News For Parents

ACE Program | Applications for 2021 Now Open

The Wheelers Hill Secondary College Aspire, Challenge, Enrich (ACE) Program is an exciting new initiative for high achieving students, launching in 2021. All students enrolling in Year 7 in 2021 are eligible to apply for the ACE Program, which provides high-ability students with a stimulating alternate curriculum, offered in tandem with the robust co-curricular opportunities provided to all students at Wheelers Hill Secondary College.

Due to the extension of the Easter school holidays, the application close date for the ACE Program in 2021 has been moved to Friday, April 17th. Applications will be accepted digitally via email, as well as via post. To download an application form, please click here.

Open Night 2020 | Register Your Place Online

The Wheelers Hill Secondary College Open Night is our most important event for prospective parents and students, allowing students in Grades 5 and 6 to experience the very best that our College has to offer with interactive tours, a faculty fair, and current student meet-and-greets.

If you know a friend or family member who would be interested in learning more about our College, please invite them to attend our Open Night for 2020 on Wednesday, April 29th, from 6:00pm. The evening is free, and parents can register their interest using our online registration form.

All families who register will also be notified in the event that Open Night is postponed or moved to a date later in Term 2 due to the developing COVID-19 situation.

Parent Survey | What Does Wheelers Mean To You?

In order to help improve our College's communication platforms, we'd like to hear from the people who know us best - our community! All parents and guardians are invited to respond to this short survey, which will allow you to provide invaluable information about what we're doing well, what we can improve, and what you'd like to see more of in the future.

The survey takes less than 5 minutes to complete, and all responses are anonymous, so please be as honest and candid as you wish. To complete the survey, please click here.

Mr. Jack Richardson

Communications Officer

Literacy | Experiment & Adapt These Holidays

"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better." - Samuel Beckett 

What to do in times like these? Experiment. Try new things. Talk to others and see what they are doing.  They say it takes a community to raise a child and I couldn’t agree more. Although, with my children, I think I need a back-up community to step in when my first community drops everything and runs away when it gets too hard!  But in truth, it will take a caring community to get us through these times. We may be physically in isolation, but our communication is not isolated, and we must embrace the opportunity to connect and support each other whenever we can. 

In my role as a Literacy Leader, I want you to know that you can do many things to support your child at home. And here are just a few: 

Reading for 20 mins per day. Ask your child to read for 20 mins and then engage in conversation about the book. You can even model this behaviour and sit down with them and read your own book.

Engage in conversation after the reading. You can use the Five Finger Retell model. If it is fiction, ask these questions: Orientation (When and Where), Problem (What went wrong?), Event (Then what happened?), Event (What happened next?), Solution (How did it end?) If it is Non-fiction, ask these questions: Main Idea, Fact 1, Fact 2, Fact 3, Connection to Self Again, model this, by discussing your book/text first so you lead the way and your child can see what a good conversation about a book/text looks like. 

Writing. Writing to Learn activities are fun, low stakes tasks, that just get our students to put pen to paper, not fingers to keyboards. You can do simple things like an A-Z lists of all the foods they like. They can do a Mind-Map of activities they can do in the house. They can do a Top Ten list of their favourite movies. You can do any topic and give it a time limit to add a bonus challenging element to it.  

As a Literacy Specialist, all I ask is that you give it a go. Because who cares if it fails. When I make an error, I turn to Samuel Beckett’s saying: "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."

For more ideas around literacy, have a look at the Learning Strategies table below, or please contact me: chan@whsc.vic.edu.au. 

Ms. Claire Hanley 

Literacy Learning Specialist 

Assistant Principal | Information for VCE Parents 

As we complete Term 1, we find ourselves in unprecedented times and through necessity, navigate through uncharted waters. As such, I would like to reassure both senior school students (particularly our Year 12s) and their families, that as we navigate these times of uncertainty, there is a team of dedicated educational professionals at WHSC who are working extremely hard to ensure that there is continuity of learning for all.

To date we have set up all VCE classes on MS Teams. This platform will enable teachers to facilitate classes in a virtual environment, enabling collaboration to take place and providing access to resources, as would be the case in an onsite classroom environment. Staff this week have been trialling the system and we have been extremely pleased with how everybody has adopted and embraced this different way of working.

As always, if you need to contact any member of the senior school team, please refer to the contact details below: 

Please contact members of the senior school team if you wish to discuss anything in relation to your son or daughter. You can also contact me directly: jand@whsc.vic.edu.au

Ms. Judy Anderson

Assistant Principal

VCE Careers Update | Careers Coordinator

YEAR 9 MORRISBY ASSESSMENT

As part of the Department of Education and Training initiative, Wheelers Hill Secondary College has once again offered all year 9 students the opportunity to undertaking the Morrisby Online Career Assessment.

Year 9 students sat this assessment on Wednesday 18th March and they should all be commended on the positive way they approached this task.  The Morrisby Assessment is an amazing tool which is designed to assist students with making better choices about subject selection, vocational education and training, senior secondary school certificates and further study.

Upon completion of this assessment all year 9 students will be scheduled in for a one to one careers consultation. These consultations are due to take place at school from Tuesday 14th April-Friday 17th April.  The Career Consultants will guide each student through their Profile Report to ensure that they understand their findings and therefore be able to use this information to effectively make future career decisions.  At this stage one to one appointments are still scheduled to take place at the school and students who have completed their profiling will be emailed their appointment time over the school holidays so I encourage them to regularly check their emails.  If there are still restrictions with regards to running these face to face appointments then alternative measures will be put in place and once confirmed, students and parents will be notified.

Finally, I would like to thank the team of teachers who assisted with facilitating this assessment as without their help our students would not have been able to participate in this valuable program. 

Ms. Voula Jakubicki 

Careers Coodinator 

College & DET Privacy Policy

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. Please take time to remind yourself of the school’s collection statement, found on our website.

For more information about privacy, see: Schools’ Privacy Policy – information for parents. This information also available in nine community languages.