Principal's Report
Principal's Report
Dear Families,
A warm welcome back to Altona College for term 3 as we slide abruptly into the depths of Winter. It has been a very cool start for our students with a range of sporting and quiet lunchtime activities offered to keep them moving and warm. The term is well planned with many extracurricular incursions and excursions, now on the calendar, to enhance our teaching and learning programs.
Term 3 is our planning term where we are setting up subjects, budgets, and the staffing profile for the coming year. Year 7 offers were sent out this week to our feeder primary schools and prep enrolments close at the end of the month. This will enable us to determine the number of staff we require for next year and seek staff accordingly to fill any vacancies. We continue to be short-staffed and have been advertising positions in advance for 2024 whilst trying to fill vacancies. The leadership team and our learning specialists have stepped in to cover some absences and the teacher shortage.
NAPLAN
Our 2023 NAPLAN results were received yesterday for students in Years 3, 5, 7, and 9. Each student will receive an individual report along with an information page for parents and carers. These have been handed to students in a sealed envelope today for your convenience. Please ensure the students hand you their results when they arrive home this evening.
Pathways
I was delighted to meet with Claudia from Toyota yesterday along with Zac, Darcy, Flynn, Maddy, and Christina who have been selected to participate in a week’s unique work experience at Toyota in Altona or Port Melbourne. They are exploring careers in: After Sales, New Business Solutions, Information Technology, People and Culture, and Corporate Services. They met to discuss the program, protocols, and expectations in the industry before commencing on Monday. All students truly reflected our values in their interactions with the company representative. We look forward to hearing about their adventures in the coming week and will share some of the journey on social media. All Year 10 students will be undertaking work experience later in the term.
Student Exits 2024
If families are planning on moving out of Altona next year and their child will be exiting Altona College, please advise us as soon as practicable to support our planning processes.
New Teaching Staff
This week we welcomed new teaching staff to our school: Mr Daniel Lah has joined the English team in the secondary years and Olivia Meehan is covering Brianna McNally who is currently on leave. Olivia will then be teaching some classes and supporting the tutoring program. We also welcome two new education support staff to our classrooms, Rebecca Allan-Mattiske and Jessica Law.
100 Days of Prep
Our prep students reach a milestone next week and will be celebrating 100 days of school. We warmly congratulate our preps who have settled in beautifully to school life and who are becoming “smarter” each day.
Curriculum Day – Pupil Free Day
We are holding a curriculum day on Friday 4th August when our teaching and support staff will be undertaking a professional learning program called CUST (Creating a culturally safe and inclusive learning environment). The Department of Education recognises that teachers require a strong foundation of skills, knowledge, and a lot of support to deliver Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives within their classroom curriculum.
This is why VAEAI, in partnership with the Department of Education and Training, has prioritised providing professional learning through the Community Understanding and Safety Training initiative (otherwise known as CUST), to all school-based staff, from teachers to administration and grounds staff in every government school throughout the state. CUST is designed to be an introduction to ongoing learning and engagement with Aboriginal perspectives throughout the curriculum through meaningful collaboration between local Aboriginal communities and schools.
Keep warm this weekend and I look forward to seeing all of our students on Monday morning.
Julie Krause