Principal's Report

Youth Council Awards 2023

The Alpine Shire Youth Council awards was held in Mount Beauty on Friday night, with the theme “Spring into the future”. Baylin, Natalie and Zoe were the MCs for the event. Emily and Isobel were helpers for the evening, along with ex-student Noah, part of the council’s youth projects committee. The catering was by Nick Goznik from Kitchen 95, another ex-student of the College’s.

Any ‘youth’ (12 – 21) can be nominated for the various categories of a Youth Council award, from across the Shire, so as you can imagine, there were a large number of young people present. Many of our young people were nominated, some went through to the nominees list and some won their category. In the words of the guest speaker, James Eggleston, “you don’t always get recognised for what you do”, but the result is not the reason you do it. Even just being recognised in the first place is a wonderful recognition of what you do.

Nominees from Mount Beauty were: Erin (Academic award); Alec, Eddy and Toby (Sports and Recreation award); Callum and Zoe (Community award); Callum, Ella, Jacarra and ex-student Dylan (Performing Arts award); Erin and Lizzy (Visual Arts award), Lachlan S (Workplace award); Josh A and ex-student Phoebe (Endurance and Persistence award). Winners of their category were: Zoe, Jacarra, Lachlan, Phoebe and Toby won the overall Alpine Shire Youth award 12 – 16 years. Well done to all of these young people, but also to the Alpine Shire for hosting another successful event for our youth.

School Council family survey summary

Last week, a general summary giving an overview of the data that was collected in the family survey run by school council was provided in my report. The data was analysed by School Council using the Framework for Improving Student Outcomes (FISO 2.0) 

Identified Positive Attributes of Mount Beauty Secondary College

Teaching and Learning: 

Many families felt their students are supported and that the teaching and learning and engagement is strong. Teachers were identified as being engaging, with good classroom management strategies and utilised effective teaching techniques. School programs, such as the Indonesian Cultural experience, ski programs, drama play, school band, excursions were noted, along with the small class sizes and outdoor learning opportunities.

Leadership:

The sense of community, academic performance and teachers caring about their students learning were strongly communicated.

Engagement:

Positives included the school programs, excursions and extra-curricular opportunities; providing a range of pathways for a range of future interests; accommodating students with additional needs; providing a range of VCE subjects.

Support:

Positives listed included small class sizes; communications; committed and dedicated teachers; and the range of opportunities offered to students.

Suggested key areas for focus in the future are:

* To continue to promote success in the school newsletter; utilising the school’s supermarket window and local publications; enhancing the 3 way partnership between family, staff and students to support our students better.

* Implementation of the School Wide Positive Behaviour Support SW-PBS to promote and reward positive behaviours and set consistent expectations.

* Enhancing the documented assessment schedule to include timeframes for home communication about student progress.

* A stronger shared Leadership Team model being implemented in 2024 (already commenced)

* Reviewing curriculum to build and extend students in all classes.

This is a summary of the comments made by the 21 people who responded to this School Council conducted survey.  A full report was presented to School Council. Please contact me if you would like more details. The Department conducts an annual parent survey and we encourage all families to use the opportunity when offered to share your thoughts about Mount Beauty Secondary College.

Facilities and Maintenance Sub-Committee

School Council are re-establishing the facilities and maintenance subcommittee and are seeking 2 keen members external to school council. This subcommittee will need to meet prior to each school council meeting (a minimum of 8 times per year), to discuss the facilities updates and progress, lead by the school, and make recommendations, through their report, to council. This group will do the ‘leg work’ and present their findings/research/ideas to council for the final approval. If you are interested, please contact the office.