Assistant Principal's Update

Dear Families, Students and Community Members,

A big hello to the Mordialloc College school community! For quite a short term, it has been a whirlwind but an extremely positive start to the school year. We have celebrated our school, its milestones and our staff, student and parent community throughout the term. 

The term has flown by with the Middle School being jam packed with learning as well as extra-curricular activities such as excursions, incursions, and interschool school sports days including our SEP students starting their 3x3 basketball competitions. 

Our Year 7’s have settled into Mordialloc College life. They have had their first taste of team teaching, and have been welcomed by the school at their first whole school assembly. The students have participated in the Toolbox incursion an emotional regulation incursion to give students tools and strategies to support them with regulating their emotions, and also worked with Project Rockit to support a culture to challenge bullying. They worked on their team building skills at the Cable Park and Gravity Zone and got to know our wonderful year 7 staff. We had a great turnout at our Year 7 Meet and Greet, thank you to the families who were able to attend, meet our Year 7 and Middle School team and take a look at the wonderful Learning Centre. 

The Year 8s have had a positive start to the school year. Throughout the term the Year 8 students have been participating in a weekly interschool sports competition against other local schools in Baseball, Softball, Volleyball, Tennis and Cricket. Everyone who has participated has represented the school to a very high level.

Our Year 9 students have also had a busy term. The MEX 2.0 program is well underway with our students learning about our local and wider community. The Year 9 students have also had their first experience with elective subjects which has given them a great taste of where their pathways might lead moving into Senior school and beyond.

Like the Year 7 cohort, our Year 9 students have also just completed NAPLAN. A big thank you to our Acting Assistant Principal, Aaron Davis, for organising and running the days of testing supported by our ICT team (and the practice sessions in the lead-up to ensure the College could meet all technical requirements of the online tests and for students to be familiarised with the online process), Director of Literacy Improvement Jamie Towsey and Director of Numeracy Improvement Maria Antoniou. 

Our Middle School celebrated the term with a Middle School Assembly to recognise the outstanding work throughout Term 1. Earlier in the term teachers nominated one person per class for one award. There are three different awards that a student has the chance of receiving. They are:

1. LEARNING LEGEND: This is an award given to a student who has achieved outstanding results academically.
2. EXCELLENCE ENDEAVOUR: This award is for a student who may not achieve outstanding results compared to others, but always tries their hardest and is achieving their personal best.
3. ALL-ROUNDER: This award is for students who have been perfect in your class all term. They have been achieving outstanding results, have a great attitude towards learning and always try their best in your class.

The term for our Senior School students overall has been excellent. The start to this year has been smooth, thanks to the hard work of our Year Level Coordinators, with students clearly embracing the college values, as well as the academic challenges of senior life. Our Year 10 students are all very close to finalising their placements for Work Experience early Term 2. Our Seniors have participated in Intermediate and Senior Sport with some great results. Our Advance, VCE and VM Outdoor and Environmental students have completed various camps and excursions as part of their outcomes.

Our Year 11 and 12 VCE students are refining their study skills and the VCE VM students are making great progress in their work placements and school based apprenticeships. We have been successful in securing places in the Headstart program for a number of our VM students – an awesome program to support students to complete an apprenticeship or traineeship alongside their senior secondary education. 

Parent/Teacher/Student Interviews

By the time this newsletter is published, we will be in the middle of our online Parent, Teacher Student interviews on Wednesday from 9:15 am – 6:30 pm. We hope that parents and students have found these to be valuable in terms of meeting your child/ren’s teachers face to face online and discussing your child/ren’s progress and in the feedback received. We hope that by continuing with interviews online, you found it easier to manage around other commitments. If you haven’t been able to attend the interviews remotely via Google Meet and wish to discuss your child’s progress with a particular teacher or teachers, please contact them via email to organise a time to discuss on the phone or over a Google Meet at another mutually convenient time. If you have any feedback regarding the interview set up and process, please do not hesitate to email the General Office and the Principal team who will meet and discuss to further improve for Semester 2.

Athletics Carnival

A reminder that on Thursday it is our Athletics carnival held at the Sandringham Athletics Club. We encourage students to come along dressed in their house colours and costumes adding to the terrific atmosphere we always experience on this day. Thanks to our Sports Coordinator, Cory Watters for his organisation of this event, which is always very popular with the entire student cohort. 

Wow! What a term! Thank you to our staff and students for making it such a successful one. Thanks to our families and wider school community for your support and for helping us celebrate our 100th during Term 1 at the College! 

Have a safe and relaxing Easter and holiday break with family and friends!

Tracey Bastin

Assistant Principal

Mordialloc College would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land – the Bunurong/Boon Wurrung people of the Kulin nation, and pay our respects to their Elders, past, present and emerging. 

As a school and community, we are committed to a greater understanding and appreciation of Indigenous culture.