From the
Leadership Team
The first four weeks of Term 3 have been very busy for the Careers and Senior Secondary teams with our subject selection program, and course counselling. This is such an important event in our school calendar, and we thank the teams and all of the staff behind the scenes who have gone above and beyond for our students.
Last week our Year 10 students spent Monday and Tuesday learning remotely, to allow for course counselling to take place. Bringing parents and guardians in on the course counselling is an important feature of this process as it ensures students and their families are all on the same page when it comes to their senior secondary years, and also allows parents to better understand and support their child/children through VCE/VCE-VM.
The Careers Counselling sessions were a great success, and a special thank you to Tarsh Boyko, Mary-ann Linehan, Dan Watson, Susan Barr, Greg Bristol and Colleen Wilkinson as well as the Senior Secondary staff who organised the days to ensure they ran smoothly. We have received outstanding feedback that the students and their parents found the course counselling sessions extremely valuable.
In addition to the parent information sessions held last week for Years 9 and 10 families in preparation for subject selection and course counselling, we have also expanded our subject selection program this year to include a focus on our junior years’ students. We are so proud of our careers and pathways offerings, which are unique to our college and not offered on the same scale anywhere else locally.
Earlier this week we commenced our Year 6 into 7 transition program with a ‘Cultural Showcase’ enjoyed by Grahamvale, Mooroopna Park and Mooroopna Primary Schools. Hosted by our First Nations and Multicultural student leaders, the Year 6s were treated to a variety of cultural performances, as well as an interactive Q&A session highlighting the cultural diversity, celebrations, and leadership opportunities here at GSSC. We look forward to welcoming more primary schools from across the region in the coming weeks.
Last Thursday the College Captains hosted our inaugural 'GSSC’s Got Talent' event which attracted a crowd at maximum capacity in the Theatrette at both recess and lunch time. The crowd were able to see a number of outstanding performances ranging from poetry to instrumental and vocal pieces, dancing, drum solos and even tap dancing.
The staff at Greater Shepparton Secondary College were so impressed by the bravery of our performers and also the comradery among our crowd of students who clapped and cheered the acts on and helped to ease their nerves. It was great to see the respect shown by our students both for themselves and each other.
This was such a fantastic initiative by our College Captains with the aim to build a sense of fun and connectedness across year levels. We look forward to hearing the announcement of our GSSC’s Got Talent winner at our whole school assembly to be held in Week 5. The winner will be voted by the students.
We are very pleased to offer the opportunity to our staff to participate in The Talent Management Framework (TMF). The TMF has been developed by Bastow, in consultation with teachers, principals and regional leaders across Victoria, to support schools to proactively increase and sustain the supply of highly capable school leaders. This initiative is one part of our commitment to invest in the ongoing development of all our staff and ensure our high potential leaders have the support they need to reach their next stage of leadership.
We recently drew to a close on our first year of implementation of the Talent Management Framework. The Senior Leadership Team had the opportunity to listen to the work that Tom Van Rooden, Dan Robinson and Jia Gong had worked on with their leadership project over the last 12 months. It was truly aspirational listening to their presentations and hearing about the work that they are doing to ensure strong outcomes for our students.
We are pleased to announce and congratulate both Braden Brown and Adam Fox for their inclusion in our next round of the Talent Management Framework. Braden and Adam will work on a year-long project with their mentor to develop and grow their leadership skills.
Our mentors for this cycle are Megan Michalaidis and Scott Watson. We thank them for their time, dedication and commitment to supporting our emerging leaders in our College.
Megan Michalaidis
Principal of Operations
