Principal Update

Dear Western Port Secondary College Community,

Womin Djeka – Hello and welcome to the final edition of the ‘THE WESTERN PORT WORD’ for 2024 which continues to provide our community with a range of updates throughout the year.

It was with great excitement this year that we saw our staff and students move into our new and refurbished buildings at the start of this after four years of planning, juggling classrooms, and navigating half of the school grounds being out of bounds and under construction. This milestone marks a new chapter for Western Port Secondary College, and we couldn’t be more proud of what we have achieved together.

As we continue to grow in student numbers and positioning ourselves as the school of choice for our community, it was also really validating that our broad school level data reflected this position. NAPLAN measures, Attitudinal data from our key stakeholders and more recently our senior school data, all showed excellent improvements. Since the introduction of the senior reform in 2023, we have achieved a 15% increase in all study scores which reflects the positive direction for our school.

Another highlight from this senior school data was our Dux for 2024 which was our school captain  and proud member of our Western Port Mob - Nash Jones who achieved an ATAR of 91. We expect this will see him accepted into Physiotherapy at Monash University which is his preferred university course. Congratulations Nash!

Joining Nash in the 90’s ATAR club was Beau Finch who worked equally as hard this year. Together their dedication and commitment to their studies is an excellent model for our 2025 cohort for what outcomes are possible under the guidance of our incredible VCE team in their final year. Both Nash and Beau will be joining our staff team next year in tutoring and student mentoring roles which will be another great support to our Year 12 students.

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to recognise our Business Manager Robyn Chipperfield will be taking 6 months leave from the start of the 2025 school year. Robyn has provided outstanding leadership and has been instrumental in guiding us to the positive position we are in today. We wish her all the best with this leave as she spends the time with her beautiful family.

Have a safe and enjoyable Christmas and break and we look forward to our students returning on Thursday 30th January 2025.

Yours Sincerely,

Chris Quinn