Principal's Update

Dear Mordialloc College Community Members,

School Production

Congratulations to all students (cast and crew) who participated in this year’s school production, a play called Bully with the creative inclusion of many dance and singing items related to the theme. I am sure everyone in our school community would agree with me that it was a fantastic show of the highest quality and such a powerful and relevant message was delivered by our students. Special thanks must go to our wonderful teachers: Mara Sears – Production Director and Coordinator and Kelly Ferguson as our Vocal Coach.  Highlighting the sense of community that prevails at the College, former students from our graduating class of 2022, Bronte Taylor, and Eliza D’Alberto volunteered their time in supporting all rehearsals since the start of the year and leading the choreography. 

Parent – Teacher Interviews

I hope parents/guardians and students found the remote parent teacher student interviews last Thursday to be effective and worthwhile. It certainly was a taxing day for teachers conducting up to 60 google meet appointments over the day, however, teachers also reported how enjoyable it was to connect with parents face to face. I hope it was also an opportunity for students to showcase their learning to their parents and teacher/s; along with discussions around areas to improve to achieve their personal best.  If you were not able to attend the interviews, please do not hesitate to contact any teacher you wish to speak to, to organise a time to speak on the phone. If you have any feedback about the online interviews, please get in touch with Assistant Principal, Tracey Bastin. 

Instrumental Music Showcase 

This week we look forward to three nights celebrating our Instrumental Music Showcase. On Monday we showcased Brass, Woodwind and Percussion, Tuesday Vocal and on Wednesday night Contemporary (Vocal, Piano and Guitar). The event will be running from 7.00 pm - 8.30 pm in the Performing Arts Centre each night. I am sure it will be three wonderful nights of celebration for our instrumental and vocal students along with their family members. A credit to our dynamic music team - Demis Danoudis Coordinator (and teacher of guitar, piano, and voice), Nigel Maas (woodwind), Damien Maughan (brass), Jason Liacos (guitar), Adrian De Luca (drums), and Kelly Ferguson (voice) and I thank them for their ongoing support of our students.

Other celebrations for the arts coming up include Mordi Idol, which will be held on the last Thursday of this term in the gym period 4. This is always such a positive way to end the term (note: Friday is our last day not Thursday) providing the opportunity for some of the amazing talent pool within the student population to perform. Thanks to Adelle Mannerswood for organising this. We also have the Annual Art show coming up early in Term 4 and I would like to thank Leah Bright, Quinn Daly, and Alex Trevisan for all the planning and preparation they are currently doing to bring this show together. 

Congratulations James Evans

One of our PE teachers, James Evans recently coached the Mordialloc Lifesaving team to victory in the Victorian Lifesaving Pool Championships. 

The Mordialloc Lifesaving team finished first in this State event. James also won numerous gold medals for his own individual events. A fantastic achievement.

Japanese Consulate Visit

Congratulations to Japanese teacher Eleni Capp who has been asked to host Consul-General Shimada and his wife for a visit to Mordialloc College as part of promoting relations between Japanese and Australian schools. This will be happening this Thursday and will include a tour of the school and morning tea. 

Centenary Celebrations

We look forward to our centenary celebrations in February 2024. The school and alumni are working together for planned events on Friday 16 February 12 - 3.30pm and Saturday onsite at school (times to be confirmed) and an offsite event. Further information to come!

Study Tour of Innovative Schools in California

In November 2019 I was awarded $40,000 in prize money to be spent on professional learning after winning the Outstanding Secondary School Principal Award and the Lindsay Thompson Award for Excellence in Education at the Victorian Education Excellence Awards. With the interruption of the Covid years I only started to seriously think about the best use of such funds during 2022 for 2023. 

A significant amount of this prizemoney is providing a once in a lifetime opportunity for myself and two members of my leadership team (Aaron Davis and Jamie Towsey) to travel overseas on a study tour of some of the most innovative schools in the world. The tour commences in San Francisco and finishes in San Diego. We will be visiting Brightworks School in San Francisco, d. school at Stanford University, Millennium School, and Nueva School both in San Francisco, Design 39 in San Diego, Del Lago Academy campus of Applied Science and then two days at High Tech High in San Diego to challenge our thinking, make some international connections and network with other participants. We leave on Friday 8 September and return over the first weekend of the school holidays. 

Uniform Prices

This week all parents should have received an email from me with the revised price list for our school uniform items. As a result of my meeting with Dobson’s management, a number of uniform items have been reduced in cost. There is also the "buy early" period where you can get further discounts off the cost of our uniform. Dobson's are most supportive of families in these current times and I thank them for being prepared to reduce their prices. 

Please find attached later in the newsletter the revised uniform price list and the "buy early" prices. 

Awards Night Wednesday 13 December 2023

This is one of the key events on the College calendar! Every year we come together as a College community to celebrate student successes in a variety of areas such as Academic Excellence, the Arts, Technology, Sport, and Community involvement.  There are many prizes awarded on the night, thanks to the generous sponsorship of many organisations in the school community. This year we have decided to change the venue to the Frankston Arts Centre. 

Students are nominated for these awards by their teachers, home group teachers and year level coordinators and these nominations are based on specific criteria for each award. I encourage all students to strive to achieve your best for the many awards celebrated at this important occasion. These include:

1. Academic Excellence: The ‘Academic Excellence’ award is bestowed upon students who have demonstrated outstanding academic results within a subject. They have consistently worked above the expected level and/or have achieving a B or an A (in relation to Victorian Curriculum Achievement levels) on their reports where possible. At a VCE level students need to be consistently attaining high or very high on all assessments. Students also need to have demonstrated very good to excellent learning habits in your learning area.
2. Achievement- Endeavour: The ‘Achievement-Endeavour’ award is awarded to students in recognition of consistent efforts made to strive for their personal best.  They have demonstrated academic progress within a subject and have made significant improvements to reach their learning goals
3. Community Service: The ‘Community Service’ award is awarded to students from across each year level who have served the College in a particular way. For example, participation in a variety of school activities as determined on an annual basis, such as: SRC, House Athletics, House Swimming, School Production, subject competitions, contribution to the College Magazine, participation in open night, primary school visits, etc.
4. Sport Champion: Awarded to one female and one male student from Year 7, Year 8, Intermediate level, and Senior level in recognition of outstanding sporting achievements made throughout the year.
5. Special Awards: These awards are contributed by organisations to recognise achievements made by students in particular categories. For Example, City of Kingston, Rotary, Victoria Police, Australian Defence Force etc.
6. Year 12 Subject Awards: The ‘Subject Award’ is bestowed upon the student who has consistently attained the highest academic results in all assessment tasks within the subject (for each Year 12 subject).
7. Year 12 VM Awards: The ‘Year 12 VM Award’ is awarded to students who have demonstrated significant achievements and progress within the VM program.  A total of four awards will be given to four students in the subject areas of Numeracy, Literacy, Personal Development and Word Related Skills.
8. Year 11 VM Award: The ‘Year 11 VM Award’ is awarded to a student who has demonstrated significant achievement and progress within the Year 11 VM program. 
9. Art Award: Awarded to students across all year levels in recognition of outstanding art achievements and progress made throughout the year.
10. Quality Learner Award: Awarded to a Year 7 and a Year 8 student who has shown high quality commitment to individual learning excellence achieved through teamwork, a process of continual improvement and taking responsibility for their learning.

We also award the DUX of each year level based on the number of Academic Excellence awards they have received and close examination of achievement data. 

Parent Opinion Survey

Parents/carers have already received the information about the online parent opinion survey, and we ask that these families please take the time to complete the survey. Instead of a random selection of families to participate we sent it out to all families. We have 12% of parents who have completed the survey to date. It would be wonderful if we can get this to over 30% of parents. The survey is conducted online by ORIMA Research Pty Ltd and only takes 15 minutes to complete. It closes on Friday 8 September. The survey will help our school gain an understanding of how you view our school climate, student engagement, and relationships. Results will be sent to the school by the start of next term.

Safety on Bikes

A reminder to all students to be wearing their bike helmets when riding to and from school. In addition, with our increased student population, extra care needs to be taken when leaving the school grounds. Students should push their bikes through the school grounds at the end of the day, thus not ride them, and to be vigilant in what is happening around them as they enter the roads at such a busy time with cars and on some afternoons buses on the roads surrounding the school. 

Facility Development Update 

This week we have a big shade sail being installed over the area outside the PAC sliding doors, works continue on the balcony refurbishment, getting closer to completion. 

Minx Architecture have been appointment as the architects to lead the planning and development of our next major project with the $12.6 million allocated by the State government. They have worked with us on all of our other major building projects. We look forward to beginning the planning process alongside the Victorian Building Authority and Architects for the development of a new Arts/Technology centre. The first meeting is scheduled for this Wednesday afternoon.

Year 9 Resilience Day

Last Friday, our Director of Middle School and Acting AP, Brendan McFarland organised a Resilience/Wellbeing Day for all of our Year 9 students, supported by our Wellbeing team. Big Sister ran the program with our girls and the Man Cave organisation worked with our boys. Our Year 9 teachers who normally teach our students on this day also participated in and supervised the sessions. Feedback from the day was very positive from both staff and students.

Michelle Roberts

Principal