PRINCIPAL'S REPORT

As winter has arrived with a blast of cool weather, it has been a wonderfully busy and productive fortnight across the College, filled with achievement, learning and connection. From outstanding individual recognition to camps, excursions, sporting milestones and community initiatives, our students have continued to embody the very best of Western Heights. I am delighted to share these highlights with you below.

Lumiere Scholars Essay Award — Ash Aulakh (Year 11)

We are incredibly proud to share that Ash Aulakh of Year 11 has won the prestigious Lumiere Scholars Essay Award. Ash’s thoughtful and compelling essay explored society’s moral duties regarding poverty and inequality. This is a remarkable achievement, with shortlisted entries selected from more than 2,100 submissions across over 100 countries. Her essay will be posted in the Oxford Journal of Student Scholarship. Congratulations, Ash, on this outstanding recognition of your intellectual curiosity and writing.

Statewide Principals Conference

Last week, Western Heights College was represented at the annual Government Schools Principals' Conference held at the Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre — one of the highlights of the professional calendar for school leaders across Victoria. The conference featured an outstanding line-up of keynote presenters, including Lisa Alexander AM, who spoke compellingly about sustaining excellence through high-performance leadership and the power of collaboration; Dr Nathaniel Swain, whose session on managing teacher cognitive load and building coherent systems for VTLM 2.0 success aligned closely with our own school improvement work; and Dr Carl Hendrick, who challenged leaders to close the knowing-doing gap between research and classroom practice. The conference also explored the rapidly evolving role of artificial intelligence in schools, providing leaders with practical frameworks for navigating this space thoughtfully and responsibly. The insights from this event will continue to inform our professional learning, instructional leadership and improvement agenda at Western Heights College throughout the remainder of 2026.

Kokoda Track

Monday morning a group of Western Heights College students and staff joined with Belmont HS students and staff to trek the Kokoda Track in PNG. We look forward to hearing from them on their return as they share stories from one of the most historically significant tracks in Australia’s history – and the second most challenging in the world.

Year 10 Visual Art — ACCA Excursion

Year 10 Visual Art students visited the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA), where they engaged with the exhibition “This is Not the Storm” by Julius von Bismarck.

Students took part in hands-on making workshops within the exhibition space, drawing inspiration from contemporary practice to inform their own artistic development.

Cross Country Trials — Tuesday 12 May

The WHC Cross Country Trials were held successfully on Tuesday 12 May. Our top qualifiers across all age groups have been selected to represent Western Heights College at the Barwon Division event. Congratulations to all students who competed with such determination and spirit.

Victory Passes

A reminder about WHC’s new Victory Passes initiative. Students who display exceptional behaviour and achievement are entered into the draw, with prizes drawn fortnightly. This initiative continues to support and celebrate a positive school culture across the College.

Youth Council — Northern Suburbs Expression of Interest

Western Heights College has been invited to participate in a Youth Council program for 2026. Students who live in the northern suburbs and are interested in representing young people in local decision-making are warmly encouraged to submit an Expression of Interest via Compass.

Facilities Update

Significant progress continues on our new gymnasium and indoor sporting facilities, currently under construction. Practical completion was achieved on Friday 29th May. We are now awaiting final completing works after our last walk through.

Key Reminders

Pupil-Free Day: Friday 5 June 2026 is a Staff Curriculum Day — there are no scheduled classes for students on this day.

Insurance Reminder

Families are reminded that the Department and the College do not provide personal accident insurance, personal property insurance or ambulance cover for students. Parents and carers are responsible for any medical treatment, ambulance attendance and transport costs.

Student Behaviour in the Community

Families are asked to reinforce expectations around respectful student behaviour before and after school, particularly in the Vines Road shopping precinct. Students are expected to always represent Western Heights College positively within the wider community.

Thank you to our families for your ongoing support, which makes so much of what we celebrate in this newsletter possible. The achievements of the past fortnight— are a testament to the strength and warmth of the Western Heights College community. I look forward to all that the remainder of Term 2 will bring.

With warm regards,

Fiona Taylor

Principal

Western Heights College

Child Safety at WHC

Western Heights College is a child safe organisation committed to protecting students from all forms of abuse. Our College has stringent protocols in place and endeavours at all times to be fully compliant with the Child Safe Standards set out under Ministerial Order 870.

Our College has the following documents and policies in place to achieve compliance with the Standards. All of these documents are available for downloading on our website.

1. Commitment to Child Safety

2. Child Safety Policy

3. Child Safety Code of Conduct

4. Child Protection Policy and Procedures

Annual Privacy Policy Reminder for 2026

Our school collects, uses, discloses, and stores student and parent personal information for standard school functions or where permitted by law, as stated in the Schools’ Privacy Policy (found on the college's webpage).

Please take time to remind yourself of our school’s collection notice, found on our website. For more information about privacy, refer to: Schools’ Privacy Policy — information for parents and carers on the webpage. This information is also available in nine community languages:

          * Amharic

          * Arabic

          * Dari

          * Gujarati

          * Mandarin

          * Somali

          * Sudanese

          * Turkish

          * Urdu

          * Vietnamese