From the Principal

At the midway mark of this unprecedented term I’d like to acknowledge the planning, adaptability and commitment of our staff.  They have been able to change plans and pivot in order to ensure learning continues to be administered as best we can under this circumstance. In addition, key processes in our planning for 2021 continue to run ‘virtually’ in a well-managed and orderly manner. 

Course selection for 2021 is now finalised for students currently in Years 9 -11.  I would like to acknowledge the work of our staff who were involved during this process over the past few weeks, in particular, Ms Snow, Mr Martens, Mr Cogan, Ms Mckay, Ms Kelly, Ms Barbaro, Ms Susnjara, Mr Raiti, Ms Vossos and our sub school leaders - Mr Wallace and Mr Hosking.  With the assistance of ID teachers and senior staff at the College, we were able to conduct virtual course conferences last week.  Thank you to all the students and parents who were well organised, prepared and attended their online Google MEET sessions at the allocated time.  This certainly made our work much easier.

The Year 7 and Year 8 students should have received their own web-code and instructions in the mail and will be able to select subjects for 2021 using the EDVAL website provided as from Monday 17th August.  Students and families have until 4:00pm Monday 24th August to submit subject choices.  If you haven’t received this information or need assistance please contact the College.

This week Year Level Coordinators will run an assembly for each year level.  Please ask your child to attend this assembly.  Although not compulsory, we also request that students have their cameras on for at least the first few minutes of each video lesson.  This assists teachers with gaining a sense of their classroom and is particularly useful for building rapport between students and teachers as well as between students and students.  A social connection is vitally important during this time.

The College has established a number of processes to track student engagement and attendance during this time and our welfare teams are working tirelessly both proactively and reactively to resolve such issues. However, if you feel your children are not coping, feeling overwhelmed or falling behind, please contact the College, we are here to help and can offer on-site support for vulnerable children or those of essential workers.

Last week, Year 12 students and families should have received an email from the Deputy Premier outlining the mechanisms in place to ensure all students received a fair and equitable VCE ranking process in 2020, ensuring no student will be disadvantaged.  Please take the time to read the correspondence if you have not yet had the opportunity to do so.

On other matters, I can report that the new STEM Centre continues to progress as planned and is well on the way to completion before the end of the term.  At that point, we will commence the oval upgrade.

Arthur Soumalias

Principal