PRINCIPAL'S REPORT
Dear Parents, Staff and Students
Welcome back to the start of the 2017 school year. As has been the case in recent times, our students have returned to school with positivity, and resumed the learning that they commenced during Jumpstart. This has meant a calm, orderly commencement, despite welcoming our five year 7 classes, and over thirty new enrolments across all year levels that have transferred from other schools.
We also welcomed four new members of staff to the college community: Amy Leonard who is teaching Science and Health and PE, Julie Kelly who is teaching Indonesian, Rachael Hyland is taking Maths and Science whilst Cath Scott is on leave, Karin Hall who is our Steiner teacher, and Amanda Barrett who is working in Steiner Art and IDEEA lab. We also welcomed Indra King back from Family Leave in Jumpstart.
As has been the case here at MESC for some time, your son or daughter’s Mentor Teacher is your first point of contact should you have any queries or concerns. They should have emailed or called you by now by way of introduction. If you haven’t received an email, please call the office to ensure that your details are correct.
The following staff members can also be contacted if the Mentor teacher is unavailable:
Junior School [years 7 and 8]
Karli Sellenger – Student Wellbeing Leader
Micah Davis and Elena McLuskie – Junior School Leaders
Middle School [years 9 and 10]
Heidi Lockyer - Student Wellbeing Leader
Stacey Sullivan and Arturo Tallarida – Middle School Leaders
Senior School [years 11 and 12 VCE and VCAL]
Petra Fankhauser - Student Wellbeing Leader
Senior School leaders
Aaron Prior and Bree Hudson –
Assistant Principal Gavan McCabe oversees the Senior School and International program.
Assistant Principal
Danni Vaughan - Middle and Junior Schools.
Student Wellbeing Coordinator
Angela Connelly
The normal expectation is that where parents have concerns, they should first contact the people listed above, who will refer students to Angela as appropriate.
VCE and VCAL success
We are once again very proud of the achievements of our students and teachers in relation to VCE results. Our median study score placed us in the top three government schools in the Frankston/Mornington Peninsula areas, and we outperformed two of the local private schools. This is an impressive result given our smaller size, and our commitment to support every student to remain at the college and achieve their very best. We achieved 100% VCE completion [which is obviously the best of any school] and our completion rate for VCAL climbed to close to 90%.
These results are a great testament to the quality of our young people and of our dedicated staff.
International Baccalaureate at Mount Eliza Secondary College
Mount Eliza Secondary College has been approved as a Candidate School for the Middle Years Program of the International Baccalaureate. We are very excited to be undertaking this approach to teaching and learning which is based on a commitment to high-quality, challenging, international education that we believe is important for our students.
In reaching the decision to undertake this work on behalf of our students, we were confident that our existing approaches were well aligned to the MYP expectations, and that going down this path would further refine the quality processes and research based practices that have been used here at the college so successfully in the past four years.
We believe the MYP approach will provide outstanding preparation for students entering into either VCE or VCAL programs in the senior years, as well of course as giving them the life and employment skills needed for future success as young adults.
Vale Nathan Delcampo
It is one of the greatest sadnesses to have to say goodbye to a young person, and the loss of Nathan from our school community has been widely and significantly felt. We joined with his family on Wednesday to celebrate the life of this impressive young man, and shared our stories of his kindness, his talents and his gentle manner. It is a significant tribute to Nathan that almost every student in his year 10 cohort either attended the funeral or passed on their words of support.
Our hearts go out to Nathans’s family and friends and we hope that they can take some comfort from the respect with which their son was held here at Mount Eliza Secondary College.