From the Principal's Desk
It is hard to believe that we are already halfway through Term 3, as the past few weeks have flown by. Term 3 is always challenging and exciting as we have several important and enjoyable whole-school events that are both highly useful educationally, team building, and very affirming of our school community. We also head into some significant assessment periods and the final few weeks of formal classes for our Year 12 students, who only have a comparatively short time remaining before the final exam period is upon us. Then, they will have completed their schooling, heading off to university and further studies for the majority. We encourage our Year 12s to keep an eye on the Careers channel to ensure they are aware of deadlines and news available to them.
House Performing Arts Festival – Thursday 4 September 2025
This is a whole school event where the four Houses and all students undertake a friendly and highly structured performing arts competition around a designated theme – ‘A journey through the elements.’
Each House has been asked to represent an element i.e. Garuda - Water, Griffin - Air, Pegasus - Earth and Phoenix - Fire. The program, presented at Robert Blackwood Hall at Monash University, involves all students in each House and features a range of performances and interpretations that are judged by an external panel of experts. It is a celebration of our creativity and diversity.
The program and performances are student-instigated and led, and the school has been full of groups of students rehearsing, singing and making props. The entire Year 9 cohort will perform as a Choral ensemble publicly for the first time, and you will see some memorable and brave presentations during the show. This is not a highly polished school production - this is the entire school participating and (hopefully) having a lot of fun while showcasing some known and perhaps as yet undiscovered talents. It builds the House spirit within the school. We encourage you all to attend - it is a very entertaining and joyous spectacle.
Parents are welcome to buy tickets for this event, which will commence at 5.00 pm on Thursday 4 September.
Tickets can be purchased at: https://www.monash.edu/performing-arts-centres/event/2024-nossal-house-performing-arts-festival/
The Compass posts for this event have been published, and we ask parents to provide consent. Don’t forget to complete the consent for you:
Event: Garuda 2025 House Performing Arts Festival | Compass
Event: Phoenix 2025 House Performing Arts Festival | Compass
Event: Griffin 2025 House Performing Arts Festival | Compass
Event: Pegasus 2025 House Performing Arts Festival | Compass
Nossal’s Got Talent (NGT)
At this time of year, the Monash University Global Health (MUGH) club organises an annual event that invites students to participate in an extravaganza of music, dancing, and performances. This year, there were over eleven entries, which ranged from music and dancing to storytelling. It is an opportunity for our students to perform in front of an enthusiastic audience of their peers and teachers. Students performed over two lunch times. The opening performance of Day Two featured a group of alumni eager to perform for the school. This year's winners will be announced shortly, check Teams for more details. The students in Monash University Global Health (MUGH) in 2025 have focused their fundraising efforts on ‘Women's Health: abortion and contraception around the world.’
Year 9 City Program
Year 9 students are involved in an extended investigation program called the Nossal Extended Research and Discovery task this year. The three days in the city are designed to allow students to commence their research into the topic. “What should a cohesive society look like in Australia? How do we build community in a divided world?” The final product of this project will be a video presentation and creative responses.
Students spent Wednesday 20 August to Friday 22 August 2025, investigating and exploring a big question they have created. This involved them working collaboratively and independently, making their way to and from the city each day, and moving around the CBD with minimal supervision while conducting research, interviewing people, and visiting businesses and support services. This year, students were expected to use the primary and secondary data during that week for a more substantial project that will be presented at the end of the year. This terms 9Time sessions have been preparing the students for this week.
We look forward to seeing the results of their endeavours. We thank Mr Labrooy and Ms Young for their work in setting up the 2025 project. We also thank the many staff who were be in the city to support the students in this learning journey.
Nossal PFA: Father’s Day Badminton Tournament
The Parents and Friends Association hosted another successful Father's Day Badminton Competition on Saturday 9 August, for Nossal parents and their children. They have several teams enthusiastically competing this year. This event is a fantastic opportunity for parents to be involved in students’ extracurricular activities.
The research shows that parents’ involvement in such activities can help boost students ' self-confidence and self-worth. Congratulations to the winners, Jeremy SAMARAJEEWA and his father, and the runners-up, Nikhilesh NAMBIRAJAN and his father.
We commend Shankar for his leadership in this event. It is the fourth year we have run this event successfully.
The annual PFA Bunnings Barbecue also took place on Saturday 16 August, at the new Bunnings in Narre Warren. There was unprecedented support from this event, from the various donations of food and other items to the parents who dedicated their time on the day to cook sausages and help with serving. It was fantastic to have the student volunteers who also helped in various ways and contributed to the success of this event.
The PFA will also run a Father's Day stall at the school at recess and lunchtime on Wednesday, 27 August. We are grateful to all the parents who will volunteer to set up the stall, and we ask that you encourage your students to buy bargain gifts for their dads and help the PFA raise funds for the school. The PFA will raffle a large hamper with some homemade specialties, chocolates, lollies, and other yummy items. Please do not miss out!
We are always grateful to the PFA for their contributions to various school projects around the school. Thanks to the PFA, the tennis nets will be replaced sometime soon.
Breakfast Club
Breakfast is often called ‘the most important meal of the day’, and for good reason.
As the name suggests, breakfast breaks the overnight fasting period. It replenishes our supply of glucose to boost our energy levels and alertness while also providing other essential nutrients required for good health. Research shows that a child's ability to concentrate in class, self-regulate, and learn is negatively impacted if they are hungry.
This year, our Student Representative Council (SRC) and the Duke of Edinburgh students took on the responsibility of organising and running the club. The program runs three days a week outside the canteen. The student volunteers arrive by 8:00 am and stop just before tutorial time. They offer a selection of cereal and toast with various spreads; on a Thursday, the students often cook cheese toasties for all. The cheese toasties are very popular with the students. Foodbank donates these items every three weeks.
If students have forgotten their lunch and do not have money for the canteen, their Heads of House also have supplies of healthy snack-type food. We encourage them to talk to someone in the Wellbeing team.
Parent Survey
WE WANT OUR PARENTS / CAREGIVERS / GUARDIANS TO TELL US WHAT THEY THINK!
Our school is conducting the annual https://research.orima.com/parent
offered by the Department of Education and is seeking your feedback. The survey is designed to assist schools in gaining an understanding of families’ perceptions of school climate, student behaviour, and student engagement. The survey is optional, but we encourage and appreciate your participation. We have had a fantastic response to this survey in past years.
Our school will use the survey results to assist in identifying areas for improvement and professional development needs, as well as to target school planning and improvement strategies.
The Parent / Caregiver / Guardian Opinion Survey is now open online until Friday, September 19th, 2025. A link has been emailed to all families and can also be found on Compass.
All families are invited to participate in the survey. A link has been emailed to all families and can also be found on Compass.
PLEASE NOTE: Only one parent/caregiver/guardian from your household is invited to complete the survey on behalf of the student’s family.
The survey will be conducted online. It only takes 20 minutes to complete and can be accessed at any convenient time on desktop computers, laptops, tablets, or smartphones.
The online survey will be available in English and ten other languages, including Arabic, Greek, Hakha Chin, Hindi, Japanese, Punjabi, Simplified Chinese, Somali, Turkish, and Vietnamese. Resources are also available in additional languages to assist parents/caregivers/guardians who speak a language other than English at home.
The survey results will be communicated to parents/caregivers/guardians through the Annual Reporting. If you would like more information, please send an email to Ms Ffion Bowles (Assistant Principal: Curriculum and Pedagogies) at Ffion.Bowled@nossalhs.vic.edu.au
Past Events...
Monday 25 August, was a student-free day because we had a Professional Learning Day for all the Nossal staff. The focus of our learning was Self-Regulated learning: Promoting students' metacognitive skills and motivation for learning. Dr Shyam Barr guided us through Metacognitive Accuracy and the Self-Regulated Learner: What Teachers Can Do. We also focused on *Motivational beliefs for learning, *parents who wanted to read more about this topic, could access the reading on -
It was a crucial component of ongoing professional development for teachers, allowing them to stay current with best practices, explore new teaching strategies, and improve their overall effectiveness in the classroom.
We look forward to Book Week in Week Six (6). As always, a large number of activities have been organised for the week. This year's theme is "Book an Adventure!" These include author conversations with authors such as Alice Pung and Danielle Binks. There are several activities, including the Spelling Bee, Writing competitions for poetry, 5 Worders, 50 Worders, and Short stories. Ms. Lal has organised several other activities as well.
Our dress-up day was on Tuesday 26 August. Students were encouraged to dress up as their favourite book character or wear multicultural outfits. There was a parade to judge the best-dressed characters.
Students and school community members are encouraged to get into the spirit of the week.
We are grateful to Ms. Lal for her hard work and dedication this week—her passion for ensuring that all the students are exceptional.