Principal's Report

Learner Challenge

As we approach the end of Week 7 of the Term it is a great chance to reflect on the learning taking place around the College.  It has been an absolute delight to have had the opportunity to be working onsite with students through the first 7 weeks and during this time watch them adjust as they return to the rigour and joy of face to face learning.

Our teachers have been actively engaging students in a variety of tasks, with a clear focus this year of utilising student learning data and what students do, say, make and write to ideally target each students point of need in their learning.  What this means is that often we will see students undertaking varied work in the same classroom, in order to cater for where students are up to on the learning continuum.  This is particularly evident in our Year 7-10 classrooms and will continue to be a focus as we work through the year and give teachers further skills to identify and harness “point of need” teaching.  Added to this approach to learning will be an increasing range of opportunities for students to exercise voice and agency around their learning by providing feedback and input for their teachers.  This all forms part of the ever continuous cycle of improvement at our College as our staff reflect on the curriculum provided and adapt and modify it to adjust to their learners.

Our School Improvement Team(SIT), comprising of our Assistant Principals, Learning Specialists, Wellbeing Leading Teacher, Maths Leader and English Leader spent time this week observing classes with a lens around literacy practices.  One of our foci over the next few years is ensuring that all teachers are teachers of literacy.  Our SIT were able to visit classrooms this week and witness our current practices, in order to plan our upcoming curriculum day and the more specific focus areas for this work over the terms ahead.  We look forward to sharing with you throughout the year some key practices that we are introducing and also ways in which you can support this work at home.

As we head into the last few weeks of term, we are asking our school community to get behind our students to ensure that all learners continue to grasp the concept of challenge by applying themselves thoroughly to their learning and striving to make every lesson count.  Our parent / student / teacher conferences on Tuesday 5th April will be a great chance to share the highlights of Term 1 and the challenges that lay ahead for students in Term 2.

Parent / Student / Teacher Conferences

Parents and Carers are encouraged to keep an eye on XUNO as we are about to make online bookings for the upcoming conferences available.

All conferences will be conducted in person at various locations around the College on Tuesday 5th April.

Bookings are essential.

All parents/carers that are entering buildings on the day will be required to show proof of vaccination either via digital certificate or a hard copy, or be able to display a valid immunisation medical exemption provided by a Victorian Government-approved health professional. 

Physical Education Uniform

Our College Council met on Monday 21st February and one of our agenda items for the evening included School Uniform, more specifically the Physical Education Uniform.

In 2019 and for many years prior, the school required all students who participated in Physical Education classes to:

• Bring their PE Uniform to school in their bag on each day that they had a scheduled PE or Sport class.
• Utilise the change rooms to change into their PE Uniform before the PE / Sport session
• Change back into their uniform after their PE/Sport class

In 2020 with the commencement of the COVID-19 pandemic and mandated changes to how schools operated, the school moved to a system that enabled students to wear their PE Uniform to school on any day that they had a scheduled PE/Sport class.  Students were able to wear their uniform all day.  This decision was taken as the settings at the time prevented schools from making use of change rooms.

Throughout 2020 and 2021 the School Operations Guide, community COVID settings and the Department of Education & Trainings COVID-Safe plan changed many times.  As a school we responded to the various changes and when able to do so made changes to the requirements around students wearing PE Uniform.

In 2022 the safety settings required by the Department enabled the school to return to the use of change rooms.  With this change, the school reverted to the 2019 requirements around students and PE Uniform.

After correspondence was received from school community members, College Council discussed the many varied views in regard to the ideal arrangements for the wearing of the physical education uniform at Epping Secondary College.  After much discussion, it has been determined that the school will have the following requirements for students and their physical education uniform, effective immediately:

After careful consideration College Council made this informed decision, taking into account:

• Current feedback and correspondence from parents and students.
• Trials in 2021 with students being able to wear full PE / Sport uniform during the day.  These trials were unsuccessful with significant students demonstrating that they were unwilling to follow the uniform requirements.
• COVID settings for the use of change rooms changing in 2022, with change rooms now available for use, in recognition of the significant number of vaccinated community members.

The current Uniform Policy is due for review towards the end of this year, and we will be inviting students, parents and staff to provide feedback before endorsing a new policy to take us into 2023 and beyond.