Principal Update

Dear Families, Students and Mordialloc College Community,

I hope that this newsletter finds you very well these last two days of Term 4.   

Our BEST VCE and VCE-VM Results ever!

It is with immense pride that I share the best VCE and VCE-VM results in the history of our college! Congratulations to our Year 12 VCE students who received their results and certificates on Thursday 11th December. So many students came together to share their results with friends and staff for Morning Tea; it really was a pleasure to be a part of this experience.

The staff here at Mordialloc College are very proud of our Year 12 2025 cohort, all of their resilience and commitment to hard work really paid off, and I am pleased to report that for our Mordialloc College students in 2025:

• 9% of students achieved a 95+ ATAR, 21%  of students achieved a 90+ ATAR, 41% of students achieved an 80+ ATAR.  Our median ATAR was 74.6.
• We achieved a median Study Score of 31.
• 9% of our Study Scores were over 40. 
• Mordialloc College Dux 2025: Celestine Debargue-Tamai who achieved a near perfect ATAR of 99.5. 
• Mordialloc College 90+ students: Celestine Debargue-Tamai, Swayde Cole, Linh Nguyen, Martin Hyatt, Kate Schultz, Catherine Cole, Kylie Wolfe, Benjamin Woolridge, Rebecca Dowling, Alex Nguyen, Nina Rachele-Burtt, Pippa Kerr, Nadia Itin, Ava Follett, Victor Belmonte Thomas, Frankie Shepard, Khan Hamilton, Liliana Bell, Jaylen Cipriano, Eden Handfield, Lulu Rachele-Burtt, Cameron Stokoe, Gia Hoang Phuc Lam, Jake Ridley. 

VCE-VM highlights include:

• 99% completion rate 
• Successful VCE-VM students are now receiving offers to complete diplomas, traineeships, and apprenticeships in IT, carpentry, hairdressing, HVAC heating & cooling, early childhood, allied health, construction pathways, and electrotechnology. 
• Mordialloc College VCE VM Dux 2025: Addison Heitman. Addison successfully completed her work placement in childcare, and has now secured work within that industry for 2026. Congratulations Addison!!!!

Doanvy Roberts and Moira Philp (Career Practitioners) have been available over the last few weeks for any conversations around careers, and for change of preference appointments for university or TAFE courses. Our students are applying for a range of university courses including: BioMed (Honours), Engineering (Honours), Science, Arts, Architecture, Education, and Nursing.

On a subject level, we have achieved excellent results that exceeded the state average. 

Those subjects include: Biology, Chemistry, Dance (VCE VET), English, English as an Additional Language, Health and Human Development, Japanese (First Language), Greek, Legal Studies, General Mathematics, Mathematical Methods, Media, Music Performance (VCE VET), Outdoor and Environmental Studies, Physics, Art: Making and Exhibiting, Visual Communication: Design.

What is the key to our success? In no particular order: great professional relationships between staff and students, intentional effort when skilfully delivering the content, a relentless approach to always evolving our teaching to meet students at their personalised point of need, and so much hard work! 

While we will always take every opportunity to celebrate individual student success stories, it is important to remind everyone in our wider school community that the  ATAR does not define any of our students. Ultimately, it is a rank for tertiary admission; it is no reflection on how hard any individual student worked, it won’t necessarily determine where you will go in the future, or how happy you will be. 

Every one of our students should feel delighted with their efforts, proud in the knowledge that they gave their personal best, and that we have enjoyed working with them so very much during their time at Mordialloc College. 

I know you will all also join me in giving a special mention to our 2025 Year 12 teachers: a huge thank you to our staff who go above and beyond for your children every single day.

Awards Night 2025

A huge thank you to all our staff, students and families who attended our Awards Night on Wednesday 10th December. 

In just over two hours we gave out nearly 500 awards, were entertained by our talented musicians and actors, and had the pleasure of the Hon Mark Dreyfus KC MP presenting the Community Spirit and Leadership awards. 

We said goodbye to our outgoing MCSC School Leaders, and welcomed in our 2026 MCSC School Captains and Middle School Captains. 

We also celebrated our newly awarded DUX for each year group:

Year 7 DUX: Charlie O’Brien

Year 8 DUX: Suu Mon Naing

Year 9 DUX: Rueben Selzer

Year 10 DUX: Millie Harley

Year 11 DUX: Zander Howell 

Thank you also to our 2024 College Dux, Junze (Oliver) Huang, for his motivational and encouraging words for our students. It was a great night of celebration for all of our community.

Year 7 Statewide Transition Day

On Tuesday 9th December,  our new Year 7 students came and visited us for the day. A huge thank you to the Junior School team who organised new Connect teachers, lockers, taster lessons, activities to support getting to know new friends, and a BBQ for nearly 200 students!

We also held additional transition days throughout the previous week; all amazingly supported by our Year 10 Peer Support students, and our Student Services team.

It is a testament to our great reputation that we are nearly full for Year 7 2026; we can’t wait to welcome our next new Year 7 cohort on Thursday January 29th, 2026.

To further support our new Mordialloc College families, the Department of Education has created a range of resources to support those new to secondary school in 2026. 

All resources can be found on the A new year of learning website.

Save the Dates: 2026

I would like to take this opportunity to share some key dates that I feel you will want to know for 2026; we will still continue to add other pertinent dates to the weekly newsletter but presume the below information might be useful from now for some of our families. 

A reminder that term dates and Professional Learning  Day 1 are all set by the Department of Education, and that subsequent Professional Learning dates are arranged to avoid impact to other calendared events including externally arranged dates such as NAPLAN.

Term 1: 10 weeks

• Professional Learning Days #1 & #2: Tuesday 27th Jan and Wednesday 28th Jan (Student Free Days)
• Return - Year 7, Year 12 UP, Year 11 and Year 12 VM: Thursday 29th Jan
• Return - all school (except Year 11 and Year 12 VM): Friday 30th Jan
• Online Parent Teacher Interviews: Tuesday 31st March (Adjusted day for staff / students work from home)

• End of Term 1: Thursday 2nd April (Early finish for students – 1.30pm)

   

 Term 2: 10 weeks

• Open Night: Wednesday 29th April (Early finish for students – 2.30pm)
• Professional Learning Day #3: Friday 12th June  (Student Free Day)

• End of Term 2: Friday 26th June: (Early finish for students – 1.30pm)

   

 Term 3: 10  weeks

• Professional Learning Day #4:  Wednesday 21st August (Student Free Day)
• Online Parent Teacher Interviews: Monday 31st August (Adjusted day for staff / students work from home)

• End of Term 3:  Friday 18th September (Early finish for students – 1.30pm)

   

 Term 4: 11 weeks

• Professional Practice Day: Friday 20th November (Student Free Day)
• Awards Night: Tuesday 8th December Tentative (Adjusted day for staff / Early finish for students – 1.30pm)
• End of Term 4: Friday 18th December (Early finish for students – 1.30pm)

School Uniform - Proud to be a Mordialloc College student

In close consultation with our school community, Student Leaders, and School Council we developed a Student Dress Code Policy  that provides choice for our students, allows our students to safely engage in the many varied school activities, and caters for the financial constraints of families. 

A huge thank you to those families who continue to support the college to have high expectations around connectedness and belonging, our uniform plays a huge part in that school pride. As the most common time for families to purchase uniform items is over the summer, please can I support you by providing absolute clarity around what we have all agreed students should wear at Mordialloc College. 

Whilst further information can be found in our Student Dress Code Policy, it can be most easily summarised as when a student is not actively participating in a PE or Sports lesson, then they should be wearing the summer/winter uniform consisting of black leather shoes (not sneakers), grey pants or grey shorts (not leggings or sweatpants), and a Mordialloc College sweater, Mordialloc College fleece, Mordialloc College puffer jacket, or Mordialloc College Year 12 jumper/jacket (not a non-Mordialloc College hoodie).  

The only time students may NOT be in their summer/winter uniform is if they are actively participating in a PE or Sports class, at which point they would have changed from their summer/winter uniform into their sports uniform before that lesson.

Year 7 has Sport every Tuesday, Year 8 has Sport every Friday, on those specific days only, those particular year groups can arrive at school in their sport kit.

No other year group has Sport. All Year 9 - Year 12 students should be wearing the summer/winter uniform to school every day when they leave home. 

Whilst the Student Dress Code Policy  contains finer details about other uniform items, and how you should proceed if there is a uniform issue, we are confident that for the majority of families this information will support any miscommunication around what their child should be wearing when they return in January 2026.

Have a Wonderful Summer!

As a school community, it has been wonderful to spend time celebrating all of our students’ efforts throughout 2025, and getting excited for 2026. 

All that is left for me to do now is to wish you all an amazing Christmas, and a wonderful summer together with your favourite people; I really do hope that you get to switch off and find time to relax. This year for me, it is all about the ‘staycation’ and spending some time with my family. I look forward to seeing you all in the new year!

Seasons Greetings to you all from Mordialloc College.

Rachael Stone

Principal