School Council News

Welcome to the first of regular messages in the newsletter from your 2024-25 NHS School Council. I am the School Council President, mother of two NHS graduates and one year 10. This is my fourth year on School Council and first as President. Members of the council will be taking turns in providing updates in coming newsletters about School Council’s operations. I want to thank Liza Grage-Perry for her dedication to School Council and many years as President and Chair of our Thrive and Governance committees.

School Council includes parent representatives who nominate early in the year; staff employee members; community members who contribute based on their special skills, interests and experience; and two student-elected members who contribute their perspectives on school life. We meet twice a term on a Thursday evening, and set and monitor the school’s direction. There are various sub-committees and working groups of Council that meet up to two times a term each. Parents are invited to join these, and we also have a few vacancies on School Council if you would like to join. Please feel to contact me via the school office (9488 2300) if you’d like more information on this.

It has been an exciting year already, with the end of a highly successful, sold-out school production in recent weeks, approval of camps, excursions, overseas and interstate trips, and the year 12s are preparing for their formal next week. School Council is currently looking at ways to involve our parents and families more broadly in NHS life. We will include more information on this in future newsletters.

There is considerable excitement with the forthcoming opening of the new library and STEM centre. We will have further details on this and will be providing an opportunity for parents to tour the new building once we have formal handover. We thank everyone, particularly the students and staff, for how well they have coped with the building site for the last year. We think the payoff will be enormous with these state-of-the-art facilities. 

We’d also like to encourage any parents to fill out the departmental survey which you may have received notification about recently via email. This is a great opportunity to feed back to school the things you value about our school and areas for improvement.

Lastly, tickets are also available for the Friends of Northcote Comedy Night at the Thornbury Theatre. There is a great line up and it is always a fantastic night. So get a table of friends together or just buy a ticket or two and join us for this great event on 19 September. 

Gaby Chapman

School Council President