PRINCIPAL'S REPORT
Principals Newsletter Report 20th May
Another busy fortnight of learning, NAPLAN, and camp almost complete. It’s hard to believe we are almost halfway through term 2 and we’re one sleep away from Election Day and a democracy sausage!
IDAHOBIT DAY 2022
Our community acknowledged IDAHOBIT day on Tuesday 17 May. IDAHOBIT day - International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Interphobia & Transphobia (IDAHOBIT) The day celebrates LGBTQIA+ people globally, and raises awareness for the work still needed to combat discrimination. We were joined at Western Heights College by alumni Nicole Scott (mental health educator), who gave a short speech about the meaning of IDAHOBIT and why it’s important for everyone in our community to feel safe and respected. Students also took part in some lunchtime activities like painting in rainbow colours and making their own rainbow badges. It was fantastic to see some students approach Nicole for a chat too. Thanks to Nicole for being our special guest and to School Nurse Lisa for organising the event!
Education Week 2022
Education Week 2022 will be held from Sunday 22 May to Saturday 28 May 2022 and will celebrate 150 years of public education in Victoria. Every Victorian school, educator and student today continues the education story started in 1872 when our state became one of the first jurisdictions in the world to offer free, secular and compulsory education WHC will be acknowledging Education Week across the week by acknowledging our rich history as a school and our origins
Staff Professional Learning Day
The colleges next professional learning day for the Berry St Education Model (BSEM) will be conducted on Tuesday 24 May. This day will be a pupil free day.
Health, Wellness and COVID Settings Updates
As the cooler winter months approach, a resurgence of influenza (the flu) and colds is expected. Schools are at risk of higher rates of students and staff affected by flu and COVID-19.
To reduce the spread of colds, flu and COVID-19, we encourage all students and staff
to:
· wash and sanitise their hands regularly
· avoid touching eyes, nose, and mouth with unwashed hands
· cover their nose and mouth when they cough or sneeze
· get tested for COVID-19 if they feel unwell
Students and staff with cold or flu-like symptoms should take a COVID-19 RAT test and stay home until their symptoms pass. If a student becomes ill at school, we will arrange for the student’s family to collect them.
Rapid Antigen Tests (RATs) will continue to be distributed to you as they have been throughout this school year for the remainder of this term. However, from Monday 23 May 2022, students will no longer be recommended to undertake either twice weekly RATs. RATs however will continue to be required by students who are household contacts to attend school (5 negative tests over a 7-day period) or who have symptoms.
The ongoing supply of RATs to families in our school will ensure that parents and carers will have them should they need them if their child is a household contact or has symptoms. RAT Test kits are available for collection from the WHC general office.
Families must continue to notify the Department of Health and the school if their child returns a positive RAT result. Additionally, you should inform us if any of your children are household contacts.
Interhouse Cross Country
Last Friday I enjoyed the chance to run the interhouse cross country with our students. Congratulations to Vines House for taking out the victory and to all students who were successful. I wish all students well who will now progress to the Geelong Division of SSV finals.
New opportunities for WHC senior students for 2023
The Centre for Higher Education Studies (CHES) is an exciting opportunity for high-achieving and high-ability senior secondary students from right across Victoria’s government schools, including students at Western Heights College
CHES is a state-wide provider of Higher Education Studies, which are first-year university subjects delivered in partnership with a range of Victorian universities. CHES also intends to specialise in a select range of VCE studies, including Extended Investigation, with additional curriculum offers to be shared soon.
Students will soon be able to apply, with the support of our school, to study one subject through CHES to complement their 2023 VCE program. CHES subjects may contribute to a student’s ATAR with some subjects also providing university credits. CHES will also offer enrichment programs for students, including a range of masterclasses, presentations, discussions with a range of leading experts, and mentoring.
Students will remain enrolled at Western Heights College with their CHES study integrated into their VCE program, much like students who study a VET subject or a VCE subject through Virtual School Victoria.
Construction of the state-of-the-art Centre in South Yarra is well underway. The Centre will be easily accessible by public transport to support students attending onsite. Whilst the new Centre will be the physical home of CHES, students will be able to participate in their CHES studies from anywhere around the state. Using innovative and integrated technology throughout the learning spaces, students who are engaging remotely from home or school will be able to interact with their teachers and peers at CHES as if they were physically in the room.
Details around the enrolment process and specific application timelines will be announced soon. Students will be able to apply shortly afterwards. Interested students and families are encouraged to visit the CHES website for more information.
Teacher Professional Practice Days
For Term 2, 2022, the Department of Education and Training has provided schools with the option to hold each teacher’s allocated professional practice day on the same day for all staff. This is to enable the most effective and efficient use of this day.
As a result, we have scheduled our professional practice day for Friday 10 June. Students will therefore not be required to attend school on this day.
Morrisby Testing
Early this term, Year 9 students completed an assessment called the Morrisby Survey. This is an in-depth assessment of student interest and provides an insight into possible career pathways. Once the testing is finalised, the Department of Education will send expert staff out to the school to discuss and review the findings of each student in a 1-1 interview with all students. Most students find this very valuable and helps to crystallise possible future pathways and areas of study post-secondary schooling. A big thank-you to Roger Conron for supporting this process.
NAPLAN 2022
This week, our Year 7 and 9 students completed their NAPLAN testing. This year students completed NAPLAN on the online portal, and all should be congratulated on the smooth roll out of the online testing. We would also like to acknowledge the work of Sam from the school IT department for their support in getting our systems and the students’ devices ready to go. The shift to completing NAPLAN online has several benefits for students, parents, and schools. One of the biggest benefits is the adaptive nature of the tests, where a student’s test will adapt to provide students with questions to either extend students in their thinking with more challenging questions or provide students with greater scaffolding with some simpler questions. This means that the tests will provide students, parents, teachers, and schools with a more detailed and accurate understanding of what students can do in each of the areas tested (Reading, Writing, Conventions of Language and Numeracy).
Whilst individualised results to students and parents won’t be released until August, some initial whole school data will be provided for teachers in the coming months so they can individualise and target the needs to individuals and small groups of students in their classes.
Students who were absent for the testing this week have been scheduled to complete a ‘catch-up’ NAPLAN session throughout the week.
Sport Congratulations
Congratulations to our SSP Leader and Basketball head coach David Herbert on recently being awarded Basketball Victoria’s joint winner of the “coach of the year” award for the First time named the Lindsay Gaze Award. We are so proud of you “Herbie’ and our community is very lucky to have you onboard.
Well done to Sienna Harvey who was also selected recently in the Australian U17 Sapphires Basketball Team and will travel to Jordan for the World Championships later this year.
Ollie Northam of year 12 is also progressing with his AFL this year, selected to play for the Victorian Country U18 Team against a Colgate “Young Guns” team. The Colgate Young Guns squad features the state’s brightest 19-year-old prospects, most of whom are competing as top-age players in the 2022 NAB League Boys season. The squad also includes several VFL-listed players. Ollie played predominately forward and impressed in his performance.
Congratulations to our Year 9/10 Boys and Girls AFL teams who yesterday won through to the Western Metropolitan SSV finals after winning the Local SSV championships today. They will join our senior girls AFL team who last week progressed through to the next round after a victory over Surf Coast SC. Well done to our senior boys, who although undermanned due to illnesses played 2 games winning 1 and losing 1 in the Geelong Division of SSV AFL championships. Congratulations to all students and coaches on this success and to large number of parents and carers who supported our students in these competitions.
Have a wonderful weekend and take care,
Fiona Taylor
Principal
Child Safety at WHC
Western Heights College is a child safe organisation committed to protecting students from all forms of abuse.
Our College has stringent protocols in place and endeavours at all times to be fully compliant with the Child Safe Standards set out under Ministerial Order 870.
Our College has the following documents and policies in place to achieve compliance with the Standards. All of these documents are available for downloading on our website or contact the school for a copy.
1. Commitment to Child Safety
2. Child Safety Policy
3. Child Safety Code of Conduct
4. Child Protection Policy and Procedures
Annual privacy policy reminder for 2022
Our school collects, uses, discloses and stores student and parent personal information for standard school functions or where permitted by law, as stated in the Schools’ Privacy Policy.(found on the colleges webpage)
Please take time to remind yourself of our school’s collection notice, found on our website. For more information about privacy, refer to: Schools’ Privacy Policy — information for parents and carers on the webpage. This information is also available in nine community languages:
* Amharic
* Arabic
* Dari
* Gujarati
* Mandarin
* Somali
* Sudanese
* Turkish
* Urdu
* Vietnamese.