Principal News

Dear Parent/Carer

Welcome to the Summer Term. Although it may be a distant memory I hope that you had a fulfilling vacation and felt ready to make the next 11 weeks count. This is a very busy Term as we focus on planning for 2019 while still delivering high quality outcomes in the classroom and reporting on individual learner progress.

The start of the Term was smooth as usual with students and staff getting into new learner from the very start. As a College we use the first few days of every Term to revisit class expectations and routines with a mini version of ‘Start-Up’ week. As usual all our classes start with circle time as we reconnect with our learners and rebuild the relationships on which all learning is based.

I would like to take this opportunity to introduce Karen Fernandez to you. Karen joins us in the Business Manager role – we are very pleased to have her on board.

Hands On Learning Café

Over the Vacation the College received a special accolade for our work in applied learning. The Finnish Ministry of Education has developed a project to identify global examples of innovative practice in schools. They started here in Victoria and investigated ten examples of teaching and learning that they believe point to the future - our Hands on Learning Café is one of them. This is incredible international recognition for the College and the HOL team led by Seral Fehmi.

Hands On Learning Café student Amy brews up another great coffee under the watchful eye of Program Leader Seral Fehmi.

The Hands on Learning cafe is among 10 Victorian innovations that have caught the attention of Finnish not-for-profit HundrED. While policy makers and politicians from around the world often look to Finland to improve their schools, the organisation has been studying what's happening in Victorian classrooms. Last year, HundrED which receives funding from the Finnish government, chose the "education state" as its first location for a new project that identifies innovations and then shares them with the world. It has spent the past 10 months weighing up the state’s best education initiatives and will now publish guidelines to help other schools implement similar ideas.

“Knowing that Victoria was the education state, we wanted to look at what was happening here,” he said.

“We were excited to see that there are innovations all around the state, not just in Melbourne, and these are serving all sorts of different needs.”

There has been movement amongst the states heavy hitting schools since last year. Meanwhile, a pattern can be seen and which subjects are dominated by gender.

School Council Report (September 2018)

Hello everyone and welcome back to Term 4.

School Council met at the end of Term 3 and we discussed:

The impact of the new Burnside primary school with an expected reduction in Prep enrolment numbers for 2019
The need to revisit the landscape masterplan for the School in light of the new learning spaces planned for early Term 4
NAPLAN results
The valuable contribution to the School made by recently-departed Business Manager, Samantha McDonald, and her replacement, Karen Fernandez. Welcome to the School Karen and Council looks forward to working with you.

School Council welcomes members of the school community to attend School Council meetings. If you are interested, please contact myself or Mr Sherlock (School Principal) at least 24 hours prior to the meeting. If you are interested in joining Council's sub-committees, please contact me directly or Mr Sherlock to express your interest.

If you have any feedback or questions about School Council, I encourage you to email me directly (Anderson.Christian.C@edumail.vic.gov.au). I look forward to sharing more with you in the next newsletter.

Christian Anderson

School Council President