From the Principal

Good morning,

It is with pleasure that I announce Evangeline Romage has stepped into the role of Year 7 Team Leader, whilst Jo Reeman leads the Year 12 student body. Scott Kirkby formally Year 12 Team Leader is teaching English in 2 Year 8 classes 1 Year 8 Humanities class, Year 11 Work Related skills and Year 12 Literacy.

This week I have enjoyed going into classrooms and learning with our students. I have learnt about the Australian Dietary Guidelines with Year 12 Health students. Operations management in Business Management and Indigenous poetry in Literature, to name but a few things. It’s great to see students engaged in their work, interacting with each other and their teachers.

This week I have also spent time learning from students in Have a Say days. Students have told me they like group work, so they can talk to their peers about the work. They would like to do more hands on activities and enjoy forming positive relationships with their teachers. Students would also like to understand the relevance of what they are learning. Information from each Have a Say day will be shared with students and staff at various forums.

The Attitudes to School survey begins next week, starting with Year 11 students. This is an opportunity for all students to share their experience at school.

The dates are listed below:

Year 11 13th May pd. 1
Year 8 14th May pd. 2
Year 9 21st May pd. 1
Year 10 24th May pd. 1
Year 7 27th May pd. 1
Year 12 30th May pd. 1

All will be conducted in the Learning centre online.

Thankyou for your ongoing support. We are a great school.

Linda Stanton

Principal

Important Dates

Term 2

May

Thursday 16th May - Year 10 Careers Expo

Friday 17th May - Staff Professional Development Day - Student free

Wednesday 22nd to Friday 24th May - Year 7 Camp - The Summit

June

Tuesday 4th June - Year 12 TRAG Excursion

Thursday 6th to Friday 14th June - Year 10 and 11 Mid Year Exams

Monday 10th June - King's Birthday - Public Holiday

Monday 17th June - Semester 2 Begins

Tuesday 18th June - Year 12 GAT

Thursday 20th to Friday 21st June - Year 12 Outdoor Ed Snow Camp

Friday 21st June - SMR Cross Country - Ballam Park

Tuesday 25th June - 2025 Course Information Evening - 5.00 to 7.00pm

Thursday 27th June - Year 12 Fancy Dress Evening - Frankston Arts Centre

Friday 28th June - Last Day of Term 2 - 2.30pm Dismissal

Follow us on

Don't forget to look on compass for sport sign ups, excursions and any other information sent to students and parents.

Below is a link to help guide you in your use of compass.

https://mornsc.vic.edu.au/for-parents/compass-parent-guide/

Middle School

Dear Parents and Guardians,

I have been reading James Clear “Atomic Habits.” The premise of the book is to teach the reader about how to make small changes that will transform their habits. Small habits, done consistently over time, can significantly improve well-being.

I enjoyed reading about some of the ways to change habits and some of it makes good sense. An aspect of changing a habit is not so much the goal but the system to meet the goal which is essential to creating the habit. The Two-Minute Rule states “When you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do.”

“Read before bed each night” becomes “Read one page.”

“Study for class” becomes “Open my notes.”

I was thinking about students having a charged laptop for school and how to form a habit of charging it the night before. It could be that the habit is formed by thinking that when I brush my teeth in the evening, I will place my laptop on the charger in the kitchen.

Some of these ideas might resonate with you.

Some highlights from the week include: the year 7 students doing the cross-country run/walk around the school yesterday. The Year 8 captains are planning an excursion to the movies before the end of this term and our Year 9 students have just attended a year level assembly that looked at options in VET and career paths as course counselling happens towards the end of this term and beginning of term 3.

Wishing you a wonderful week.

Denise Leggett

Middle School Assistant Principal

Senior School

To students and families of the Mornington Senior School,

This week, in light of the actions of some young males at an independent school, that you may have read about in the news, it is important for us to reflect on our school value of respect. Respect at Mornington SC means valuing ourselves, others, and the environment by taking responsibility in showing care and consideration for our school community. Some of expected behaviours we would see at school that represent respect:

We always listen when a staff member is talking.
We always listen to other students in our class giving ideas and feedback.
We are polite and show good manners to everyone by communicating in a calm and positive manner.
We embrace our strengths, talents and unique differences.
We show pride in our learning spaces.
We always use school appropriate language.
We use our technology appropriately in every lesson.
We allow others to learn.
We embrace differences in ourselves and each other.
We contribute to a clean and tidy environment.
We take responsibility for our actions and behaviour.
We show pride in our learning spaces by looking after equipment and our facilities.

What our children do at home and in the relative privacy of their phones/laptops/internet is another matter. We trust our children to have good values and make good decisions but as we’ve seen, it isn’t always the case. If you would like some tips and advice on supporting your children to be safe and respectful online, you could do worse than to visit https://www.esafety.gov.au/parents. Young people can make mistakes (as can we all), and we’d like to think that they can learn from it without being impacted too negatively.

I’m also delighted to be able to congratulate our senior aerobics team; Boultify, who won their way through to the state finals after performing really well at regionals over the weekend. They are dedicated with their training before and after-school, enthusiastic and generally just wonderful people. The college thanks Ms Amanda Keen and former student, AFL trainee and now staff member Indie Jowett for their work supporting the teams out of hours. Good luck at States!

Have a great weekend and Happy Mother's Day to all our mums, especially mine.

Kind regards,

Nick Evans

Senior School Assistant Principal

New Year 12 Team Leader

Hello. My name is Jo Reeman and I have been teaching for over 30 years. I love sharing my passion for learning with all my students. For the last 6 years I have been teaching at Mornington Secondary College and I have taught in the areas of PE, Science and Japanese. This year I teach Year 12 Chemistry and Biology and Year 7 Science. During these 6 years I have been the Year 7 Team Leader and have watched each year level we have at the school now come in to secondary school with anticipation and some nervousness as they embark on their secondary school journey. This term, I have left my role as Year 7 Team Leader to take up the role of Year 12 Team Leader. This does fill me with excitement as this was my first Year 7 cohort and it will be a pleasure to be there with them to see them complete their final year of schooling before they start the next journey of their life. I am looking forward to working with our Year 12 community.

The Year 12’s have had and action packed start to Term 2. They have jumped straight back into classes and assessments but have also taken the opportunity to get involved with some extracurricular activities.

This week the Year 12 Captains organised a Teacher Student volleyball match. It was greatly support by both students and staff and we played two well contested sets to end the day in a draw with one set a piece.

We have also had our Year 7 Dreamcatchers coming into our senior classes with their mentor to see what school is like in Year 12. The Year 7 students have enjoyed this and the Year 12’s have loved sharing their experiences with them.

This week we also had Year 12 Sport with many of our teams going through to the next level and we also had our Aerobics team compete on the weekend and our Senior Team ‘Boultify’ winning and heading to States to compete for a place in the nationals.

As the term continues and our Year 12’s head closer to exams, we often get asked ‘how can we best support our child with the stress and workload of VCE?’. Elevate run a series of free webinars for parents to help answer this question.

Upcoming Webinars:

How You Can Help Your Child Prepare for Exams - 22nd May 6:30pm

How You Can Support Your Child During Exams - 5th June 6:30pm

Ask me Anything (Live Q&A) - 19th June 6:30pm

Register for the series by clicking the link below and learn some great practical strategies to help support your child this year.

Victorian Trades Hall Council Excursion

On the 17th of April, Year 12 Vocational Major students visited The Victorian Trades Hall Council and participated in sessions run by the Young Workers Centre. The Young Workers Centre is a one-stop-shop for young workers who want to learn more about their rights at work or who need assistance in resolving workplace issues. Students engaged in interactive sessions that aim to equip young people with the knowledge to better understand their rights within the workplace, specifically award wages, unions and bullying and discrimination legislation. Students were also taken on a tour of The Victorian Trades Hall Council and overall, it was a fantastic opportunity for students to feel empowered and learn more about their rights in the workplace.

Kate Wilson

Head of Department - VCE Vocational Major

Senior Badminton

On Tuesday 7th May the Senior Southern Peninsula Division Badminton Championships were hosted by our school. Our students had been training for a few weeks leading up to the competition several lunchtimes each week with their skills improving significantly throughout this period. Each badminton match consisted of four singles games and two doubles games. Our students did an outstanding job of supporting each other throughout the competition which was contested in a very friendly atmosphere. Both of our teams won all their matches to win both the boys’ and girls’ pennants for our school. Our teams now progress on to compete at the Southern Metropolitan Region (SMR) finals which are to be held on Wednesday 24th July.

Our Senior Badminton Teams comprised of the following students:

Ethan Baker Jemma Deacon

Jayden Gough Rebecca Hardy

Carter Nicholson Mia Karpas

Kemper Thumpston Larni Thomas

Nathan Turco

Oliver Williams

John Walker

Badminton Coach

Congratulations Mary-Louise Wakefield

Mary-Louise has been named as a finalist in the 2024 Chisholm Education Awards - Secondary School Student of the Year after being nominated by her Engineering Department.

Mary-Louise has successfully combined studies in VET Engineering with her VCE program since Year 11.

She will be eligible for the qualification at the end of this year as well as a contribution to her ATAR as it is a scored VCE VET course.

The winner will be announced on 25th June. Congratulations and good luck Mary-Louise.

Division Athletics Championships

On Thursday May the 2nd Mornington Secondary College competed at the Division Athletics Championships. With a strong team of 100 students and the sun shining it was a very successful and enjoyable day for our Athletics Team. We were extremely proud of our students on and off the track for their effort, determination and support for fellow team members throughout the day. Our participation was outstanding filling all track and field events. Thank-you to the many students who stepped up to compete in events as emergencies or in older age groups and achieving some outstanding results.

Overall we finished in second place out of the 5 schools involved and our junior girls finished in first place overall- a tremendous result!

I'd also like to make a special mention to Andrew Turner of Year 11 who broke the under 17's 1500m record from 2015 by 10 seconds. What an impressive effort Andrew!

The following students have qualified for SMR Athletics to be held on October 10 at Casey Fields Regional Athletics Centre.

Leena Ndiaya (14 girls 100m)

Sienna Harber (17 girls 200m)

Jordan Smith (18-20 girls 400m)

Abi Childs (15 girls 800m)

Grace Oshea (18-20 girls 800m 1500m)

Hannah Cooper (12/13 1500m

Asha Harber 16 girls 1500m

Zaya Lindsay (14 girls hurdles)

Milla Dooley (15 girls hurdles)

Ellie Smith 14 girls long jump

Alyssa Molyneaux 14 girls triple jump

Kayla Christie (15 girls shot put)

Dean Resuggan (17 boys 100m)

Caleb Clayton (17 boys 200m)

Riley Gun (18-20 200m)

Jackson Ablett (12-14 400m 800m 1500m)

Ethan Sheen (14 boys 400m 800m 1500m)

Bailey Barrett (14 boys 800m & 1500m)

Andrew Turver (17 boys 800m and 1500m)

Mathis Minnameier (16 boys 1500m )

Kenji Edwards (12/13 boys hurdles)

Lucas Coutts (12/13 boys Javelin)

14 girls relay team (Leena Ndiaye, Zaya Lindsay, Ellie Smith, Lexi Pascuzzo)

17 girls relay team (Ella Clinch, Summer Lenowry, Sienna Harber, Harley McKenzie-Cundy)

17 boys relay (Dean Resuggan, Caleb Clayton, Cian Andrews, Danny Thomson)

Wishing all of our competitors the best of luck! Training will continue during Athletics Squad each Thursday morning at 7.30am.

Alex Mackenzie

Athletics Coach

Aerobics Squad

On Sunday the 5th of May our Aerobics Squad competed at the Regional Finals at Patterson River Secondary College.

Our two Year 7 teams have worked so hard since the beginning of Term 1 to learn their Stage 1 routine and we've seen great improvements over the year thus far. Each of the girls put in 100% on the stage and completed their routines with a big smile on their faces!

The Hurricanes, placed 4th in their section and will progress to the State Finals on June the 1st. They only took the top five teams through to the State Final. The Tornadoes missed out on the State Final, but not by much and will continue to work hard for the online Winter Repecharge Competition early in June.

And finally, our defending National Champions, team 'Boultify', who have been training tirelessly since HeadStart in 2023, came 1st in their Stage 2 section and will also compete in the State Finals on the 1st of June. A big shout out to Seren Chespy who was unable to compete after suffering a knee injury, but came to support the girls throughout the day regardless. And also, to Makena Baard who is the newest and youngest addition to 'Boultify'! We're so proud to have such an amazing group of leaders as our senior team.

We are so proud of the entire squad and look forward to continuing training for our upcoming competitions next month.

Thank you for your continuous support.

Indie Jowett, Amanda Keen and the Aerobics Squad at MSC

National Careers Week (NCW) - 13th to 17th May

NCW is an initiative of the Career Industry Council of Australia to promote career development as a process of managing learning, work and leisure to progress through life. It includes gaining and using the skills and knowledge needed to plan and make informed decisions about education, training and work.

Research has found that parents/guardians are the single greatest influence on a young person’s education and career decisions. We hope you find the resources below helpful in having those career conversations with your child.

National Careers Week (NCW) “Parents as Career Supporters” Information Flyer
Myfuture has information, tools and articles for parents and carers to help you support your child to learn about the world of work and explore careers.
Schools Vic – “Parents and Carers in Career Conversations”
Mornington Secondary College Careers page “For Parents” – useful links, fact sheets for helping your teen with career planning, etc.

Teena Borshoff

Careers Practitioner

2024 EAL ESports High School Competition

MSC have entered the 2024 EAL ESports Australian High School Competition for Term 2. Our first team - ‘MSC Justify’ competed in a Rocket League and Super Mario Smash Bros. in the qualifying round Saturday 4th May. A big shout out to Ryan Hobson who put together the team/solo gamers from Year 11 for Term 2 in Rocket League (platforms PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch & PC) and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (Nintendo Switch).

Our solo and team gamers played in the Swiss Format (5 knock-out rounds). All students fought well and showed their solo skills in Super Mario Smash Bros: Ryan Hobson, Ryan Mahoney and Barnaby Slocomb and our Rocket League team were tough competition for other schools: Oliver Williams, Nathan Turco, Cian Andrews and substitute Alex Keily.

Ryan Hobson, our team captain, qualified for Division #1 Australia Comp in Super Mario Smash Bros.

Our Rocket League Team qualified 6th in Australia and are in Division #1 after qualifying. We have 5 more Saturday competition dates to go to aim for finals.

Our parents have been very supportive of the Esports Competition and have contacted MSC to let us know;

‘Oliver is very excited to be doing Esports. He had heard about some other schools doing it but probably never thought it would happen at MSC. This is a hobby that Oliver spends ALOT of time doing. It's fantastic that Ryan was able to assist with getting the gamers together. I think Oliver will enjoy school a lot more now and that he will be proud to represent the school’.

‘Nathan and the other boys are so happy to be doing this. It gives them something good to look forward to and work together on’.

Tracey Watchorn

Numeracy Leader

Compass Events - CSEF/Credit Balance

When you are paying for an event in Compass for your child, you might possibly see an option that reads “pay using CSEF/Credit balance” This option will only show if you have any CSEF or credit on your school account. If you have no credit on your school account, the message will not appear and there are also a small handful of events which cannot be paid using CSEF. If you see this message, and are not aware that you have any credit, please send an email to accountsRE@mornsc.vic.edu.au and we can let you know how much credit you have. If you are aware that you have credit on your account, please remember to select this box so that we can use it for payment.

Puma Family and Friends Sale

Now that Winter is fast approaching, the time has come to launch another PUMA Friends and Family Promotion to stock up on gear for the cold months ahead! This offer is exclusive to the Uniform Group as a part of our partnership with PUMA.

The promotion opens on 9th MAY and runs until midnight on 16th MAY and you need to use the UNIFORM50 code to activate the online redemption at checkout. All products are subject to availability and the offer is not valid on products marked as ‘EXCLUDED FROM PROMOTIONS’

To redeem the discount in-store, simply show the attached flyer.

Puma Family & Friends Sale

Friday 17th May - Student Free

Mother's Day

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