Principal's Message

We Grow Through Connection

Dear Families,

Welcome Back for Term Three – I hope that you all had a restful and enjoyable mid year break.

Term Three will be another busy term at our great school with so many opportunities for our students in the areas important to our College Community:

Learning Growth and Pathways

Sport

Performing Arts

Leadership and Our Community

Our School Wide Positive Behaviour Support Theme for Term Three will be Respectful Behaviour.  We will continue to work with families in this important area of the College, and we will acknowledge Respectful Behaviour from our students when it is demonstrated in their classes, out in the yard and when they are representing the College at key events.

An Orderly Learning Environment will again be important for us in Term Three. We expect our students to attend their classes on time wearing full school uniform, and to have the necessary resources for learning (eg fully charged laptop, books, etc).  We want our students to work hard across their subjects - we have high expectations of our students as they represent our great school to the highest of standards.

We as a College, have received some very positive results with respect to the 2026 NAPLAN.  For example, in the areas of Reading and Writing, we have achieved some outstanding learning growth results from Year 7 to 9.  Our Numeracy learning growth results from Year 7 to 9 were also positive and they align with that of Similar Schools.  We congratulate our students and we thank our staff and families for their work and support.

Our Reading Challenge this year has been hugely successful.  So many of students are involved, and the level at which students have been borrowing and reading books from our College Library has increased significantly.  For example, please see below:

Please click on the image above to see a larger file

We had a Whole School Assembly earlier in the week (Tuesday 28 July), and this was a wonderful opportunity to recognize student achievement with Principal, NAPLAN and Visual Arts and Technology Awards being presented to students from Semester One.  We also took the opportunity to wish our Year 12 students all the very best with the final weeks of school.  It was great to see several families in attendance, and we congratulate all of our Student Award Winners. 

Our Indigenous Day (Monday 27 July) was very successful.  It was an opportunity for our College to extend on the work of NAIDOC Week from earlier in the term.  We had guests running activities on the day together with key displays to further our understanding of Indigenous culture – we thank everyone involved.

We welcomed a Student Tour Group from China this week (Tuesday 28 July). We were able to show them around our great school, including our new Wareeny Building.  Our student guests were able to participate in a range of different classes on the day including Physical Education, Visual Arts and Science. We had our own students helping with the Tour and we thank them for their efforts – again, we thank everyone involved.

Our College Production of Mary Poppins Jnr continues to grow from strength to strength with the recent school holiday rehearsals allowing students to further work through key aspects of the Production.  Our College Production will be held on the 19, 20 and 21of August at the Cardinia Cultural Centre, Pakenham.  Tickets are on sale - please visit this site below to book your tickets and / or contact our General Office for details.

https://tinyurl.com/ysj7nk3u

We are again involved in the State Schools Spectacular at John Cain Arena, Melbourne, Saturday 29 August.  We have several students involved again this year and we congratulate all our students on their involvement - we wish them well with their participation.

Our Year 7 Boys Soccer Team represented the College in the Regional Competition earlier in the week (Wednesday 29 July).  Our boys represented the College so well on the day and we congratulate them on their participation – well done boys!

We have a Parent / Carer Vacancy on our College Council.  College Council is involved in helping shape the future direction of our College so that we support our students in furthering their learning and wellbeing outcomes.  College Council typically meets twice per term (once per month, 5:30pm to 7:00pm) and it is a very rewarding role to be a member of the College Council team. Please contact the General Office on pH – 5945 1433 to express an interest and / or learn more about our College Council at PSC.

Our Buildings and Grounds continue to improve.  Over the mid year break we completed further painting works, started a new board walk through the grounds, prepared for the install of some new Soccer Goals and completed some general maintenance throughout the College.  We are proud of our College Buildings and Grounds as we continue to work hard to ensure that they are maintained to a high standard.  Our Capital Works is now largely complete with some new portables being delivered in the coming months, and landscaping works to be completed by the end of this term.  Access to the new build will also be further improved in the coming weeks.  Please contact our General Office (pH – 5945 1433) should you have any queries.

I thank families for their ongoing support of our great school and I wish our students all the very best with their studies across their subjects for Semester Two – We Grow Through Connection,

Regards

Aaron

Aaron Smith

College Principal – Pakenham Secondary College