Principal's Report

2024 Staffing announcements

With the provisional appointment period now finished, I can announce that the substantive Assistant Principal from 2024 will be Mitchell Harris. I am sure you will all join me in congratulating and welcoming Mitch to our school. Mitch has worked in the area for many years, having worked in Wodonga and most recently at Tallangatta.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Sarah Laidlaw for stepping up and filling in this important position for the last couple of years and Jonathan Serpell who stepped in prior to Sarah. Both Sarah and Jonathan had extra work on top of the Assistant Principal role. While making it harder to juggle the demands of their work loads, they both managed ably. Sarah has also been heavily involved in the Wellbeing role this year, with a lack of staff in the positions that we had available. Without the work that Sarah and Jonathan did, I would not have managed over these last few years and I am extremely grateful for their support.

The fourth role in the new and improved leadership structure for 2024 is currently in the provisional appointment period. Once that has finished, I will be able to announce the full leadership team for 2024.

The provisional appointment period has also finished for the Library Teacher position, so I can announce that Colleen Adams will be taking on this new role at the school. Due to the continued evolving of the library role, this position will allow flexibility in the future for Colleen to be able to take on library based lessons as well as being in the library.

I would also like to sincerely thank Heather Tottenham for all her work over the last 2 years in the library. Since she started, the library has been updated and we have had a revamp of the school newsletter and Facebook page. Heather introduced fun into the library with a daily quiz, advertising new books and community involvement in the ‘donate to the library’ scheme. 

School for Student Leadership (SSL) – Don Valley

I didn’t realise just how close to Melbourne that Don Valley was, but it was a lovely drive on Friday to visit the SSL campus and see our 6 students who have participated in the Term 4 program. I was so proud to be able to see the changes within our students, such as making more direct eye contact, to taking a walk around the walking track and finding out about finer details, such as missing home. While these might be small, insignificant things for many, for the students who could now do that, it was a huge step.

The team were the first school to present their Community Learning Project (CLP) out of another 9 schools and they all completed their presentation in front of a packed room of adults and the other students, without using prompt cards, having memorised the whole presentation. The students are planning a fundraising BBQ, based on the previous successes of the VCAL/VM fundraisers, to be able to raise money that can be spent on upgrading Gully Track (on Junction Creek Walk), so that it is able to be used by all, especially the elderly. For a group that was quite disparate when they arrived at Don Valley, without having started to plan what they might consider for the group’s CLP, they have done a great job to get this far in their planning in just 7 weeks. Well done to Alec, Beau, Connor, Ella, Hannah and Jazzy.