Principal's Report

Welcome to Term 3 and Semester 2. Having passed the winter Solstice a few weeks ago, the days are starting to get a little longer but the bitter bite of winter is certainly being felt, especially in the mornings and evenings. Nourish has been particularly busy in the mornings with students about to pop in to grab a warm toastie or cup of Milo before they start the day. The cold does not appear to be impacting on school operations too much though and staff and students are getting about doing what they need to, regardless. A lot has been happening already this term; we have held a whole school assembly, held excursions, sporting activities and subject selection / course counselling. 

Subject selection and course counselling 

Student subject selection and course counselling has seen most of our senior students (or students moving into senior school) selecting pathways for 2024 and beyond. The process has been running exceptionally smoothly this year and it is really great to see students turning up to their course counselling appointments fully prepared and knowledgeable about what is on offer and where they would like to head. 

Whole school assembly

Our whole school assembly was also a great success this term with the student leaders running the show and the emphasis on celebrating the good things that have been happening across the school. We had a number of parents also logging in and whilst we still have a way to go to make this perfect, we are learning each time and are getting better and setting up the audio visual equipment to enable this to run smoothly. We will keep working on it and by the awards ceremony, we should have it just about perfected. 

Performing arts centre 

The completion of our Performing Arts centre has been a big highlight this term. We are still working through a few of the defects from the building process and sourcing the furnishings needed to be able to run classes properly but students and staff have been introduced to the space and there are some small groups starting to use it for instrumental music and senior Theatre Studies. We have the Parliamentary Secretary, Vicky Ward coming out in a couple of weeks to officially open the space too so keep an eye out for that. We are hoping that by the time our Parent Teacher Conferences are running later in the term, it will be up and operational and ready to show off to everyone as we will be running tours so that families can also see the new space. We may even be serving refreshments from the space!

NAPLAN

Naplan results have been released across the state as of Monday this week. Whilst we are able to currently see the school level reports, the individual student reports are yet to be sent out to our school. These are coming out from the Department and do not all come out to schools at the same time. When they come out, we will be sending them to you via the mail and a message will go out through Compass to let you know that they are on their way. The way in which the results are reported has changed this year and information about this can be found later in this newsletter. If you have any questions or queries or would like someone to explain it to you, please contact the college and speak with either Ms Kelli MacDonald, or me. 

Changes to bus stop location

We have been in discussion with the Council around changing the location of the bus stop at the front of the school to make it safer for students, particularly at the end of the day, to wait and board the buses. Council have approved the changes that we have requested and we are waiting on signage to be able to enact these changes. When this comes through, we will notify the community through Compass about a week before it takes effect. The changes should not impact too greatly on families who pick up students at the end of the day as it is essentially a straight swap of the bus bays with the current pick up area so that the buses will stop at the front of the school near the office area and families can wait to pick up students in cars at the bottom of Waters Grove. Please note that the visitor carpark can also be used for this purpose (the one with the entrance of Marlborough Street). 

Kerryn Sandford

College Principal