Principal's Report

2025 School Review

Monday saw the whole panel come together again, to discuss the findings observed through the Day 2 field work and to then look to the future, creating the plan for the next 4 years of work for the school. Although a big day, the group were able to determine the Key Improvement Strategies (KIS) that we will work towards. These KIS are broken down into manageable, year long chunks, which all staff then work towards for that year. After 4 years of working on bitesize pieces, the idea is to have met these KIS.

Matt (the Reviewer) will take away what the panel decided upon as KIS and directions for the school and create a report and the 4 year Strategic Plan. This will be shared with the community once it has been received.

Year 11 Melbourne Experience

I was privileged to be able to attend this Year 11 camp as one of the supervising staff from Wednesday to Friday of this week. This experience provides our Year 11s with the opportunity to start looking towards their plans for after school and what moving away from home might be like. While there are a lot of fun activities for the students, it is also a learning experience. It was great for me to spend time with this group of students, see them problem solving, manage the variable Melbourne weather and navigating around the city.

On behalf of the students, I’d like to sincerely thank Rotary for their financial support of this student opportunity. Rotary’s generous contribution helps to keep the costs of the camp put to the families down, making it more affordable for all students to be able to participate in. I’d also like to thank Shantelle Stimson for organising all the activities and uni tours, and Shantelle and Colleen Adams for giving their time to make this camp happen.

Middle School Camp

Rubicon Outdoor School's Nayook campus

This was a busy week activity wise, with the extracurricular Middle School Camp also running at the same time, but for the whole week. Students worked in small groups on various outdoor activities, designed to build their collaborative and team work skills. In a beautiful and peaceful environment, the weather was a bit kinder than in Melbourne, but still varied.

Thanks to Ann Bellingham and Chris Greenhalgh for their organisation of this experience for the 24 students that elected to participate. Thanks also to Chris, Kate Parris and Vicky Levesque giving their time to attend the camp so it could run.

Middle School Elective Subjects

Students going into Years 8 – 10 in 2026 will shortly receive their allocations for the elective subjects. While the process aims to provide students with the first preference they choose, we are unable to manage this at times. That is why choosing your second preference carefully is an important consideration.

Subjects are allocated to students on the following principles:

• Preferences for places in a class are generally given to students in the higher year levels, as it may be the last time they can take a particular subject.
• Course balance, including if subjects have been completed in previous years.
• Requirement to complete the compulsory elective units (the Health elective, and Science electives).

We know that students can be disappointed when they don’t get their first preference. However, we ask students to be resilient and demonstrate confidence in their thinking while they come to terms with the outcome. Sometimes it is just a case of high numbers of interested students and not enough space in the class, with students who missed out having to be allocated to other classes.