Principal's Report

Welcome

What a term! It has been a nice smooth start to the year - our first since 2019 that we haven't had major building works or COVID related interruptions.

It has been particularly enjoyable seeing students making the most of extra curricula activities and classes in new centres such as STEM and Food centre.

Patterson River is once again positioned as a school achieving excellent results in a range of areas. This includes consistently outperforming statistically similar schools in key data measures and outstanding performances on the sporting field.

New Staff

The Victorian Government introduced a new Enterprise Bargaining Agreement for 2023 which involves an additional hour of planning for teachers each week, through a reduction in their time in the classroom. This resulted in a number of new teaching positions at the College. Despite significant teacher shortages across the state, I am pleased that we have been able to recruit some wonderful staff to our College.

Chris Cafiso (L4L / Health PE)
Julian Walton (Outdoor Education)
Laura Nijenjuis (Food / Health)
Alex Dvorscek (Maths / Science)
Josh Mitchell (Music / English)
Adam Cooper (Head Start Director)
Bianca Davola (English)
Rosemary Russo (Maths / Tutor Program)
Emma Palmeri (Maths / Science)
Thea Donoghue (English / Literature)
Amanda Craig (Psychologist)
Lisa Van Hattum (Learning Support)

Key Contacts 2023

Our College is structured around Mentor Teachers being the primary point of contact for families, particularly within the junior school. If you are unsure of who is your child's mentor teacher, then you can see this via your child's Compass Schedule (Form Assembly).

While you can contact your child's mentor teacher to inquire about a range of topics, you can also contact a range of staff about specific topics.

Key Contacts 2023.pdf

Presentation Night Awards

Late last year, we held our annual Presentation Night where we celebrate student achievement over the course of the year. These included recognition for the following significant achievements:

Year Level DUX

Year 7 DUX Navya Appaji

Year 8 DUX Vansh Rai

Year 9 DUX Jack O'Connor

Year 10 DUX Martin Ling

Year 11 VCE DUX Sienna Jarvis-Devlin

Year 11 VCAL DUX Lexie Adams

Year 12 VCE DUX Maddy Wicks

Year 12 VCAL DUX Peter Stones

Year 12 VCAL DUX Olivia Love

Principal's Commendation Awards

YEAR 7

Navya Appaji

Nathan Eveston

Tahlia Goldschmeid

Tvarikha Harish

Tate Littler

Trisha Sabale

Dave Smith Hall

YEAR 8

Shenalee De Silva

Willem Kinross

Keira Light

Sarah Littler

Alannah Mills

Annie Murphy

Jorja O'Halloran

Lara Ramsay

Erin Savage

Zahlia Simpfendorfer

YEAR 9

Lachlan Barty

Abbie Culpin Watson

Amanda De Silva

Fern McGirr

Keely McLaughlan

Matthew Miccoli

Tom Murphy

Jack O'Connor

Alexandra Tasker

Zara Williams Fletcher

YEAR 10

Jasmin Barlow

Grace Bui

Jaeda Calo-Thompson

Charlotte Eveston

Grace Fox

Clover Goldsmith

Liam Jolly

Martin Ling

Madison Lloyd

Luke Miccoli

Year 11

Shreya Acharya 11A

Jet Di Santo 11B

Ben Fu 11E

Mali Goggin 11D

Sienna Jarvis-Devlin 11G

Cailan Matthews 11A

Jorja-Grace Mozejko 11G

Taitym Neville 11C

Shkiah Upson 11J

Olivia Jane Yeo 11A

Recent School Leavers in the News

Cooper Smith, who recently finished at Patterson River played a set at the recent Ability Fest. This culminated from Cooper playing for his PE classes a couple of years ago which really came along after Dylan Alcott provided Cooper with professional DJ Equipment. See the Channel 9 story below:

Recent graduate Rhys McKenna, was selected as the Australian Captain for the Under 19s Cricket Team at the recent World Cup in South Africa. Rhys is a graduate of our EXCEL Sports Program and it is wonderful to see her using her leadership skills developed as part of our program.

Family Voluntary Contributions - Thank You!

Once again, we have received generous parent donations towards some upcoming projects, with more than $15,000 donated so far this year.

We have used these funds to purchase a number of new instruments and will be sourcing the following equipment early next term:

moveable soccer goals
programmable drones
black box theatre
screen printing equipment
temp controlled water baths

Head Start Expansion

The Department of Education is currently expanding it's Head Start Program which involves staff working across schools in an area to secure school based apprenticeship and traineeship for students. Patterson River hosts already hosts Mike Kavanagh here at the school and now welcomes the Director for Bayside Peninsula Area, Adam Cooper who will also be based at Patterson River.

Key Learning Outcomes 2022

Despite significant COVID related impacts to normal school activities and classes, our students cohorts have continued to achieve very learning and social outcomes during 2022.

In 2022, our College outperformed similar schools in all but one data indicator used by the Department of Education.

The year on year improvements that we have been experiencing are likely due to a number of school wide initiatives, including School Wide Positive Behaviour, goal setting and mentor teachers.

In 2022, we also engaged for the first time in an initiative from Department of Education and Training called Professional Learning Communities (PLC).

The initiative involves teachers coming together in small groups on a weekly basis, identifying a gap in skills or knowledge of their students and then designing and implementing an intervention to address the issues.

Our College has now been asked to be the PLC Showcase school for other schools in the Bayside Peninsula Area and we have already welcomed a number of other secondary schools to our school to see how we structure our staff professional learning and focus on student outcomes.

Traffic Management

With an increase in our student population over the last few years, there has been a noticeable increase in the traffic before and after school.

If you are driving to school to drop off or collect students it would be appreciated if you could:

Use roundabout or carpark to turn around, avoiding the use of neighbours driveways.
Consider picking up students in Whatley Street (over the bridge) or Milroy Crescent (back of school).
Encourage your child to walk or ride to school
Avoid parking in front of the gate for Driveway 2 so that this can be used for kiss and go.

Other Tips

Park in bus lane if you are visiting between 9am - 2.30pm
Avoid parking in front of the gate for Driveway 2 so that this can be used for kiss and go.

Student on Bikes

This term we have had a couple of incidents involving students riding to school. One incident involved a student being hit by a car and another one where a student hit a pedestrian walking out of a driveway. While everyone was OK it is an important reminder that students riding to and from school should:

wear helmet at all times
exit school grounds carefully
ride on bike paths and lanes where available
avoid riding erratically
not use mobile phone or listen to music

Private Property & Accidents at School

The Department of Education requires parents/guardians to be reminded each year that:

they are responsible for paying the cost of medical treatment for injured students, including the cost of ambulance attendance/transport and any other transport costs; and
parents/guardians can purchase insurance policies from commercial insurers
the Department of Education does not hold insurance for personal property brought to schools and it has no capacity to pay for any loss or damage to such property.

Mr Daniel Dew

College Principal