From the Principal's desk 

Hello to all our community members.

My last page header of 2020 featured the graduates of the class of 2020 and this issue has the first days of one of the classes of - Year 12  - 2033! 

The future for these children is hopefully incredibly bright in a safe, enriching and healthy world.

We hope that many of this group will continue their whole schooling at Northern Bay College and that their final years will be in an impressive and vibrant collection of learning spaces which are currently being planned for Goldsworthy Campus. The plan will be to have facilities to best cater for later years educational needs and expectations heading towards 2033 and beyond.

The Goldsworthy building upgrade continues to move along at a great pace. Our appointed architects firm - Biuro Ailtiri - have been busy collecting site plans and developing an understanding of the essential learning space needs as they work to create the first of what I am sure will be many ‘mud map’ designs.

Pasquale Di Lorio and Brendan Shannon - our architects - are keen to ensure that the final product is one that is informed by a strong stakeholder voice. 

Starting Right

Many of our stages of schooling pages in this newsletter talk of the importance of starting the school year right. This means starting positively across Northern Bay College for students, families and staff.

On our return to school, all staff met at Goldsworthy campus for a welcome briefing and catch up. To begin the day we had an extremely moving traditional ceremony led by Norm Stanley and Nikki McKenzie who are significant leaders of the Wadawurrung people and provided a wonderful and moving Welcome to Country and smoking ceremony. Certainly the more we learn and embrace of our Indigenous culture the richer we are. 

Thank you to our Families

We welcomed many of our families back to the 2021 school year with another highly successful book collection day held at Goldsworthy Campus. This important business day is also a great opportunity to re-connect with our families and students and ensure they were well prepared for the new school year. A highlight this year was the distribution of over 800 Chromebook computers to our students. This tool, we know, will make a positive impact on the learning programs in place at our college in the years to come.  

Remote Learning

Our students, staff and families again showed outstanding ability to be flexible and adaptable as we moved through the three day period of Remote Learning during the short ‘Snap-Lockdown. 

Whilst the return to Remote Learning is certainly not the preferred option at Northern Bay College we can again take away from this experience a further affirmation that all members of our school community have a high capacity to adapt and change and make the best of whatever situation is thrust before them. I read student comments in the 3-6 News page and heard from the student video on the 7-9 page that they now just go into learning mode at home which is remarkable and a great credit to the many people who make this happen.

This learning is important to acknowledge as this may well not be the only ‘snap lock-down’ that Victorian schools are subjected to this year and our learning through this experience will hold us in good stead. With this in mind it is vital that all families remain connected to the Compass platform as Compass is used to communicate all important news to our school community. If you are not sure of how to connect or use Compass please contact you Campus admin office.

Campus Leadership

Hopefully our families and most certainly our students, will get to know a number of new leaders across the College. 

At Goldsworthy we welcome new Campus Principal Erin Prendergast and Campus Assistant Principal Emma Horne. They will work with Ricki O'Shannessy as a 3 strong principal class team at Goldsworthy.

At Peacock Campus,  joining Campus Principal Kathleen Nardi is Joshua Brown as Campus Assistant Principal. 

Well known to families at Peacock is Mat Potter who has moved into an Assistant Principal role at Hendy Campus making a strong team with campus Principal Rob Bennetts. 

At Tallis Campus Janine McKenzie has moved from a campus AP role at Wexford to be Campus Principal at Tallis. 

Completing the college wide leadership team, Wexford Campus Principal Ben McCredden and Campus AP Melissa Maccora are joined by Assistant Principal Ross Dullard who was our leader last year at Tallis Campus.

The College Principal Class team has Ken Massari taking over as College Assistant principal - Student Enrichment Programs where he will have oversight of our Trade Training Centre (GITTC), the Family Learning Centre, our Community Hub programs and our partnerships with community and pathway organisations across the college.

Northern Bay College is fortunate to have a wonderful Principal Class team who along with Business Manager Lisa Gray provide strong guidance and leadership for our college on a daily basis.

Family Connections

We hope many of you bring your children to your campus's Funtastic Family Fun event coming soon and to meet the leaders mentioned above.

These are always great activities for all the family and each campus will be enjoying all the 'inflatable' fun activities and young and old like the dunking machine! We can't have students there without adults so make sure come with them to share the enjoyment. The canteens will be open but of course you can bring your picnic too.

Keep fingers crossed for nice weather

Peacock is 11 March

Wexford is 23 March

Hendy and Tallis 25 March

Fliers

Planning and Direction.

Each year schools must document their work for the year ahead in a planning document - the Annual Implementation Plan (AIP). This lengthy document has been summarised and displayed across the college to support staff help refine and focus our collective work for this year. It is exciting to think of the successes we had last year throughout all aspects of our work being built on again this year. A highlight personally being our continued work to develop the agency of our learners across all year levels. 

AIP summary

Tutor Learning Initiative 

The Department of Education and Training (DET) also has plans for each given year and one of the DET 2021 Priority Goals for all schools relates to the implementation of the Tutor Learning Initiative. At Northern Bay  we are currently engaging teachers and pre-service teachers to work as tutors in 2021 to support students to catch up on learning they may have missed due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Toward the end of Term 1, you will see learning tutors working across all stages of learning.

We are currently trialing a model at the Hendy/Peacock sub school with the Year 3/4 cohort. After a short learning cycle, we will seek feedback from the teachers, learning community leaders and tutors involved to refine this model before amplifying it across the college before the end of Term 1. 

Year 7 Scholarship Recipients

Twenty Eight Year 7 students across our four P-8 Campuses received their Scholarships for 2021 at a small function at the Trade Training Centre with their Principals and their families. These scholarships, sponsored by the Northern Bay Challenge, will support their learning over the next two years and celebrate students with a diverse range of pathway ambitions.

This year's recipients have received very high praise from the selection panel for their commitment to their college and their peers, their high aspirations and their determination to make these goals reality.

Part of the scholarship package for this group of students includes the opportunity to participate in a series of experiences and excursions aimed at keeping these aspirations high and connecting students to their chosen pathways.

Click below to enlarge for each campus group

School Photos 2021

Covid restrictions prevented our normal timeline of school photos taking place. Goldsworthy Campus were scheduled to have their photos this week, but Year 9 students were only done in October 2020, so we have delayed until late April for all campuses. I know that Prep, Year 7 and Year 12 families will be particularly eager  for that. The Dates are

Goldsworthy April 20 - Tuesday

Hendy April 30 - Friday

Peacock April 29- Thursday

Tallis April 26 - Monday

Wexford April 22 - Thursday

Blue Edge Program

I had the privilege of having breakfast with the young cohort of students working on strengthening their health, outlook on life and partnership with Victoria Police. These students, our staff who have volunteered their early mornings and the Police team - are absolutely dedicated to this work and I applaud them. For a fuller description read the Programs page which highlight a number of our great programs. 

To conclude, I began by talking about our new preps graduating in 2033. Well perhaps that will not be their last day at Northern Bay College.

At our First Day staff gathering I was delighted to welcome back two graduates of the 2020 Class. Jack Hall and Jessie Blackney have returned as the fist in a new initiative to support a career development pathway apprenticeship with the college.  Already these young people are making a noticeable difference and are a credit to their own work ethic, their families and to the positive learning experiences they had at Northern Bay. congratulations and west wishes for their 2021 experience with us.

Regards

Scott Diamond

College Principal