Principal's Message
Mentone Girls’ Secondary College has been buzzing with activity over the past two weeks. Every day there seems to be another event that our students are engaged in either inside or outside of the school. All of these opportunities mean that every student at MGSC has an opportunity to express themselves in their own way, whether that be through aerobics, hip hop, dressing up for Book Week, debating or performing at the Mentone’s Got Talent. You will read more about these events in this newsletter.
Developing student voice, agency and leadership is one of the goals at our College. This begins very early in Year 7 and then continues right up to Year 12. At the moment our students are encouraged to apply for leadership roles in the College. Students have been sent information about this via Compass and I encourage families to discuss these opportunities around the dinner table. One way in which we open this opportunity up to our students beyond the school is by sending eight of our students to the Year 8 Friendship Day which is an initiative of the Victorian Government Girls’ Schools. Students from Canterbury Girls’ Secondary College, Melbourne Girls’ College, Pascoe Vale Girls’ Secondary College, Matthew Flinders Girls’ Secondary College, Gilmore College for Girls and Mentone Girls’ Secondary College come together to build common links across the colleges. Together, we educate over 5,300 students with the common goal of preparing our students to take their place in an ever-changing world. Fostering student voice, agency and leadership is very important for our students sense of self-efficacy. We actively promote the profiles of our past students who have moved into careers that are non-traditional for women so that our students can see that there are no limits to what they can do. This year Emma Holman and Jane Garrow accompanied our students to Pascoe Vale Girls' Secondary College.
The Year 9 City Experience also took place last week and this was a terrific opportunity for students to broaden their understanding of life in the city. I thank Deb Jarvis, Emma Colmanet and Amanda O’Hara for leading this important initiative which encourages independence and the importance of teamwork.
I joined our parents on Tuesday night for an astounding performance from our music students. The tour to NZ and the recent music camp has resulted in performances of a high calibre. We were treated to performances by The Funkadelics, the percussion ensemble, Madrigal, senior guitar ensemble, All Star Choir, junior string ensemble, senior string ensemble, junior guitar ensemble, Stage Band, year 7 band, year 8 band and the symphonic band. This was the last performance for our Year 12 music students and we wish them all the best in their exams later in the year.
It takes many hours of practice both in lessons and as teams for students to perform at the standard they did Tuesday night and I congratulate the music staff on this terrific achievement. I would like to thank the follow music staff for their guidance of our students: Tim Veevers, Stuart Campbell, Wendy Harvey, Peter Blick, Sue Cook, Sarah Jacobs, Barbara Kerr, Claire McGann, Alex Mikhailova, David Seedsman and Blanka West. Behind the scenes we have Sue Gravina and Lina Mansour have been supporting the music staff in an administrative capacity to make this night and others like it happen.
Finally, we have hosted the Year 7 to 10 Parent/Teacher/Student interviews this week. The attendance has been excellent and teachers have reported that the meetings have been a wonderful opportunity to meet with parents/carers and students face-to-face. I sincerely thank Bronwyn Moline for all of her organisation behind the scenes as well as all of our teachers.
Linda Brown
Principal