Welcome back to Term 2. I hope your start has been a smooth one. It has been, and will continue to be a hive of activity for us, throughout Week 1 and 2.

Minister for Education Visit

Late in the school holidays, we had word that the Minister for Education Hon. James Merlino MP, and Member for Northcote, Kat Theophanous MP would like to visit Northcote High to make a policy announcement, see the new building and open it.

With the Easter Break between, we managed to pull together a relatively low-key visit for the morning, which also included Ged Kearney MP – Federal Member for Cooper.

Members of School Council came along; we had the architect, Kerstin Thompson with us; representatives from the Victorian School Building Authority; our four School Captains and an audience of students and staff. The Senior Jazz Orchestra did an amazing performance for the gathering, led by Tessa Bodenham.

While here we provided the Minister a tour of the campus, highlighting some of our successes and challenges. We discussed the need for permanent new infrastructure, including classrooms, the gymnasium and canteen facilities.

Now that we have fortuitously had the Official Opening, we can look forward to planning our Community Opening, which will be a much freer and inclusive gathering of the community more broadly. At School Council next week, we will be deciding the process for naming the new building, based on the community survey that was put out last term, and at our Community Opening we will officially name the building.

The Minister’s visit was very fruitful in showcasing the amazing talents and successes of our students and staff, showing off the new building and highlighting our future needs.

Thank you to staff, students, and our School Council for their efforts to make the visit such a success.

Safe Return from the various trips

You will be pleased, as I am, to know that Angela Cappelli and Jai Rochester and the 13 students who went to Italy all returned safe and sound and full of joy for all things Italian.

Barry Drinan, Christine Martin and Connie Stewart and the 24 students on the USA Art trip returned, exhausted but inspired by their art/cultural experience.

Nick Murphy, Jocelyn Hill, Michael Waiser, Kristy Phillips and Zhen Wang also returned from their trip in the first week of the holidays. The experience in China was valuable for the students and staff at our partner school in Baotou – the professional learning for the staff (both ours and theirs) and the learning and development of the students meant the trip was a great success.

The Symphonic Band tour in Brisbane has also returned safely and was a great success – thank you to Jackie Brogan, Cindy Frost and Alastair McGrath-Kerr for providing the students with this opportunity. Will Leslie won best baritone in Australia in the solo competition, which is an amazing feat. The Symphonic Band performed with class.

Year 7 Camp at Phillip Island was a huge success, and in the last week of school we completed the last of the 7 Boho Camps.

On behalf of the community, I sincerely thank all of our staff involved in these expeditions – who give up their own time with family and in many of these cases, their holidays, for the betterment of our student and community experience. A lot of the enrichment work of schools is done on the voluntary good will of staff, and we should not take that for granted.

Good News – more bike racks

Sarah Burns (Business Manager) and I applied for a grant for $50,000 from Ged Kearney, Member for Cooper to provide more bike racks for students and staff, particularly in the front of the school, and especially in the new Performing Arts area. We are excited to announce that we have received notification that our application was successful. Ged will visit us soon to make the announcement.

Open Day

By the time you’re reading this, we will have showcased the school on Tuesday 30 April to the broader community and prospective students and families. We are delighted to host student-led school tours of the facilities and classes, presentations from students and myself, faculty and co-curricular displays and various performances and other hospitality, like coffee and biscuit making, International Students’ performances and tea. I am sure it will be a huge success and that our school will be presented in a positive light (as it is each day).

NAPLAN Update

In response to VCAA/ACARA’s less than successful NAPLAN Online trial on 29 April, which we participated in, I have withdrawn us from NAPLAN online. We will now be sitting the paper test, as has been the case in previous years. It runs on 14, 15 and 16 May for Year 7 and 9.

New initiatives in Careers and Pathways from DET

Early in Term 1 the DET announced an injection of money and human resource into Careers and Pathways support to schools. This means that our Year 9s will be accessing an (approx. 2 hr) online Careers Aptitude Test, called the Morrisby Test, and then each child will have a 1:1 30 min interview with a Careers Practitioner (external) to discuss the themes generated from the report. We are currently planning this with regional team, to happen late in Term 2.

School Council Sub-Committees/Working Parties – a call for help

The new School Council meets for it's second time this week. Whilst all school councilors form part of the membership of our various Sub-Committees and Working Parties, being a member of School Council is not a pre-requisite. We have a number of non-School Council parents who are part of these committees. Being a member of these groups is often a good way to test out whether you’re interested in being in on Council in the future, and/or to contribute to the school, whilst making friends with other parents. All groups (including School Council) are efficient and effective in their administration, and start and finish on time. One of our student School Councillors described our gatherings last year like this, “it’s like a social outing where you get real work done.” Our community benefits when our collective wisdom is used to advance the school for the betterment of our students.

Our groups include:

Governance Sub-Committee (Secretary – Jocelyn Hill – Assistant Principal)

This group meets once per month on Monday evenings 6.00 pm – 7.00 pm.

We examine, develop and recommend policy to Council to ratify, discuss and assess applications for school camps and tours, examine risk assessments and progress them to Council for approval.

Met this week, Monday 29 April, meets next on Monday 20 May.

Finance Sub-Committee (Secretary – Sarah Burns – Business Manager)

This group meets once per month on Friday mornings 8.00 am – 9.00 am.

We examine the school budgets and finances, including the Essential Student Learning Items and Voluntary Contributions, we ensure compliance with DET policy, and discuss allocation of funds to projects.

Met last week, Friday 26 April, meets next on Friday 24 May.

Friends of Northcote (Secretary – Katie Archibald – Assistant Principal)

This group meets less frequently than monthly, because much of the work can be done online. This group is responsible for organising our fundraising efforts, and is a great opportunity to contribute to the school and make friends.

So far this year we have had the Performing Arts Trivia night which was a great success with $3,178.95 raised to contribute to purchases of equipment for the Performing Arts.

Coming up we have the Writers' Talkfest on 9 May, where this group will serve refreshments, the Comedy night in September which has a target of $20, 000, which would go towards the fund accumulating to renovate the library.

Thrive Fund Committee of Management and Working Party (Chair – Liza Grage-Perry – Parent)

Our voluntary contributions from the broader community are governed very tightly within a compliance framework set up under the banner of the Thrive Fund and it’s five branches (Build, Inspire, Empower (DGRs), Innovate and then our volunteer branch Contribute). This group does ongoing important work to allocate funds to families in need (Empower), and determine the recipients of Innovate grants for innovative projects. We also ratify where funds will be spent from the Build and Inspire funds.

Next meeting is Monday 13 May, 6.00 pm.

Sustainability Working Party (Chairs – Kevin Hoole – Assistant Principal and Rohan Griffiths – Green Team leader).

Meets once per term. It is meeting on Monday 6 May at 6.00 pm.

This team examine our sustainable practices, and help to maintain the schools accreditation for the Resource Smart Schools’ Program.

If you are interested in contributing to these necessary and valuable groups within our school community, please contact either the Secretary or Chair or Kate Challis (challis.kate.e1@edumail.vic.gov.au) to lodge your interest and be included on future invitations.

Prior notice of your intention to attend would be appreciated, so we can set up access to the files and documents required to allow you to contribute to the purpose of each meeting.

Outstanding Success – Rylie Wilcox (Yr 9)

Rylie Wilcox (Yr 9) played hockey for Victoria over the holidays at the U15 Girls National Championships and they won gold. It was a huge win for the team, winning all 7 of their games, only conceding one goal for the championships and winning both their semi-final & grand final matches after nail-biting penalty shoot-outs.

If your child experiences success in their outside of school endeavours, we would love to know so that we can celebrate their successes as part of our community.

Writers Talkfest – Thursday 9 May, 7.00 pm

One of the highlights of our annual calendar, is the Writers Talkfest – the theme this year is ‘Writing Mystery’. We have an incredible line up of Australian authors: novelist Toni Jordan, journalist Paul Daley, historian Judith Brett and crime fiction maestro Shane Maloney. Our host, Stella Prize-winning author, ABC broadcaster and parent, Clare Wright probes them with questions to reveal their craft.

There will also be:

Book sales by Neighbourhood Books.
Author signings, door prizes and more.
All proceeds go to the Northcote High Thrive Fund – Innovate, which supports innovative projects by students and staff.

Pre-purchasing tickets is essential – book here.

Our wonderful Friends of Northcote will be selling refreshments prior to the event, and funds raised from these sales will also go to the Innovate Fund. Don’t miss out. I look forward to seeing you there.

Writing Mystery Competition