Welcome to Year 7 2017 Parents and Students

In this newsletter we welcome our newest students and parents - the Year 7 class of 2017. It is terrific to have you as part of the Wantirna College family now. It was great to catch up with many of you at the Grade 6 testing last week. I think that is my favourite tour of the year - you are no longer prospective parents and I can really start to bring you in to our 'family' with more detailed information on what is ahead of you. Thanks for all your positive feedback and excitement about joining us. We are looking forward to the next six years with you.

Thank you to Parents Association

Our Year 7 students are sending their thanks to the Parents Association for the generous donation which has upgraded the bean bags in Mason House. The students love sitting on these and they had become a little flat or damaged, so the PA bought some new bean bags or had the beans replaced in those that were still in good condition.

Thank you to the members of the PA - it is fantastic to have your wise counsel, your willingness to be a sounding board for ideas, and your fundraising which helps to enrich the lives of our students. Hopefully Year 7 parents in 2017 will be happy to join your vibrant group.

Child Safe Standards

Wantirna College has a strong commitment to child safety. We have always aimed to create a school environment where our students are respected and empowered in terms of their safety. This has been reinforced by the recent requirements from the government to bring together our exisiting policies and practices around child safety into one policy, with clearly defined goals and procedures. This development is a result of the Royal Commission into Child Abuse.

Child safety encompasses matters related to protecting all children from child abuse, managing the risk of child abuse, providing support to a child at risk of abuse, and responding to allegations of child abuse. (VRQA Child Safe Standards 2016). The school environment is not limited to the College campus; it includes all venues where school events take place (excursion, event, sport and camp venues) and virtual environments such as the College intranet and email.

To ensure you are aware of how we are doing this, we have placed on our website the detailed information you would need to know. Currently our policy, which has been ratified by College Council, is there. This includes the Code of Conduct that guides staff interaction with students. Just follow the links on the home page. The policy includes the strategies we will use to ensure the safety of children from abuse, and the people who are responsible for each aspect.

If you are interested in following up or asking questions about this, please ring Assistant Principal Student Services, Bruce Churchward.

We're Moving to Compass

In the spirit of always trying to get better at what we do, we are moving from Daymap to the Compass online learning management system from the beginning of next year. This will allow parents to see online:

attendance
news item for classes
Learning tasks and results
homework activities
reports
parent teacher interview bookings
Parent payments

to name just a few things.

We are currently working with teachers to agree on the levels of student work and results that parents will be able see in every subject. More news will come on that later in the year as we begin training you!

You will received a booklet and a logon to they system and as the differentmodules come on line we will roll them out to parents. We will give you a timeline of when this will be. We will also run some training afternoons and evenings at the beginning of the year to help with your learning.

Students will continue to receive a report at the end of each term. The difference will be that you download them from Compass and you'll be able to save them electronically. More news on that as our preparation heats up here!

Mullum Cluster VET awards

Congratulations to all of the Wantirna College students who recently won awards in their VET subjects for the Mullum Cluster.

The Cluster organises enrolment in VET subjects across 53 schools in the eastern suburbs, so this is a great honour!

WINNERS

Jackson Hallo

Cert II in Building & Construction (Partial Completion) (Year 1)

Nicholas Hallo

Cert II in Building & Construction (Partial Completion) (Year 1)

Jordan Thomas

Cert II in Building & Construction (Partial Completion) (Year 2)

Amy Anderson

Cert II in Animal Studies (Year 2)

Melanie Casey

Cert II in Community Services (Year 2)

Abbey De Laine

Award winner

CUA20113 Cert II in Dance (Year 1)

NOMINEES

Matthew De Losa

Cert II in Automotive Studies (Pre-Vocational) (Year 1)

Kyle Colmitto

Cert II in Building & Construction (Partial Completion) (Year 2)

Kaitlin Cook

Cert II in Hospitality (Year 1)

Staff Promotions

It is that time of year again, when other schools are excited to attact the amazing Wantirna College teachers to promotion positions in their schools!

Congratulations to Mrs Courtney Fraraccio who has been promoted to Leading Teacher at Bentleigh Secondary College, and to Mr Michael Bray who has picked up a very innovative position as Leading Teacher in charge of an integrated learning centre at Mullana College.

However, having said that I must admit we tend to do the same thing! I'm thrilled to announce that we have appointed Mr Raymond Wang from Brentwood Secondary College as our Leader - International Program. Mr Darren Hoogkamer has been promoted to the position of Leader - Middle Years Subschool and Ms Joanna Karanikolopoulos has been promoted to Leader Humanities and Whole School Reasearch Skills. I am really looking forward to working with these dynamic teachers as part of the College's Leadership Team next year!

College Captains for 2017

After an exhaustive process and election, we have selected the College captains for 2017.

They are: Gabbi Cameron and Sam Brasher as Captains, and Sarah Dobson and Jayden Mitchell as Vice Captains.

I'd like to congratulate these four students, all of whom gave outstanding speeches to their Year 11 counterparts. I would also like to congratulate all students who applied for these positions - the standard was remarkably high and I hope they go into other leadership positions.

Good Luck to the Year 9 adventurers!

Year 9 students are off on their adventure camps next week - white water rafting, rock climbing, horse riding, camping, bushwalking - the list goes on! We wish them good weather and no mosquitoes.

Good luck to the Year 10 Police Cadets group as well; they are attending their Graduation camp, which involves a camp where they practice drill and then on Wednesday they head back to the Police Academy for the Graduation Ceremony. It has been great to have this subject running again and I hope the students have got a lot out of it. Thank you to Mr Bruce Churchward for taking it on.

Later Years

Year 12 results and VTAC Change of Preference