Principal's Update
Dear Families, Students and Community Members,
2020 Headstart
This week we commenced our full school rollover (Headstart) into the 2020 academic year for Year 11 and 12 students, with Year 10 students starting on Wednesday and Years 8 & 9 students on Monday 25 November. From feedback received last year we have reduced the length of the Years 8-10 Headstart program, allowing some celebratory activities to occur before beginning the 2020 academic year. This week our Middle School students have completed Student Led Conferences on Monday, a celebratory excursion and a passion project.
Our Year Level Co-ordinators for 2020 are: Year 12 Mr Randell, Year 11 Mr Davis, Year 10 Ms Stephens, Year 9 Mr Cummins, Year 8 Mr Haber and Year 7 Ms Gorman and Ms Hockey.
Next Tuesday we will hold a Whole School Assembly to officially launch the 2020 academic year for the whole school and outline our expectations of students for the remainder of the year in this program. We expect all students to be taking the Headstart weeks seriously and their attendance, work in class, assigned homework and completion of benchmark tasks will count towards their report for Semester One next year. There will also be a progress report published on Compass for each subject at the end of Headstart. We expect that our four core values of Personal Best, Integrity, Respect and Responsibility continue to be evident in how we all work together as a community, with students demonstrating our core values on a consistent basis. All classes will be involved in developing Codes of Cooperation with their respective teachers during their first lesson.
In the assembly I will be introducing our 2020 student leadership team and our new College Captains, Vice Captains and Middle School Captains will give their first speech in their respective new roles. See below for our new team.
Welcome New Staff
We will again have a large number of new staff starting with us in 2020, to cover the staff on leave and a number of extra staff to cater for our increase in student numbers. The majority of these appointments have been made and we will have a two day induction program later in December for all our new staff. We are fortunate that some of our new staff were able to commence in Headstart. This week we have welcomed
Tracey Bastin – new Assistant Principal. With our growth in student numbers taking the school to over 1100 students next year we will now have three Assistant Principals. Tracey has come from Dromana Secondary College, where she was a Leading Teacher – Head of Senior School. Tracey will be overseeing the Middle School and Andrew Moffat will continue to oversee the Senior School. Marina Walsh will focus on Teaching and Learning.
Krystal Collyer – has moved from Somerville SC to a leadership role with us as our Applied Learning Coordinator (VCAL curriculum and student management).
Ebony Powell – a graduate teacher who will be teaching VCAL and PE
Samantha Wells – a graduate teacher who will be teaching PE, Outdoor Education and VCAL
Ryan O’Donnell – a graduate teacher who will be teaching PE and VCAL
Amelia Hargreaves returns from family leave at 0.6, teaching Maths and MEX
David Bentley – an experienced teacher who has worked with us before, returns to teach Science and Maths.
Student Leadership Positions 2020
We conducted our selection process for many of the student leadership positions earlier than usual so these positions could be formally taken up from Headstart. I congratulate all students who went through an extensive application process where candidates delivered a speech to their year level, wrote a short application and were interviewed by a panel of three members of the College leadership team. I am pleased to announce the successful candidates who will form the new student leadership team.
Senior School
College Captains – Elisa Barone & Jack Phillpotts
College Vice Captains- Noreigh Zuniga & Ava Collison
VCAL Captain – Georgia McLeish
Environmental Captains – Zoe Pegrum & Sarah Murray
Visual Arts Captain – Ella Price
Performing Arts Captain – Eboni Kewin & Luke Holland
Sports Captains – Jack Alacqua & Madeleine Mead
Special Events Captains – Claudia Lennox & Ricardo Provenzale
International Students Captain – Linly Louanglath
House Captains:
Bunurong – Carter Fox
Iwala – Calvin Lee
Kalura – TBC
Yerlonga – James Vicendese
Middle School:
Middle School Captains: Madi Galland & Jeremy Thai- Chan
Middle School Vice-Captains: Jasmine Cane & Thomas Toth
House Captains: Still to be selected
Congratulations to all students who were nominated and went through the selection process for these important positions. Thanks to Robyn Wilson, Jo Greenhalgh, Daniel Williams and Simon Cummins for being on the respective selection panels with me. In addition to these positions, students still have the opportunity to nominate for Middle School House Captains and Year Level SRC positions soon.
Grade 5 Immersion Visits
Mordialloc College is committed to ensuring that all students are welcomed to the College through an informative yet nurturing and supportive transition program. As part of our transition initiatives this year we have offered our local feeder primary schools an opportunity for Grade 5 students to experience life at secondary school through a morning immersion program. The program allows students to participate in a range of hands on activities across the College e.g. Food Technology, PE, Design Technology, Art, Drama and Sc