Senior School  

Senior School Report

It’s been a busy term for the Senior School students!  We started with Year 12 Residential, which gave our students an opportunity to better understand the needs of this year, prepare for this upcoming year and how to do their best, as well as Athletics Day, Senior sports, and finally sessions on the Growth Mindset.  We’ve also had numerous student leadership activities with VicSRC working with the students to further develop their ‘Teach the Teacher’ program and an opportunity to speak with UN ambassador for Youth Affairs about current issues and concerns.  I would like to thank the student leaders for their work, organisation and leadership of these events. 

The Growth Mindset sessions were very valuable and helped our students to realise that they are capable of all sorts of amazing things, if they see all opportunities as learning ones and harness the power of the word ‘yet’ – “I am not confident on this yet”.  Over the last few years, it has been lovely to see our students develop an understanding and sense of confidence of what they are capable of – I look forward to this continuing over the coming years and seeing our students achieve great things.

Our VCAL students have chosen to focus on sustainability, looking at how better to reduce, reuse, and recycle in order to use resources wisely.  They have been on an excursion through Melbourne’s CBD and inner suburbs at how organisations and local communities are using resources and supporting development, visiting the Thank You organisation and hearing from other groups as to how they are using water and other precious commodities carefully.  They have since taken this knowledge and are investigating ways to better use resources around the school, including the development of their vegetable patch.  I look forward to seeing (and tasting) some of their hard work!

Student-Parent-Teacher conferences will occur on Thursday 4 April.  The inclusion of the student into these conferences is a deliberate one – they are, after all, the ones who will have to complete their assessment tasks, improve for future tasks, learn from their mistakes and celebrate their successes and strengths.  This is only possible by students being in attendance at the interviews.  We encourage all students and their families to attend in order to get valuable feedback which will enable students to further develop and improve. 

Ormond College Student Reflection

Our year began with a residential camp at Ormond College in Parkville. During our two day stay, we participated in workshops and gained helpful tips, great advice and developed skills that we can apply during the year to help us get the best out of this final year of school. A panel of students gave us an insight into the challenges that they experienced as Year 12 students last year and some of the strategies they used to overcome challenges. We found time to have some fun too and to develop our bond as a cohort, by participating in fun games such as a ‘Human Knot’, ‘Tower of Shoes’ and  ‘Shark Tank’. The whole experience was enjoyable and our year level appreciated the chance to gain more knowledge about VCE and how to be successful.

Jared, Damon and Maddy

Highlights:

‘I really liked the Trivia Night and the chance to bond with my peers’

Jayde

‘I liked listening to the advice given to us by the guest speakers’

Nathan

‘The tour of Melbourne University was a good experience especially the opportunity to talk to people about uni life’

Jacob

Ellen Sawyer

Head of Senior School