Assistant Principal

From Mr Simkin

Since our last newsletter, published two weeks ago, it has been fantastic to see Victoria continue the trend of ‘double doughnuts’ days and extend the time with no local transmission beyond the 28-day target. I know that our students and the wider community are enjoying being able to return to a more normal way of living.

Congratulations to our Year 12 cohort, with most students having now completed their final VCAA Examinations, with only exams for a few subjects concluding early next week. We look forward to celebrating the end of Year 12 with you at the Virtual Valedictory on the 3rd of December.

This week our Year 11 students completed their exams, with a number held in the new Senior school building. It has been great to have such a fantastic space to utilise throughout this term and I’m sure our Year 11 students will benefit from it significantly next year. Year 11 students will move into their Year 12 transition classes next week, with a chance to meet their teacher, gain an introduction to their Unit 3 study and commence early work on the course content. It is critical that students use this transition time well and complete any tasks that are set during the holiday break to ensure a positive start to 2021. Year 11 transition will run from Monday to Thursday, due to the Pupil free day scheduled for Friday 4th of December.

Year 7 to 9 classes are continuing, with normal timetabled classes running through until Friday December 11th. Our Junior students have shown great perseverance, through the number of changes that they have experienced, and whilst clearly some are feeling tired as we near the end of the year, it is great to see them at school and making connections with their peers and staff that will serve them well into next year. Junior music students have really benefited from the relaxing of restrictions this week, which has allowed small group tuition to commence indoors. Thank you to students and teachers who persisted through the earlier challenges, that saw music lessons conducted on the oval under temporary gazebos for much of this term. In other exciting news for our Year 9 Duke of Edinburgh students, they will be able to attend an overnight camp on the 9th of December, in order to complete the requirements of the program. It is great to see us return to a point where the running of a camp is possible and hopefully, we will be able to offer most, if not all, of our normal excursions and camps next year.

Finally, our Year 10 students participated in workshops this week presented by the Tomorrow Man and Tomorrow Woman organisation, with students exploring what it means to be a young person in 2020 and the stereotypes placed upon young people. Students were extremely engaged with the workshop and their feedback has been really positive. For further details, please see Kati Recino’s article later in this newsletter.

Year 10’s will complete Year 11 transition commencing on Monday 7th December, with details to be provided to students from the Senior School shortly. Please note that due to the Orientation day for incoming Year 7’s being held on Tuesday 8th of December, the Year 10 into 11 transition program will not run on the 8th of December and current Year 10 students will not be required to attend school on that day.

Year 7-11 Reports

Reports will be available on Compass on Wednesday 16th December. In line with Department of Education guidelines, there are a few small changes to reports for this Semester. These are:

Attendance will not be shown on reports due to the significant time in remote learning
Victorian Curriculum levels will only be included for English and Mathematics
Reports will include ratings against three Work Habits areas for each subject: Engagement in learning, Completed required work, Used Feedback

Have an enjoyable weekend, as we head into summer and the final 3 weeks of the school year.

Kyle Simkin

Acting Assistant Principal