent is required and how it can be provided and withdrawn.

We ask parents to also review the guidance we provide on how we use Microsoft 365 and sites mentioned in our PRSC online services document safely at the school and what parents can do to further protect their child’s information. If after reviewing the guidance, you have any questions or concerns regarding your child using [Microsoft 365 and our PRSC online services document please contact the school.

For more information about privacy, refer to: Schools’ privacy policy: information for parents. This information is also available in eleven community languages:

Amharic
Arabic
Chinese
Dari
Gujarati
Mandarin
Somali
Sudanese
Turkish
Urdu
Vietnamese

Mr Daniel Dew

College Principal

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