To say that this has been a mammoth term would be a complete understatement!

Every second of the past 10 weeks been jam packed with aspiration; we have seen excursions, demonstrations of sporting and artistic excellence, student leadership forums, community mentoring, the beginning of our "Acknowledgement to Country" installation, and our feeder primary school Math and Digitech Olympics just to start the list. This and much more is all on top of the engagement in learning our wonderful Students and Staff here at Glenroy commit to every day

I couldn’t be prouder of the work that everyone has done this term - we have expected a lot and the overwhelming majority of our students have risen to the challenge and grown immeasurable because of it.

Art show and Performing Arts Concert

As a music teacher, one of my personal goals upon starting here at Glenroy was to build the opportunities for our students to engage in the arts. Although I know there will be a comprehensive report later in this newsletter I would be remiss to not share how proud this evening made me. I was blown away by the talent, the passion and resilience shown by each and every person who contributed, and would like to thank:

Our fabulous instrumental staff who prepared the music students; Jaydon Chai, Kelby Hughes, Lawrence Grifa and Matt Bullock
Our MC's Stephanie Radojevic and Luke Lobello
Mr. Jeff Saker, Ms. Lisa Huntley, Ms. Christine Imbesi for all of their hard work pulling together the Art Show
Ms. Yulia McGibbon and Ms. Ros Manley for all of their hard work pulling together the concert
Our wellbeing team and leadership teams for being there to support with food, activities for the littlies, photography and lighting
The wonderful families and friends who came along to support our students

Of course the final thanks goes to our wonderful performers and art show contributors who showed exactly what we at Glenroy can do in the Arts. Well done to everyone involved!

Community Engagement

A great deal of work has been simmering at Glenroy on building closer relationships with our local primary schools

Our term 2 Science and Tech fair was a great success, and this term we will be backed it up with our Math's and Digitech Olympics - an opportunity for 15 high achieving students from 4 of our feeder primary schools to come to Glenroy and complete for prizes and glory in Math and Digitech activities.

Our winners for this year were the fabulous students of Oak Park Primary School, and I went out to present the perpetual trophy at their whole school assembly last Friday.

Term 4 will see is participating in the Westbreen Primary Centenary Celebrations as well as the continuation of our "Acknowledgement of Country" installation project with Glenroy Central and Merri-Bek Council. Lots of ideas floating around, and it is brilliant to welcome the community back into the college after the COVID interruptions.

RMIT

Earlier this year I shared our exciting relationship new with RMIT Graduate School of Education, and I am pleased to note that a few weeks in, the program is flying along beautifully. Facilitated by lecturer Dr Gideon Boadu and Assistant Principal Jennifer Ames, the Associate Teachers spend time in class on various concepts then go directly into classrooms to put this into practice. The immediacy of this work and the regular reflection possible via the ongoing nature of their time with us is a fantastic approach, and promises to bear some wonderful fruit moving forward.

Curriculum Day

We had a very productive curriculum day early this term, continuing our whole school focus on the Literacy for Learning (3L) program. This program assists teachers and support staff in the ways that language underpins learning, and teaching practices that will build up students’ language and visual resources so that they can be successful learners across all learning areas. We have 2 streams of learning for staff, one for those who are new to the college, and one for those who have completed the training in previous years. This approach underpins our Staff professional learning strategy as we push towards those areas of focus noted in both our AIP and new strategic plan.

COMPASS

This terms move to COMPASS, although not flawless, has been overwhelmingly well received by students, staff and families. The ease of communicating through this platform has changed so many things here at Glenroy, and we will be continuing to develop the ways we use it in the coming months and years.

If you have not spent much time on it yet I urge you to do so soon, as we will be using more and more of its functions during 2024. The Calendar, notifications and Connect (messaging) functions are extremely useful, and we'll continue to inform families of how we can utilise this to make everyone's life a little easier!

School Captain interviews

One of the great moments in any year as a Principal is the time when eager young leaders step forward to present their candidacy for the role of College Captain. We have an outstanding field this year, and the decision making promises to be one of the hardest I have ever seen. We are currently in the interview stage where candidates speak with a panel of teachers and students about their hopes for 2024 and Glenroy College more broadly. This will be followed up by selected candidates having the opportunity to speak at a whole school assembly to put forward their case, with a student survey afterwards to help the panel make their decision. I know that our school will be well served with any one of these outstanding young people, but with them all contributing and helping us build the next group of leaders we are assured of a bright future.

I hope you all have a brilliant holiday break, and I look forward to seeing everyone back refreshed, renewed and ready to hit term 4 with vigor!

Andrew

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