From the Principal's Desk
Welcome back to term two to all members of our Wyndham Central College community. We returned to an unusual week with public holidays bookending the week, consequently it went by very quickly, but I trust that your Easter break was restful, enjoyable and allowed you to recharge in readiness for the term ahead.
We returned to our regular school term routines in week two and we took the opportunity to celebrate Anzac Day in our new Schoolwide allocated time. During this lesson, all students were encouraged to remember those who sacrificed their lives for the freedoms that we enjoy today in Australia. Our school captains also proudly represented the school at the Anzac march, and we can view their contribution on the 2025 school Instagram page. Lest we forget.
Last Thursday, our staff engaged in professional development to deepen their knowledge and understanding of the Positive Classroom Management Strategies with expert behaviouralist Dr Terrance Scott. This important learning and following work practices aligns with our ongoing commitment to nurturing the whole child, recognising and building upon the unique qualities each student brings to our community. Staff engaged in meaningful reflection, discussion and the creation of practical strategies to further embed a strengths-based approach in their teaching, ensuring that every child’s individual gifts are identified, celebrated, and developed in a positive, calm and safe school and classroom environment.
The behaviours of our students during school opportunities and activities are always acknowledged by members of the public and representatives of industry and organisations when they visit the school. This doesn’t just happen; it is a result of the consistent messaging and approach taken by school staff with the continued support and working in partnership with our parents and carers. In term two we are embedding practice to improve our positive classroom environments with our schoolwide entry and exit processes that ensures our students are prepared to start each lesson on time with their required resources and leaving their classrooms in a clean and efficient way to ensure they are at their next class on time. This is helping our students maximise their learning time in our new 45-minute 6 session day.
Students are also regularly reminded of and explicitly taught and provided examples of how to demonstrate our school values in their social interactions creating positive relationships, improving work ethic and taking responsibility for their decisions and actions.
The Wyndham Central College vision, values – respect, cooperation and excellence, and our mantra – creating a community of high expectations, are a reminder to the school community of our purpose and the beliefs and attitudes that guide our behaviours and relationships with others.
WCC Vision Statement: Wyndham Central College fosters a love of learning. We respect diversity and Indigenous heritage. We aim for continuous improvement in all our students as they grow into adulthood. Our objective is to nurture empathetic, creative, and confident young people who embrace opportunities and accept the challenges of a complex and globalised world.
Wyndham Central College provides the environment that creates the high expectations for all members of our community and inspires each individual to achieve their potential by developing their skills for post-secondary education or to be work–ready.
The action of ‘creating a community of high expectations’ holds all members of the community accountable to the highest standards, providing both academic and social standards and setting the expectation for strong respectful professional relationships, so that all students emerge as resilient, productive, and cooperative members of a contemporary world.
Our vision statement has been co-created with, shared, and owned by the whole school community, is appropriate to our school needs and expectations, and is easily understood by everyone through the mantra, Creating a community of high expectations. It is expected that everyone will try their hardest and produce their best work. That timelines are met; rules are followed, and the school values upheld at all times. We ask our parent and carers to help students not only to reach the expectation but to improve on this to be achieving above expectations. Whether this be in their presentation – full school uniform or following the guidelines in our school policies – no mobile phones, completing all set classroom tasks and then taking the opportunity to do their AVID Cornell note steps at home or in homework club and always being at school and in class, on time, every day. We congratulate the students who live the vision and demonstrate our values daily.
At Wyndham Central College parents/carers are partners in the education of their children. Regular two-way communication between parents/carers and the school is essential in helping young people navigate their way through their secondary schooling and reach their potential. We are pleased that many parents/carers choose to contact the school when they require clarification. We thank the parents and carers who joined us at the parent/teacher interviews in the last week of term one, and to parents who joined us at various new opportunities in term two at our AVID family night, our camp information nights, our Enrichment expo and the Healthy mind parent training. In the next few weeks there will be many more opportunities that we encourage families to attend and be involved in building the community and will include our Multicultural and reconciliation week activities.
Within this newsletter there are many ways outlined where positive communication is continually invited. I ask all parents and carers to avail themselves of these.
Our students are also offered many ways to communicate with their teachers and the school. Our classrooms have engaged in the PIVOT surveys over the couple of weeks where students have provided feedback to their teachers about their lessons. However, it is coming up to a very important part of the year where our student voice is amplified, and students complete the Attitude to School Survey (AtoSS) during May. This survey provides data that helps our school understand student perspectives of the school and area of focus to improve the schooling experience.
Data collected includes how students feel in relation to the school, their learning, peer relationships, resilience, bullying, health and wellbeing, physical activity, and life in general. AtoSS is aligned with the department’s Framework for Improving Student Outcomes 2.0. and along with our SRC – Student Representative Council, our student leadership and action groups, the college will be using the data from the survey to inform school improvement and planning to support student learning and wellbeing for all our children. We look forward to hearing our student voice over the month of May.
I am looking forward to another successful term and feel confident that term two will continue to engage all staff and students many different activities related to student learning extra-curricular opportunities, excursions, sporting events and our careers events which are outlined in this newsletter.
I hope you take the time to celebrate and learn more about what term two offers.
Leanne Gagatsis - Principal
Creating a Community of High Expectations
Respect, Cooperation and Excellence