Principal's Report
Welcome to all families who have joined our Killester Community for the first time, I hope that your daughters have settled well into life at their new school. We are acutely aware that some students find the transition to a new educational setting more difficult than others, should your daughter be having trouble with navigating her new environment please contact her Homeroom teacher to discuss strategies we can put in place to help with a successful transition.
The year began for staff with a mass celebrated by Fr Brian Collins in our newly refurbished chapel. Our Eucharistic celebration gave us the opportunity to spend time in prayer remembering our colleague, Kath Lawson, as well as all those impacted by the bushfires. Additionally we discussed as a staff how best we can honour the memory of Ms Lawson here at school, We have received feedback regarding a number of different ways the College can ensure this is done appropriately and, as plans are finalised, I will communicate these with our whole college community.
Our College theme for 2020 is Justice and we used our understanding of this to look at ways in which we can offer sustained and meaningful support to those who have suffered following the tragic bushfires. We have committed to working with the Resurrection and St Joseph Parishes when they have a Lenten drive to provide any necessary goods for those in rural communities who are still suffering. More details about this will come home via your daughters in the coming weeks. One other area for focus was discussion on ways in which we can reduce our carbon footprint and look at ensuring we honour the gift of our sacred earth. At Killester we acknowledge the challenge that a more sustainable future must be sought and aim to develop entrepreneurial thinkers of the future who will problem solve in new and exciting ways to enable our earth to heal. We commit to engaging students in a dialogue about how they can be active and vocal participants in bringing about change at a school and societal level.
In April of this year the College will be undergoing a review to be conducted by members of the Kildare Education Ministry team and the Catholic Education Office. Staff have been very busy in planning for the review and will continue this work in the coming weeks. Some families will remember the CEMSIS survey that was distributed last year, the feedback received from this survey (by students, parents and staff) will be a valuable source of evidence for us to determine areas for great celebration as well as areas for growth. There will be an opportunity for parents to be involved in focus groups with our reviewers, should you wish to be involved in this conversation please email me at the College at principal@killester.vic.edu.au. Further information about these sessions will be published closer to the review days in Term Two.
Our opening College assembly was a great celebration that enabled us to welcome back and congratulate the high achievers of 2019, recognise the students who will become the graduating class of 2020 and welcome the new Year 7s and other students joining our community. I congratulate all of our students who achieved excellent academic results in 2019. In addition, I congratulate all of our Year 12 2019 VCAL class who achieved a completion rate of 100%.
On a more individual level I also extend my congratulations to Sierra Lee who represented Victoria at Wollongong NSW over the holidays in the indoor hockey nationals, a member of a bronze medal winning team.
I very much look forward to meeting with all families at our upcoming parent information evenings and wish everyone a hopeful and joyous start to 2020.
Ms Sally Buick
Principal