Principal's Update

College Production 2025

Congratulations to all the staff and students involved in the college production this year. For the first time in a long time, we had in the cast students from our primary years mixing it up with the secondary students. Once again, Ms Hatzikosmidis took every breath from the staff and students and poured it into the production with great success.  An email from one of our families summed it up.  I have included a part of it below:

…what an amazing and positive experience for him. It was truly special seeing him up on the stage with all his new friends, smiling and enjoying every moment. The entire team did such a wonderful job. 

We understand how much work and support goes into the school production. Thanks for your support for the production and look forward for more to come….

I am also very grateful to all the volunteers who helped support this event, without you this would not have turned out as well as it did.

Learning to be on Time

The data is not particularly good when it comes to students improving their rates of school attendance across the state or country.  Our college has been actively trying to change the trend for our community.  One of the ways that we can continue to improve is by not coming to school late. 

The Victorian Auditor General’s Office (VAGO) in its report some years ago that attending school regularly is a critical factor in student success, and poor attendance can have lifelong consequences for students. Sound management of student attendance is one of the most important measures for minimising student absenteeism.

In Victoria, parents are legally required to ensure their children attend school and must provide a reasonable explanation for any absence. Parents should promptly inform the school of absences or lateness. 

As a parent are you dropping off your child late and having them always racing in late to class and missing the first minutes of a lesson?   It is important that your child is on time.  It is not only considerate to others, but also important for doing well at school. Being punctual is a life skill that will help your child all through their life. Here are some suggestions.

• People who are always on time are really people who arrive slightly early every day. When things go wrong these students arrive on time because they have planned for the unexpected.
• Students who are always on time are the people who understand the work, are well prepared and get good results. In the working world, the people who are always on time are the people who get ahead.
• If your child is having trouble getting out of bed in the morning, make a serious effort to get them to bed earlier. Sufficient sleep is essential for maximum brain function anyway, so they get a double benefit. Negotiate a suitable time for the alarm to activate and ideally have the phone so that they must get up to turn it off. By getting up late everything in the morning is setting a pattern of lateness for the rest of the day. 
• Give yourself a realistic amount of time to get ready for school. You may be surprised at the time it takes.

• If your child has to take a bus is always late and it always makes them late, explain this to your teacher, then alternative options might exist to get to class on time. Things usually take longer than you expect, especially if you have a poor sense of time.

   

You have as much time as everyone else. If others can be on time, so can you. Like all good habits, punctuality takes some self-discipline and planning but the pay-off is huge.

Much of this information comes from the work of Grace Fleming: Be On Time To Achieve Academic Success.