FROM THE PRINCIPAL

Dear Alumni,

Please see below for some extracts from my Principal’s Report to the school community at last year’s Presentation Evenings.

2021 has been another year of growth and development for the College. Our Narre Warren South campus, now in its tenth year of operation, continues to experience strong growth with over 900 students enrolled this year. It is anticipated that around 975 students will be enrolled in 2022.

321 students joined the College at the beginning of the school year and around 2200 students are enrolled in the College across both campuses. The College currently employs 346 staff, including 203 teaching staff and 143 administration and support staff.

Whilst we were hopeful of school life returning to normal in 2021, unfortunately, this was not to be the case. The freedoms that we experienced at the beginning of the school year proved to be short lived, and it wasn’t long before the year bore an uncanny resemblance to last year.

Although we were better prepared for the shift to remote learning (and we needed to be in view of the incredibly short time frames given by the Government), there is no doubt that the emotional and mental impact of the lockdowns on some of our students and young people in general has not been insignificant.

Again, the staff rose to the occasion and employed a range of strategies to lift the spirits of the student body. Student leaders have also shone in the midst of adversity and been a great source of strength and encouragement to their fellow students.

I express my deep appreciation and gratitude to our parents for your ongoing commitment to your children’s education and wellbeing in difficult circumstances, and for your support of the College.

An issue that has caused a great source of grief and division in the school community and society in general has been the Government mandating that all school staff be vaccinated by a required timeline or else they would not be able to set foot on their school campus unless they have a medical exemption. Whilst many in the school community are in favour of such an approach, a small but not insignificant number of staff have decided not to get vaccinated at this stage. Ultimately, this will result in them no longer being able to be employed unless the current Government mandate is removed. We have had to adopt a range of strategies to enable these staff members to be able to continue their employment at the College for the remainder of Term 4, including alternate work arrangements and the taking of leave.

Parents will be aware that early in the year, the Victorian Government’s Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Bill 2020 was passed in the Legislative Council, without amendment despite representations from a significant group of organizations and individuals.

Concerns raised about the Bill included:

the rights of children and their parents, particularly in relation to seeking assistance with gender identity and sexual orientation issues including gender dysphoria;
the legal competence of children under 18 years of age, to provide informed consent for gender transitioning hormonal drug treatment;
the rights of individuals to voluntarily seek assistance for gender identity and sexual orientation issues including via pastoral care and faith organisation counselling services;
the rights of faith organisations to provide such pastoral care and counselling services to individuals who voluntarily seek assistance; and
the rights of health care professionals to provide assistance and care to individuals who seek help for gender identity or sexual orientation issues.”.

Despite these concerns, the Bill was passed in February 2021 and will come into effect in February 2022. The College has been seeking advice regarding the implications of the Bill and its potential impact on the operations of the College.

At the time of writing, the Victorian Government has indicated that it intends to re-introduce a Bill to amend the Equal Opportunity Act to limit the ability of faith-based organizations (such as Christian schools) to only employ people of faith. It appears that this time around, the Government has the numbers in the Legislative Council to pass the Bill.

Previous attempts by the Government to remove the religious exemptions in the Equal Opportunity Act failed to see the ‘light of day’ but if, as anticipated, the Government is successful on this occasion, we will most likely see courts and tribunals determining the roles in faith-based organizations for which it is an inherent requirement that the staff member be a person of faith. In the secular mindset, only a Biblical Studies teacher or school chaplain would need to be a person of faith. It is not difficult to see how these amendments could significantly undermine the foundational values of a Christian school.

Earlier in the year, Mrs Colleen Dunis, Bursar, announced that she will be retiring at the end of the year after thirty-five years of faithful service to the College. Colleen has maintained a heart for the College and its families throughout her many years of service, and never wavered in her commitment to the vision and mission of the College. She has demonstrated the utmost integrity in her role, and has genuinely sought to serve the school community to the best of her ability. I thank Colleen for the strength she has been to me, the staff, the parents, and the students for over three decades – a remarkable achievement!

Mr Peter Sheahan (Principal)

FROM THE HEAD OF CAMPUS (WANTIRNA SOUTH)

Greetings! My name is David Lepileo, and I am the new Head of Campus for Waverley Christian College, Wantirna South. I feel humbled and privileged to be a part of a school that has a rich Christian heritage. I am married to Melanie and have two sons, Josef and Benjamin. My wife is a teacher in a Christian school, my eldest son is in university and my youngest is finishing Year 12 this year. I am passionate about Christian Education and seeing students develop their own Christian faith and become lifelong learners.

As we progress through 2022, I am keenly aware that we have all emerged from different experiences of isolation caused by two years of lockdowns and remote online learning. It has been refreshing to see the return of school ‘normality’ with students filling the yard, happy to be among friends. As staff, we are enjoying running the many events that students missed over the last two years. We have gained a new appreciation for the seemingly routine events that contribute significantly to a child’s whole education. Events that students have enjoyed so far include the Year 10 Camp, Year 12 Camp, Chapel services and Art Festivals just to name a few!

It is my pleasure to serve the community here and I look forward to building strong relationships with student Alumni in the future.

WANTIRNA SOUTH BUILDING PROGRAMS

NORTH WING UPDATE AND SHADE SAILS

Many building projects have been impacted by the COVID crises and it has been a struggle for materials to be transported to many sites around the State. However, it has been very exciting to see that our project is making strong strides toward completion. We are over halfway through the project and can already begin to see the new three-storey building taking shape. We expect the completion of the building to be in July 2022.

We have also received a grant through the Victorian Government’s School Shade Sails Fund in the hope of improving some learning spaces on the College grounds. The construction of this new shaded outdoor learning area will be completed later this year. This new space will provide better learning environments for our students and enhance our College aesthetics.

We are thankful to the Lord for his ongoing provision to the College and we would ask that you continue to pray for the safety of the workers, students, and staff onsite. We are expecting the North Wing to be completed in the month of July and then some time will be taken to move into the new building.

Mr David Lepileo (Head of Campus, WS)

FROM THE HEAD OF CAMPUS (NARRE WARREN SOUTH)

It has been a wonderful blessing for all our staff and students to return to much more regular onsite learning in this past term. It has been most pleasing to have students learning in classrooms with their teachers, joining together for Chapel and Assembly, and being able to go on excursions.

We enjoyed a very successful Primary and Secondary Swimming Carnival earlier this term. This year, we attended the Noble Park Aquatic Centre, with a range of competitive and novelty events for students to participate in and to receive points for their House. You may be interested to hear that at the Secondary Swimming Carnival, Wycliffe took first place in the Swimming Trophy, and Tyndale took out first place in the House Spirit Trophy. The latter is a newer trophy that was introduced to reward the House that gets the most involved on the day with supporting their team members and cheering them on.

Our tradition of Funky Hair day continues each year. On Friday 4th March, students and staff were again encouraged to come to school wearing a wig or (temporarily) dying their hair to show their support and raise much-needed funds for the Leukemia Foundation. Some of you may recall having Mrs Fletcher as your Art Teacher during your Waverley years; she has a personal connection to the Leukemia Foundation having suffered and recovered through her own bout of Leukemia many years back and receiving welcome support from the foundation during that time. This is one of the reasons we continue to support the Foundation with this event in the College each year.

There was a collective sense of excitement and anticipation present when Secondary staff and students participated in the 2022 House Performing Arts. Miss Melody Taylor (Drama Teacher) served as MC and introduced student performances. Big cheers ensued as the Music category began, with beautiful songs performed by singers and musicians. Finney performed 'Power in Your name'; Spurgeon performed 'Can’t Stop The Feeling'; Tyndale performed 'A Million Dreams' and Wycliffe performed 'Look Up Child.' Accomplished voices expressed heartfelt lyrics, with instrumentals in violin, piano, saxophone and cello supporting them.

The second category of the House Performing Arts was Improvisation, which required a series of timed, spontaneous drama performances, with quirky prompts that set the team performances on the moon, an art gallery, the zoo and a chocolate factory. Each House responded dutifully by snapping into acting roles as scuba divers, a family of penguins, fighter pilots and thieves.

The final category was Dance, and it was impressive to see all the Houses coming together to each deliver choreography. All Houses displayed incredible talent, with somersaults, ballerina pirouettes and movement in sync. However, Tyndale delivered the most surprising of performances, which was complete with four dancers in full size blow up dinosaur costumes and they combined their dance with the addition of a flashback series of music videos behind them on the screens.

Judges Mrs Whan, Mrs Cummins and Mr Martinez spoke highly of the excellent vocals, tight performances and high energy, ultimately awarding Finney with fourth place, Tyndale third, Wycliffe second and Spurgeon with the winning prize.

Another popular excursion each year is the Year 10 Marine Animal Physiology class field research task - snorkelling at Portsea pier. Entering the water from the beach, students snorkelled over the Portsea seaweed beds where they observed weedy sea dragons, southern calamari squid, wrasse, toadfish and pufferfish.

Snorkelling under the pier itself, students were able to observe sponges, kelp and schools of sweep. I wonder how many of you alumni can recollect this trip with Mr Woolnough during your time at the College?

We also had a number of other exciting co-curricular events for students take place over this term which may bring back memories for some of you. Selected students from Year 9 and 10 attended CSEN Theatre Sports performances while the Year 8's were able to visit Kryal Castle as part of their Medieval History unit. In addition to that, the Year 8 Health students were able to travel to Phillip Island for a day of learning to surf at Smiths Beach! As a surfer himself, Mr Munyard was delighted to accompany the students to help with this excursion.

We learned new ways to do some things over the last two years of lockdown and have permanently adapted some of our processes, as I’m sure you are also experiencing in your own lives. For example, our Parent Information Evenings have continued to be online (for now), and we are also conducting our Parent/Teacher/Student Interviews in an online format. Online meetings can work well and can be quite convenient for some programs, but they cannot replace the blessing of spending face to face time together with friends, colleagues and family.

If you ever drive by the NWS Campus, you may have seen the continuing works that are happening in the carpark. We are improving and increasing our carpark spaces, which is essential as the College continues to grow. We are also excavating and laying the foundations and fencing (Stage 1) for a multipurpose sports court located near the wetlands. This is anticipated to be completed in 2024.

I trust you are all experiencing success in your own situations (whatever they may be) and I end with a verse of encouragement for you all:

'May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy.' (Colossians 1:11)

Mr Mark Crnkovic (Head of Campus, NWS)

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