From the Principals' Desk 

Dear Parents,

I wish all Nossal families and friends a Merry Christmas and a Peaceful and rewarding New Year.

I thank you all for the support you have shown the school throughout the course of the year and for your active and positive involvement in the education of your children.

As always, the final weeks of the school year are incredibly hectic with numerous traditional events and celebrations occurring alongside final exams and assessments, report writing, commencement programs, and planning and preparation for 2018.

The school Leadership team spent two days offsite planning for 2018, and reviewing our processes and priorities for next year, and the calendar of events is already looking very full and exciting.

We welcome our new Acting Assistant Principal Ms Fiona Vanstan (ex Hampton Park SC) who will be filling Ms Harrap’s role during 2018 while we advertise for a substantive Assistant Principal for 2019.

The Year 9 students have successfully regained the Terry Bennett Cup from Suzanne Cory following our annual day of spirited competition and Principal to Principal sledging. Our students also undertook the Monash Challenge and Big Day out as their final activity for the year.

I thank Ms Kutrolli for her organisation of the Terry Bennett Cup and Ms Mackin for her leadership of the Monash Challenge, and acknowledge and thank the Monash staff and students for their excellent work over the week long activity.

One of the Nossal traditions is that each Year level will organise and run their own final assemblies, which are of course somewhat less formal affairs than our usual School Assemblies. They are generally a delightful mix of talent, humour, feedback and reflection, although some talents may have been best left undiscovered. While not always politically correct, they are always a celebration of their “Nossalness,” and a joyous farewell to the year.

I received some very sad news last week – Mrs Rosemary Marquardt passed away suddenly. Rosemary and her husband Dick are the Grandparents of two Nossal graduates, and have been exceptionally strong and generous supporters of the school since our very early days.

They shared a passion for music and have helped to nurture our Music program in particular by taking whole cohorts of students to attend workshops and concerts with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and when we were struggling to purchase a piano to the school – they very generously purchased and donated five pianos to our Music Department.

Rosemary and Dick exemplify the values, social conscience and generosity of spirit that I hope we are able to instil in our students. I offer sincere condolences to Dick, Jack and Bronte on Rosemary’s passing, but her spirit and legacy will live on whenever music is played here at Nossal.

New Staff for 2018

The following new staff members have been appointed for 2018 and I welcome them to the school…

• Ms Fiona Vanstan         Acting Assistant Principal
• Ms Reshma Ravi        English
• Ms Neela Haryani        English
• Mr Gareth Campbell        PE and HHD (and Griffin House Leader)
• Ms Melanie Clarke        PE and HHD
• Ms Ildiko Varga            Humanities
• Ms Natalie Faulkner        English
• Ms Jane Denham        Humanities/History
• Ms Michelle Lloyd        English/Humanities
• Mr Dale Sutcliffe        Economics/Humanities
• Mr Stuart Groves        Maths

We have several new instrumental music teachers joining us in 2018 and will announce them all once the interviewing process is fully completed.

Following the significant flooding we received several weeks ago, we were anticipating the worst when the weather bureau was predicting damaging rains the following weekend, but thanks to Jason Bell, Chris Bramich and many other staff and students, we managed to purchase, fill and lay several hundred sandbags around the school to protect it.

Fortunately, the rain was much less than predicted and they weren’t really needed, but it was better to be safe in the circumstances. My thanks to Keith Butler, my wife Margaret and Jason Bell and Mark Humphries who spent many hours during the flood weekend mopping up the water and making things safe and operational for the following Monday. We cancelled the planned Working Bee due to the forecasts and will try to organise one for early in the new year.

The PFA still managed to hold a very successful and well supported Second Hand Book and Uniform Sale, and I thank them for their tireless efforts to fundraise and support our school community in so many different ways.

An extract of my Speech Night address which no-one on stage could hear as the front foldback speakers were not employed that evening.

'Finally, I would like to pay tribute to Ms Sue Harrap – as you all know Sue has deservedly been appointed to the Principal role at Northcote High School from 2018 and she leaves some very big shoes to fill. Sue is the third Nossal Assistant Principal to take up a Principal position which is indicative of the calibre and talent of the leaders who are attracted to Nossal High School – although I have to admit that while my congratulations are absolutely sincere, I think I feel a little like my Principal colleagues in other schools must feel when congratulating their best students for gaining a place at Nossal. You know it will be great for them and the school – but really don’t want them to go.

Sue has been at Nossal since 2012 when she joined us as a Leading Teacher. She became Assistant Principal in 2013 and has been a driving force behind much of the curriculum innovation and change that Nossal has been undertaking. She has a keen insight into what is important in education, and has an outstanding capacity to both challenge our thinking, and guide us through a structured process to achieve better results. She is a significant educational leader and thinker, and unlike me – is actually really good at finishing things and making sure everyone does as they should. She has an enormous capacity for hard work and we all rely on her to know the answer; challenge our thinking; and to let us know when we have mucked up – she is the master of honest feedback and very difficult to win an argument with - as she is usually right… and can quote or find the academic evidence to prove her point.

Most importantly for me, she genuinely believes in what she does and cares about making sure we do the best job we possibly can – and models this every day in her own work and interactions. I have learned much from Sue – we all have – and Nossal is a much better place as a result of her work, her creativity and her forward thinking. She has made herself a little too indispensable and we are all worried about how we will be able to cover the breadth of things we have come to rely on her to do. I had no hesitation in taking some leave earlier this term and leaving Sue in charge of the school – in fact my biggest worry was that she would make me look bad by doing the job so much better than I do. Northcote High School and Victorian Education will benefit enormously from the work that Sue will do there and I look forward to seeing how she puts her own unique stamp on the school and transforms their thinking as she has done ours.

Someone once told me that the secret of being a good principal was to surround yourself with excellent people who will do the work for you; and (I think this was tongue in cheek) – that the role of an Assistant Principal is to make the Principal look good. 

Well Sue, I sincerely thank you for making me look much better than I am; for the immeasurable difference you have made to our school; and for the anecdotes, crass stories, and colourful language that we have all greatly enjoyed for these past 5 years… we will miss you greatly."

Anneke Vos Butler – Dress Designer Extraordinaire

Please admire Anneke’s handiwork on display in the school foyer. Anneke and her father Phil worked together to design and create Anneke’s Year 12 Valedictory Dress and have successfully decorated it with printed images of the events and people she encountered during her Nossal journey. It is a wonderfully creative tribute to her time here and she has donated the dress to the school for display. My thanks to Anneke, and to Phil who we acknowledged during Speech Night for his outstanding contribution to our school through the PFA over the past 6 years.

VCE Results

We are very happy with the Class of 2017 results.

 They are close to or slightly above most previous years in most areas.

•    57.43 % of students achieved an ATAR of 90+

•    85.15 % students achieved an ATAR of 80+

•    21.4% of individual study scores were 40+

•    Average ATAR is 89.4

•    Median ATAR is 92.2 (highest yet)

•    Highest ATAR (Dux) is 99.75 (Fiona Anzum)

•    12 students achieved over 99

•    9 perfect study scores of 50

Very pleasing results – we hosted a morning tea for the Year 12 cohort this morning and most are very happy (and some quite surprised) with what they have achieved.

Our wellbeing and careers counselors are available to work with any students to change preferences and look at other options should there be a need.

I thank and congratulate the class of 2017 for their performance this year, and hope that they are successful in gaining entry to the courses of their choice.

I also thank and acknowledge their families and teachers for providing such strong support and assistance – particularly during the final critical VCE years.

School Dates and Times

The school closes on Friday December 22 at 2.30 pm.

•    Office opens Jan 23.

•    Teachers resume on Jan 29.

•    Students in Years 9 & 12 – Jan 30 (Foundation Assembly)

•    Students in Years 10 & 11 – Jan 31 (All classes)

For urgent matters you can contact me via my mobile phone or email during the holiday period.

Please have a safe, restful and enjoyable summer break, and I look forward to seeing you all again early next year.

Roger Page

Principal