From the Principals' Desk 

A Reflection on Our Culture

Since the second half of 2021, Nossal High School has been involved in an active – and at times very public – discussion about the attitudes some of our young men display when talking to and about other members of our community. Specifically, we have seen recent evidence of misogyny, homophobia and transphobia, some of it expressed in the vilest and most violent terms. In a recent speech, I hope that I made clear to our current students that this type of language and the attitudes it encapsulates have no place in our school. Today I would like to restate this again for the whole community. We do not condone, and nor do we accept, a way of looking at the world that says that some people are worthy of respect while others are available as a target for scorn, ridicule or violence. 

In August of 2021 the school took various immediate steps to respond to the concerns raised in this space, and also put together an action list for future work. That work has been in progress, but clearly it has not progressed far or fast enough. We have run focus groups with our senior students in which we discussed the type of culture we wanted to see at Nossal, and talked together about how we can best create and maintain that culture as new students enter the school. We have continued to engage students in activities drawn from the Respectful Relationships curriculum. We have scheduled sessions with our Year 9 & 10 students with ManCave, and sessions with Elephant Ed on consent education with our Year 11 students. We have run additional professional development for our staff focussed on boys’ education specifically, and on restorative practices and pedagogies more broadly. We have revised and expanded entries in the student handbook to both improve our students’ understanding of what to expect when they bring issues to our attention, and to ensure that they know how to seek help when they need it. In addition, we have worked with our Mental Health Practitioner to considerably expand our access to external support services for those students who need more help than we can give. 

What we have not managed to do yet is to bring some of our students – especially some of our male students – to a true understanding of how out of step their attitudes to women are with the rest of the world. For some of our boys, telling a girl to “go back to the kitchen” is a mild joke instead of an insulting dismissal. If I thought that these young men had genuine respect for those men and women who choose to focus their lives and labour in the home, I would not be angry. It is very clear, however, that what they are instead parroting is misogyny in its purest form – at best through these outdated stereotypes about a woman’s place, and at worst in ways that make it clear that they see women as little more than objects to be used. As a woman who has spent the bulk of her working life demonstrating exactly what a woman can achieve outside the kitchen, I am personally offended. As an educator, I am saddened that decades of educational work inside and outside schools has yet to eradicate these sorts of views. As a school leader, I am galvanised to ensure that we do more, since more clearly needs to be done.

In future weeks and months we will be expanding our planned interventions with further targeted work supported by the Department of Education and Training Respectful Relationships team. We will continue to foster conversation with our students about the issue and the school’s position on it. We will provide further clarity to our students about the staged series of consequences which perpetrators of this sort of behaviour can expect in our school, and we will continue to support the growing willingness of those students who find this behaviour as offensive as I do to call it out. If I am heartened by anything, it is by the fact that students of all genders have been quick to let the school know about the most recent manifestations of this phenomenon. When I spoke to our students about this, I talked about the fact that if we want to be people of integrity, we have to make our actions match our best claims about who we are. If we want to be thought of as good people, we have to act like good people regardless of the audience or context. It is this, the concrete manifestation of the school’s vision in the form of graduates who are ethical, respectful and willing to take positive action, that I hope to see from all of our students in the future. 

The Onset of the SAC Season

Every year it takes our teachers five or six weeks to teach their students something substantial, at which point many of them seek an opportunity to provide some substantial feedback as well. 

It is now Week 6, and the Unit 3 SAC calendar is looking fairly full. For our junior students, also, some major tasks are typically due at this time, and this may be a source of some anxiety as they wonder what their new teachers will be looking for, and wanting to do their best. 

I would like to take a moment to remind them, and their parents, that it is the gaps in their knowledge that will show them the way forward. Having an assessment task on hand to help them identify these gaps is like having a handy diagnostic tool ready to hand. I know it can be difficult to see past the gaps and recognise how much information these tasks provide about each student's progress, but I encourage all of our students to celebrate the gains they have made in such a short time. 

I am confident that each one of them will be able to point to something that they previously didn't know about, or know how to do, and I celebrate this achievement with them. 

A Memorial for

Ms Waddington

We will be holding a memorial to celebrate the life of Nancy Waddington on Saturday March 19 in the Meath Auditorium at Nossal High School in Berwick. The service will start at 10.30am and be followed by refreshments. Nancy's family have advised that she would have loved to provide any of her past students or colleagues the opportunity to perform again, so if anyone would like to do so please let the school know. 

COVID Ongoing

As you will perhaps be aware, the school recently moved to some more relaxed COVID settings in which regular RAT distribution is being maintained, but masks moved to being strongly recommended rather than mandated. I have been pleased and proud to note the number of students who have continued to be mindful of their own safety and that of others by retaining their use of masks indoors. Although we have seen some small increases in the number of positive cases on campus, overall our exposure rates have been very low, and that is (I believe) thanks to the care for each other which each member of our community is showing at this time. 

Normal Nossal News

As you will see in later sections of the newsletter, we have in the last fortnight also been enjoying a pleasingly normal version of Term 1. The House Swimming Carnival was blessed by sunshine and high levels of enthusiastic participation, our Year 9 students  enjoyed the annual excursion to the Ice House to round out their early induction experiences, and our Unit 1 Physical Education students were part of the first camp for 2022 - the annual Surf Camp to Phillip Island. The Theatre Sports Competition has also been running at lunchtimes for the last week and a half, and we are all waiting with bated breath for the final later this week. 

These programs - and the Camps and Pathways program which will become the focus of school life in Week 8 - are impossible without the steadfast and enthusiastic support of both staff and students. While I have had moments this week when I have been deeply disappointed by individual events, there can be no doubt that the school as a whole remains a caring and committed place to pursue learning in all its forms. It is this openness to growth that allows me to feel optimistic that together we will find ways work towards a Nossal where all of us hold ourselves to standards of which we can be proud no matter where we are or what we are doing.

Tracey Mackin

Acting Principal