Principal's Update

Dear Families, Students and Community Members,

I hope everyone was able to enjoy the holiday break and is now refreshed and ready to focus on the final stretch for the year.

Return to Onsite Learning and Remote Learning

As I communicated to all families on Tuesday morning via Compass, Year 7 students in metropolitan Melbourne will resume face-to-face learning from Monday 12 October, along with our Year 11 and 12 students and Year 10 students studying a VCE subject or VCAL. Students in Years 8 to 10 will return to onsite learning from Monday 26 October.

This staggered return is based on the advice of the Victorian Chief Health Officer and is designed to manage the increased movement across the community with the return of staff and students to school. A return of Years 8 to 10 students from 26 October will provide enough time to enable monitoring of the impact of the first stage of students returning to school. The staggered approach to getting all students in all year levels back to on-site schooling will also support a more gradual increase of community mobility across metropolitan Melbourne, while providing a full 14 days between stages to account for a full incubation period of the virus.

We will be emailing out via Compass this week our updated Return to School guide for parents and students. Please note, temperature checking of students is no longer required, however, all students will be required to wear a mask and social distancing requirements will be followed as is practically possible. Hand sanitising stations remain in key locations across the school.

Schools across Victoria - three collective priorities for this term are clear:

supporting students’ mental health and wellbeing
identifying those who need help catching up and extending those who have progressed
preparing for successful transitions.

However, a pre-condition is that we ensure all our schools continue to remain safe environments based on four key pillars:

reinforcing COVIDSafe behaviours, such as staying at home and getting tested when unwell, physical distancing where possible and wearing masks
creating COVIDSafe spaces, including ensuring ventilation and regular cleaning
promoting COVIDSafe activities, such as limiting visitors to schools, and reducing mixing between groups
responding to any coronavirus (COVID-19) risk

We look forward to welcoming three year levels back onsite next week (along with Year 10 VCAL and any Year 10 student studying a VCE subject) and we will continue to provide a quality remote learning program for our students in Years 8-10 until their return date on 26th October. The most important action parents and carers can take for these students is to continue to provide comfort, support, and encouragement for your child, in addition to a suitable learning space at home. Arrangements will be put in place for any vulnerable, at risk or PSD students in Years 8-10 who require onsite supervision as outlined in our guide. We will continue to do our best to support our Year 8-10 families to navigate through this final stretch of remote learning. Please don’t hesitate to call or email a member of the College leadership team, IT or wellbeing team if you need our assistance in any way.

VCE General Achievement Test (GAT)

On Wednesday 7th October 10:00am - 1:15pm, we had 152 students across Year 11 and 12 who are studying a Unit 3 & 4 sequence sit the GAT onsite across three locations (gym, Year 7 Learning Centre and Year 8 EZ) to ensure we were following the social distancing guidelines. All schools were permitted to utilise our usual external supervisors and we just required more than usual given students were spread across three locations. The GAT is a test of general knowledge and skills in written communication, mathematics, science, technology, humanities, the arts and social sciences. Thanks to Jo Greenhalgh, Tim Randell and Andrew Moffat for their support of our students in preparation for the GAT. The GAT is even more important as it will be used to help calculate the ‘consideration of educational disadvantage’ process this year, given the potential impact of COVID-19. It will also be used to help calculate a student’s Derived Examination Score for any student whose exam performance is affected by illness, accident or personal trauma. The GAT results are also used to help validate the accuracy of school based and external assessments. We always encourage students to strive for their personal best in completing the GAT, putting in a 100% effort across the three hours, just as they would for a SAC or exam.

I was contacted by the DET Media Unit asking if I would host any media who wanted to speak to students about the GAT and their experiences this year. The media were not allowed to attend onsite until the GAT was over. Representatives from Channel 7 arrived after 1.15pm and they asked us to set up a mock sitting with some students and then interviewed Elisa Barone, Jack Phillpotts, Liam Cox, Jack Alacqua and myself. Thanks to these students for being prepared to speak to the media and have this broadcast on TV tonight.

Whole school review

As reported in my last newsletter article, the final day of the review was in the last week of Term 3. Our reviewers, Steve Daly and Senior Education Improvement leader, Leanne Marshall, were both highly complimentary of the school, staff and students. We have achieved some significant milestones over the past 3-4 years and reviewers stated that our work around teaching and learning, student achievement, engagement and wellbeing was “highly sophisticated”. We will now be focused on writing our new Strategic Plan for 2021-2024 and the 2021 Annual Implementation Plan. I will provide an overview of the goals, targets and key improvement strategies as the recommended areas of focus for our continuous improvement in a newsletter later in the year, after consulting with staff. Thanks to the 150 parents who completed our survey late last term and to all students and staff who participated in focus group discussions during the fieldwork days to assist in informing our review. The reviewer was really appreciative of this feedback.

Focused on achieving Personal Best

Thanks to our Director of Senior School, Joanne Greenhalgh and Year 12 Coordinator, Tim Randell and all Year 12 staff for the timely completion of Unit 4 content to enable our practice exams in all subjects to be completed during the last week of Term 3. This has provided more focused time on targeted revision in the lead up to the important final Year 12 exams starting on Tuesday 10 November with English. My thanks to all teachers for their efficient marking of the papers, to provide students with valuable feedback to assist their preparation for their final exams at the College. Year 12 classes are running until Friday 30 October, which will be their final day before SWOTVAC commences in the lead up to the final exams. Our teachers will continue to be available to support students up until their actual exam and I encourage students to utilise this support.

All students in Years 10-12 will be completing final assessments and continuing the rigorous planning and preparation for their final exam weeks that are fast approaching. It is so important for all students to remain focused and use class and home study time effectively. VCE students should seek help from their teachers to work on any identified weaknesses, complete unit summaries and continue to work on exam performance by completing past exam papers under the exam time constraints.

Students in Years 7-9 will also be completing assessments throughout the term leading into the final reporting period. All students in Year 7-9 also need to present a Student Led Conference to celebrate their achievements for this year before moving up to the next year level in our Headstart program. More information will follow about the Student Led Conference arrangements occurring during Week 7 this term. It is our clearly stated expectation of everyone to continue to strive to achieve their personal best in everything they do.

Year 12 exams in the time of COVID – this article published in The Conversation a few weeks ago is applicable to all Senior Students preparing for exams this term. "Year 12 exams in the time of COVID: 5 ways to support your child to stress less and do better".

Mordi Idol

It was fantastic to be able to continue this traditional end of Term 3 event, albeit in different circumstances. Thanks to Adelle Stevenson, Aaron Davis and our Performing Arts Captains, Ebony and Luke, for putting the event together and making a video all classes could watch during Period 4 on Thursday in the last week of Term 3. Students had the opportunity to vote at the end for the student choice award and the judges (School Captains - Elisa and Jack, Ms Stevenson and I) scored each act based on set criteria - entertainment value, quality of delivery and creativity.

Congratulations to the nine student entries for this event, who were all prepared to put themselves out there in front of the rest of the school community and give it their personal best. It was certainly a wonderful event to bring the whole school together during remote learning and it always leaves me with such a warm feeling of pride in our students.

Congratulations to:

First Place: Liliana Bell - Poi Dancing

Runner Up: Mia Spence - Auslan to Fight Song

Student Choice Award: Celina Lum – Vocal performance and playing guitar

Year 7 2021 Transition information video and Q&A session

Due to the current restrictions and social distancing requirements we are not able to run our usual Grade 6 to Year 7 Transition Information session onsite this week. Instead we have a video presentation for parents, carers and students that I sent to families via email on Monday. This important 30 minute video includes information about our Bring Your Own Device program operating at the College. As a follow up to this video, there will be the opportunity for parents and carers to attend an online Q&A session via Webex on Tuesday 13 October at 6:30 pm. All key leaders will be in attendance to answer any questions parents/carers may have from watching the video. Again, details of this session were communicated to families on Monday. Our Year 7 Year Level Coordinators and some of our current Year 7 students are also running some online meetings over the next few weeks with groups of primary school students to support their transition to secondary school.

We look forward to welcoming all our new students officially to the school on Orientation Day (Tuesday 8 December), pending Department advice that this state-wide day can proceed.

Uniform

All students returning to onsite learning should be wearing the summer uniform this term. Just a reminder that ALL boys must be wearing the short sleeved business shirt with College logo in summer. Also, to our current Year 9 students, a reminder that you will need to purchase the grey Senior School jumper for 2021 Headstart as you will be entering Year 10 and the Senior School. Headstart begins on Monday 23 November. Further information about this whole school program will be outlined to all families closer to the time.

Staffing News

Farewell to:

Jenny Tran – Jenny had to commence maternity leave earlier than expected, starting this week. We wish her the very best for the arrival of her third child and look forward to Jenny returning in Term 3, 2021. We are currently working through the selection process for her replacement starting from Headstart in our English Language Centre supporting our International Students, and one of our well known CRTs, Merv Ferguson, will be taking the two classes Jenny teaches from next week.

Kym Lenc – Kym will commence maternity leave from 26th October. We wish her the very best for the arrival of her first child and look forward to Kym returning in time for 2022 Headstart. We are currently working through the selection process for this short-term contract teaching Health/PE, as Lauren Hibell returns from family leave in Term 2 next year and can take over this teaching load.

Continue to take care everyone and stay strong. We are nearly there.

Ms. Michelle Roberts

Principal