Principal Report

On Wednesday this week I had the opportunity to sit in on a rather unique and impressive expression of collaborative learning.  As many of you know, we have two sister schools in Yogyakarta, Indonesia – Olifant and SMA N 3.  We visit them every couple of years as part of our language and cultural study tours and on many occasions we’ve been privileged to reciprocate these visits by hosting Indonesian students at Warrnambool College.  In between these visits though, it has been difficult to link in with each other to share in learning opportunities, despite many efforts to do so.  On Wednesday however, I sat in one of our language classrooms and witnessed our year 10 and 11 Indonesian language students interact with students from Olifant and SMA N 3 across video conferencing.  The students in all three schools had been working on local responses to the issue of plastic waste – it was fascinating to hear of the similarities of the issues that exist across our two countries.  Indonesian students presented their perspectives and findings to us in English and Australian students responded in Bahasa Indonesian.  Every single student was engaged, enjoying the interaction across the geographical hemispheres.  In a couple of weeks, we’ll engage again through video conferencing when our Deputy Premier and Minister for Education, the Hon. James Merlino, is visiting our sister schools as part of his visit to Indonesia.  It will be fantastic to engage with department of education dignitaries and government officials from Victoria as part of this continuing collaborative learning experience.

During Wednesday we also had our annual ‘portrait in an hour’ event, with local musician Shane Howard being our model on this occasion.  The artistic work that the students produced in only 60 minutes was incredible – again and again I’m left positively bewildered by the wide variety of talents and skills that our students have and their willingness to participate and put their skills on display for the wider school community to appreciate.  All the portraits are currently on display in the school library so if you’re visiting the school in the next fortnight, ask the front desk if you can have a look at what has been created by our students.

And last Friday, our school celebrated ‘wear it purple’ day by participating in Pride netball and football matches on the Mack Oval.  As I was wandering over to the oval during lunch, the school yard was noticeably empty.  Once I got over to the matches I knew why – it seemed as if half the school was over there, either playing in the matches or watching on in support of the event.  There is much that still needs to be done in our community to more fully address the mental health concerns for young people from within the LGBTI community, but it is great to have events such as this at our school so that we can explicitly point towards our inclusion of all students’ learning at Warrnambool College.

A staff member said to me this morning that she had no idea where the year had gone and wondered how we’d already entered into September.  The school captains echoed these sentiments earlier in the week as they met with me and reflected on their pending exams.  2019 certainly is flying by, but there is much left still to learn and experience at our great school – I hope that you can get involved with as much as possible for the remainder of this term and into term 4.

Kind Regards,

Dave Clift

Principal