Principal's Update

As the year draws to a close, it’s a nice time to reflect on the achievements of the college in 2023. 

This year was all about embedding systems, practice and learning strategies that we have invested in over the past few years. This year we continued to lead the way as a PLC Link School – a title that recognises our strong capability in teaching and learning across the Department of Education, and throughout the year we had numerous principals, school leaders and teachers visit our college to see our teaching and learning in action. This work across our Junior and Middle School has led to us achieving the highest level of performance in literacy and numeracy growth from Year 7 to 9 based on the Department of Education’s categories of performance. 

We continue to value our staff and invest in their ongoing development as we know this has the biggest impact on student learning – the quality of what the adults in the school deliver and the relationships we form with students. Thus, it was pleasing to also achieve staff culture results this year that put us in the highest category of Department performance and amongst the top few schools in the state. 

We undertook a number of exciting projects this year, with some still coming to fruition. We enhanced our grounds through new gardens with thousands of new plants, we invested in our Technology Department with new cutting-edge equipment, we built a new science room to accommodate our growing enrolments, and our brand-new bus arrived earlier this year. We took ownership of our school canteen following the lease conclusion of a Melbourne-based company, and I look forward to sharing some updates next year including the new menu and online ordering. In addition, we have a couple of exciting summer projects – we are undertaking a major remodeling of our junior toilets based on student feedback, and building a new onsite Café for Year 12 students and staff (with local supplies sourced from Fat Cat Coffee). 

Like most years there were many extra-curricular activities which are often a highlight for staff and students. Things like our Junior School Camp, our Falls Creek Snow Trip, our Debutante Ball, our VCE Camp to Melbourne universities, many college sporting achievements and our basketball stars competition at the National Championships on the Gold Coast last fortnight. 

There are many aspects of Lowanna College for our community to be proud of, and far too many to mention. 

On a personal note, I would like to thank my team for their support this year – Angela, Michael, Trevor, Fiona, Belinda, Daniel, Nicole and Elyse. I would like to thank everyone who contributed to our college in 2023 – parents, staff, community partners, but most importantly our students, who make our college such a great place to be every day. 

I would like to wish everyone a safe and enjoyable Christmas and New Year. We look forward to your continued support in 2024.

Adam Hogan

College Principal