Dear families,

I am very pleased to report that we have made it to the end of term 1 without any disruptions to face-to-face learning and teaching at school. I am aware that many of our families have continued to be impacted by COVID by having to isolate either with the virus or as household contacts and I do know that this has been frustrating for many of you, particularly those who have had multiple periods of isolation.

I would like to thank all of our families for continuing to work with us and support us around these mandates.

Our final two weeks at school have been very busy. It was great to witness our students fully entering into the spirit of our Athletics Carnival last Friday by dressing in their House colours and participating to the best of their ability in the events.

Many students were asked to step in for absent students and they willingly did even if it meant they had to run in events they didn’t sign up for and hadn’t trained for.

Our Year 12 students led the way and supported the House captains who did an amazing job to try and ensure they had representation in all events.

This week our Year 9 students took part in their Beechy Rail Trail hike, so we hope the students enjoyed the feeling of accomplishment that comes with completing a physical challenge such as this.

On Wednesday this week when all Year 9 students were on campus, we conducted an aspiration summit. We have been exploring ways to motivate all of our students to do and be their best and to strive to achieve in all areas of their life.

Motivation and aspiration are aspects that we find to be more of a challenge for Year 9 students and to address this issue a working team was established to plan and lead a Year 9 Aspiration Summit.

The summit included keynote speaker Penny Smith, who represented Australia in the Olympics and continues to achieve great success in the sport of shooting.

The message coming from Penny was that it takes hard work to achieve your goals and there are lots of obstacles along the way that require determination and resilience to overcome.

The students also took part in an Amazing Race around the school, completed a personality test and also heard from a panel of experts coming from different industry areas.

The day was a huge success and provided numerous take home messages for our students. I would like to thank the working party for all their extra work to plan and run the day and the fantastic guests who donated their time to share their stories with our students.

Our panel of guests included former student Molly Young from Salon 7 One, Will Hanson from the area of farming/agriculture, Lachie Veale from Vic Group Training, Miles Geue from the area of allied health, and Bec Brown who has become involved in cancer research with the Olivia Newton John Cancer Research Institute since graduating from Trinity College. Our thanks is also extended to our MCs for the panel discussion, James Thwaites and Lippy from Mix FM.

During our final week of school, we also conducted our Easter raffle and an Easter liturgy for our students to remind them of the importance of Easter for Christians all around the world.

Our Student Learning Conversations (formerly known as Parent/Teacher/Student interviews) will be taking place Thursday of our first week back after holidays.

These conversations will be online again due to COVID and feedback from a large number of parents/carers was that this format suited them and their families much better. As the name suggests, the importance of this event is for a conversation to take place that includes the voice of the student as well as feedback from the teacher.

The Student Learning Conversations also form an integral cog in our parent/students/school partnership so I encourage all of our families to take up this opportunity and book a time to speak with your child’s teachers.

Interview bookings are made through PAM and will be available when the Interim Reports are released.

I would like to acknowledge the work of Georgia Robinson, who has been teaching PE and Religion this term. Georgia is returning to a position in Geelong and we wish her well. Todd Klein will join us in this role for the remainder of the school year.

Over the holidays we have our Year 11 Top End Tour taking place. This trip was rescheduled from 2021 when COVID prevented it from running. All the staff at Trinity College wish the students and staff going on this trip a safe, enjoyable and memorable trip, and we all look forward to hearing all about it when they return.

On Good Friday we will once again host 'The Way of The Cross' Ecumenical Service at the Colac Botanic Gardens. Please join us at 11am at the playground end of the gardens.

Finally, I would like to wish all our families a safe, happy and restful Easter and I look forward to seeing all the students back at school on Tuesday, April 26.

Year 11 Ski Trip