College Principal Message 

April 2023,

Hello Families and Carers,

I hope you are all enjoying the autumn weather.  

As some of you will know, the school is experiencing some instability with staffing.  Our priority is to have consistent teachers with all classes but that is proving difficult in some areas, notably Art and Technology and Italian at Sydenham.  We are exploring all avenues available to us and apologise for any changes we are putting into place which may cause temporary disruption for some.  Our goal is to provide the greatest good to the greatest number; while also prioritising the VCE and VM curricula. 

The Executive Team is pleased to welcome Karen Martin as Acting Campus Principal at Sydenham for the remainder of the semester.  Karen has been a Campus Leader and is well known and well regarded by the Sydenham students, staff and families.

College Council

I am pleased to announce the full membership of this year’s College Council now the student representative election has taken place.  The first meeting of the new council on Monday April 3 welcomed our new council whose members are as follows:

Parent representatives:

• Mandy El Ali (President)
• Julie Young
• Vera Mijakoski
• Debbie Kontek
• Stanley Nelson
• Kim Moulton
• Monique Hamilton

Student representatives:

• Faith Samuels (Year 12)
• Reeda Fatima (Year 8)

Community members:

• Lisa Jackson (Vice President)
• Kate Tangas (RMIT)
• Catherine Morris (ABCN)

DET members

• Pip Griffiths (Executive Officer)
• Lynda Gaylard
• Kylie Brookshaw
• Nick Taseski

I would like to congratulate all students who nominated and voted show my appreciation of their commitment to the college and their peers.

Western Chances 

 I attended the presentation of new Western Chances scholarships recently where not only was Copperfield well represented by students but where Soula Dedes was acknowledged for her commitment to the program, having nominated over 100 students since the program’s inception 15 years ago.  We currently have 38 students in receipt of scholarships.

 Terry Bracks, the founder of Western Chances launching the ceremony at The Edge, Fed Square

Soula Dedes with a Copperfield alumnus and scholarship recipient Josef Alkara

Building Project at Kings Park

Things are moving along with the planned refurbishment of the administration area and staff lounge at Kings Park. We have been through a number of possible plans.  Sadly, given the current issues in the building industry we have had to pull back the scope of the project however we have settled on a plan that achieves our objectives but does necessitate the college making a contribution; something which college council has to approve and was discussed at our recent meeting.

Day Structure Working Party 

As discussed in previous newsletters, plans are being made to modify the structure of the school week to incorporate an additional period for the teaching of a social and emotional wellbeing curriculum, organisational and study skills and opportunities to run assemblies and incursions without disruption to the normal timetable.  Families and carers will have seen the invitation to participate in an online webinar on April 5 in the evening.  In summary, the recommended changes will have minimal impact on the start and finish times, except for Wednesdays, which tends to be the initial concern of families. The documents attached to that invitation provide the background to the working party’s task.  In reality, this project started in 2019 and the reason we did not continue with it in 2020 was of course the pandemic which caused significant disruption, but which has amplified the need for change. 

Discovery Evening

Our Transition Leaders ran very successful Discovery Evenings on March 23 where local primary school families went to one of our junior campuses to hear about our wide range of offerings and see some of them in action.  The evening was brought to life by the participation of our student leaders and other enthusiastic students who demonstrated what students could get involved in.  Well done all students who joined in, they were excellent ambassadors for the college. 

I hope all students and families enjoy the holiday break.

Ms Pip Griffiths

College Principal