From the Principal Class Team

Junior Sub School

Congratulations to all the members of the Junior Sub School on another successful year. From programs such as Walk it Out, Indigenous guest speakers, antibullying performances, Digital Thumbprint and High Resolves, students have been able to participate in a wide range of activities to support their engagement and wellbeing. We would like to thank the sub school members, Ms Lauren Honeycombe, Ms Marlene Cassar, Ms Ashwini Mana Mohan, Mr Loue Triainou, Mr Louis Turner and Mr Owen McIntyre for their work in supporting the Year 7 and 8 students, as well as all the teaching and support staff who worked at this level. A special thankyou to all the Junior Sub School students for an excellent year. We hope you have a great holiday!

Facility Team hard at work over the term break

There may be a break from teaching classes over the term break but this can be the busiest time of the year for the Facilities Team. Already painters have been hard at work repainting all rooms and corridors in our senior classrooms and by the start of Term 1, 2018 all rooms, corridors and external locker bays will have a fresh coat of paint.

New signage for the college will be installed and repairs will be made to asphalt areas to improve the grounds for our students. There will be many other tasks undertaken to make sure we are in great shape to start 2018.

Two major projects will begin over the break – one inside and the other outside.

The area between, and around, Nindethana and the Gymnasium will be cleared in preparation for a total redesign to provide a great student area with BBQ and seating amongst new plantings.
Our Junior Kitchen which has served us well for many years will be replaced with a modern Food Technology facility. It is expected that the new area will be available by week 3 in Term 1 next year.

We would like to acknowledge the work of the people in our Facilities Team who work tirelessly to ensure we have a clean safe and high quality environment in which to learn, teach and work. Special thanks to Liz Hedger, Dave Fraser, Tony Gavrilovski, Brett Pollard, Marion Mortimer, Joe De-Gabriele, Geoff Hutchison, Craig Moore, Deb Zsidai and Jake Watson for their work past and present.

ANZAC Memorial approved

The school received good news last week when we were advised that we had been granted money from the ANZAC Centenary Community Grants Commission to build an ANZAC Memorial in the school grounds. The school has a proud history of honouring those who have died as a result of war in its annual ANZAC Ceremony and Remembrance Day addresses. This memorial will remind us of those sacrifices but just as importantly reinforce our belief that war is never the correct answer to disagreements and that we must all do all we can to avoid the tragedies of the past and find better ways to broker resolution.

I look forward to our Anzac Ceremony in 2018 to revisit those two aspects mentioned above.

A short note from Mr Crocker

As this is my last newsletter at the end of a 41 year career in education at St Albans Secondary College I want to beg your indulgence and express a few thoughts on that time.

To our wonderful students, past and present, I want to say thank you for enriching my life as a teacher and to their families’ thank you for entrusting their futures to me. I retire so honoured to have worked in this great school with amazing staff and in an environment that has always put the student first.

I have been part of so many proactive and dedicated teams over the years that all I can say is that I could not have imagined a more positive and enjoyable experience in any other setting.

I would like to say a special thank you to Ms Miranda Truong & Ms Loan T Pham who, along with the Vietnamese parents Association, held a wonderful retirement lunch for me on Thursday, 14 December. I was very humbled by their acknowledgement of my career and really appreciated the time and effort that had gone into the luncheon.

I would like to acknowledge the Sub School Teams who do an exceptional job in guiding and empowering students, the IT Team who have become an outstanding service provider to students and staff, our Wellbeing Team who provide irreplaceable support, my teaching and non-teaching colleagues and of course my fellow PCO members in Kerrie, Craig, Losh (now at Box Hill) and more recently Mario and Janet.

I wish you all well and remind everyone that our community is what we make it – St Albans is special and always has been. Our job is to keep it special.

And finally....

A very sincere thank you to all of our parents and community for your support throughout 2017. We value it very much, and know that our students are better learners and young people for the strength of this partnership. To those families who are leaving us this year, we wish you good luck for the future.

Best wishes for a safe and happy festive season, and we look forward to seeing you in 2018.