Message from our

Campus Principal

It was a fun time at the University Campus on Thursday with VCE and VCE VM students sitting the GAT (General Achievement Test) in the Fed Uni Auditorium. While I won’t say that the students I spoke to loved their GAT day it was encouraging that they did not seem too traumatised by the experience.  The GAT is used to assess student literacy and numeracy and to provide a predicted study score for the students studying Year 12 VCE subjects. The latter is particularly important if something happens that makes it impossible for a student to sit an exam at the end of the year. 

This week has been very different with VCE VM students coming in to do catch-up sessions and VCE students sitting exams on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. I have a lot of teaching staff very excited about the number of exams they have to mark. It is for this reason that the next sentence is very important.  A reminder for students and parents that Monday, June 19 is an Assessment Day for the University Campus staff. No classes will be running on Monday at the University Campus. Semester 2 starts on Tuesday, June 20.

Semester reports will be finalised late next week and will be available on Compass before the end of the term. We are only a week away from the winter holidays! It is important that students use this time to have a break, BUT it is also important for VCE students studying Year 12 subjects to use some of this time to revise what they have learned during the semester. VCE exams start in late October. I know that sounds like a long time away but I can promise you it isn’t. Term 3 is a particularly busy and chaotic time and the more students can do to prepare themselves now the better they will be when we do reach the very pointy end of the Year 12 year. 

There are some Year 12 VCE students who have already talked to staff about not wanting a study score for their subjects. VCE study scores are used to calculate the Australia Tertiary Admissions Rank (ATAR) which universities use to help them to rank applicants for their courses. If there are students who do not need an ATAR for their career pathway there is an option to go non-ATAR and not sit the end-of-year exams. The process for going non-ATAR will be held during term 3 and will involve students and their parents/guardians. Students and families will receive more detailed information about this early next term.

On Thursday Education Support staff met at Churchill Hotel for their annual Thank You Lunch. People think that a school is a place full of students and teachers. True, up to a point. That place full of students and teachers would be completely unworkable without the aides assisting students in the classrooms, the office staff making sure that all the daily administration is completed, the careers staff providing expert advice on subjects and career pathways, the counsellors and student advocates who help students deal with problems at school and their wider world, staff with the technical knowledge to ensure that teachers can run experiments in their science classes, the staff who organise all the things that happen in the library and Study Hall. So, thank you to all our ES staff for helping make the University Campus the school it is.

Geoff Block

University Campus Principal