Principal's Message

Hello and welcome to the 2022 school year!

We have had a fantastic start to the year, couldn’t be happier really. 

The staggered start has worked really well. Year 7 students had a chance to settle into the Wargomerrin building and feel comfortable with the ‘whole secondary thing’, before the building was full of Year 8 and 9 students as well (on a normal school day, there are 600 students in that building, so yes, it’s very busy!).

The Year 11 and 12 students simply flowed into classes, session 1, day 1 and they are clearly showing a desire to make the most of this year. The transition program is now paying us back ten-fold. All that hard work, 2 weeks of transition, and the Year 11 into Year 12 camp has set students up well for this fine start.

Then on day 2 our Year 8, 9 and 10 students joined us and our College is up and about!

I have spent much time walking the corridors and classrooms in the past days, and have been very pleased with the way they are rolling. You, as a parent, expect excellence from the College and we need to deliver. To ensure this is the case I need to be out and about to see and know what’s going on in every aspect of the College. Thinking that this is happening and then checking that it truly is happening, is the trick to knowing for sure.

Let’s talk ‘stinky Covid’ for a moment. There has been a lot of communication, so I don’t want to labour the point too much. 

Basics: All people on site must wear a mask when indoors. The truth is that the majority of students have been fabulous with this. Yes, we have the small number who want to ‘play the silly game’, but on the whole – a great job to all. Teachers / adults can remove their mask when giving instruction. The other two key factors remain: Distancing and hand washing / sanitiser. 

Anyone on site (visitor) must be double vaccinated (at least).  If we continue to stick to these fundamentals, then we are protecting our whole College community as much as possible. 

Let’s talk ‘RAT's’ (Rapid Antigen Tests). We received half of our total allocation and the rest are on their way. All RAT's have been distributed and we will repeat the process next week. The advice is: test twice per week to ensure that you are negative before coming to school (we have suggested Sunday night and Tuesday night, but truly – it’s up to your family to decide). If by chance you are positive, stay isolated for 7 days and if you are a household contact – home for 7 days. 

Let’s talk air purifiers: We have had our delivery of 56 and they have been distributed around classrooms (they are noisy! 😊).  If you would like to chat about any aspect of 'stinky' COVID – I am happy to do so, just call.

We have new faces! We have had loads of new students enrolled and a number of new staff. We are intending to introduce you to a couple of new staff each newsletter, with a little bit of a background story, and how they have ended up working at our College.  

New staff have all settled in well and we met during the week to have a very practical based Q & A session. I am pleased to say they are ‘going really well’ and I hope you all enjoy the quick introduction piece that they have written. Please take a look at our new staff page of our newsletter.

SCHOOL COUNCIL: Just a reminder – that the ‘old council’ (I mean that nicely 😊) will be seeking new members soon. If this is something that you are interested in, please feel free to call and chat to me, Jo Rankin or Kim Caire.  David Radford has been the Council President for the last two years and Anita Padula his Vice. I am sure they would be happy to chat about the role also.  The College office will be able to arrange for contact numbers.

Congratulations to James Caddie on his outstanding music achievements – check out the music section for the details.

Please consider yourself invited to come and chat to me regarding ‘any school related topic’, and if you are keen for a walk around – your welcome to contact me for a suitable time.

Something to ponder: What was the last task that you failed at? But much more importantly: What did you learn from that?

Looking forward to the year.

Trudie Nagle

Principal