Principal's Update

Dear Families, Students and Community Members,

Welcome to the 2020 school year, and a special welcome to all of our Year 7 students and any new students at other year levels who either joined us during Headstart towards the end of last year or are joining us this year for the first time.  I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday break with family and friends and look forward to a positive and productive year ahead.

This year we have 250 Year 7 students starting with us, which will make a Middle School of just over 600 students and our total school enrolment of approximately 1100 students. We are hoping to stabilise the student population at this number.

As a school community focused on achieving the best possible outcomes for all of our students we need to continually reflect and seek improvement in everything we do. This year is the final year of our current Strategic Plan (2017-2020) and as such, as part of the accountability cycle set for Victorian Government Schools, we will be undergoing an external review this year to reflect on the past 3-4 years performance in relation to our key improvement strategies and key data sets in relation to targets set over this time. We will then work on developing a new strategic plan for the ongoing improvement of our College and continual provision of an excellent education for all  our students. I will provide more information about this process in my next newsletter article.

Positive Start 

We have had a smooth start to the year, with Year 7 and 12 students commencing last Thursday to undertake a special program for these year levels; and then all students resumed on Friday 31st January.

The first day for our Year 7 students involved rotations between ICT set up, developing their codes of cooperation, relational activities to get to know their new classmates and home group teacher, locker allocation and use of the Resource Hub. A highlight as always was the BBQ lunch with Year 12 students and staff (despite the very hot conditions).

Our Year 12 students spent their first day rotating between sessions on goal setting and study skills, Edrolo and wellbeing. At the start of the day it was fantastic to welcome back some of our high achievers from Year 12 last year who participated in a panel lead by Ms Greenhalgh “on the taste of success”, sharing their strategies for achieving their personal best with the current cohort of Year 12s. Thanks to Will Hampson and Josh Youngson for giving up their time to take part. We look forward to seeing them return, along with some other students from 2019, throughout the year to act as tutors to support our senior students. After the BBQ lunch the whole cohort came together again to listen to motivation speaker, Stan Alves. Stan is a former student who played 226 games for Melbourne and was captain for four years. He also played for North Melbourne and coached St. Kilda in the 90s. Stan is well known on the public speaking circuit and as a commentator on the radio. Stan spoke to students about getting the best out of yourself no matter what your career aspirations are and having no regrets -  “If it’s to be, it’s up to me”. It was wonderful to have Stan reconnect with the College and offer his services as a way of giving back to a great school that supported him, many years ago. The students were highly engaged during his presentation and found it most worthwhile.

Thanks to our Year 7 Coordinators, Laura Gorman and Julia Hockey, and Director of Senior School, Jo Greenhalgh, for their organisation of these programs and the staff involved in teaching the sessions for the day.

Whole School Assembly

On Monday, we held our first whole school assembly for the year in the gym. The assembly began with the rest of the school clapping our new Year 7 cohort into the assembly to take their place at the front, recognising that starting their secondary school education is a significant milestone in their lives. Our School Captains, Elisa Barone and Jack Phillpotts, spoke  about the year ahead and to always strive for your best, our Vice Captains, Ava Collison and Noreigh Zuniga, spoke about the SRC and our Performing Arts Captains, Eboni Kewin and Luke Holland, announced that the formal reveal of our big production for this year would take place in the PAC at lunchtime the following day. The sign up process and audition schedule was also explained. If you haven’t heard, our production this year will be “Legally Blond”.

During my address to the students I highlighted the importance of living one of our core values – RESPECT.

This value speaks clearly about the way we wish everyone to treat one another, much as we would want to be treated ourselves, with consideration, courtesy and regard, valuing everyone’s self-worth by being accepting of others and their differences; and making every effort to get along with other people. This includes showing respect for all teachers, all students and any visitors to the College or members of the public, whether it be to and from school, on an excursion, in the classroom, or out in the yard. I asked students to reflect on how their actions and words will demonstrate what RESPECT mean to them this year as a member our school community.

I have been Principal of Mordialloc College for nine and half years now and the school has certainly evolved over this time. I continue to be very proud of my leadership team, teachers, education support staff and students, who have all worked so hard to achieve so much, throughout our improvement journey.

We look forward to all students taking a positive attitude into 2020, staying focused on achieving their personal best and always striving to improve. I am proud to be the Principal of Mordialloc College and I hope that everyone is proud to be part of the Mordialloc College community. I am looking forward to the year ahead and hope that all students make the most of the opportunities and challenges that are presented to them.

Message from the Police

Leading Senior Constable Chris Dawson from Moorabbin Police Station was a guest speaker at our assembly. The police are concerned with the number of street robberies occurring in the area involving attacks in daylight to steal teenager’s personal items e.g. shoes, jackets, phones etc. Students should always travel to and from school with at least one other person and also on the weekends. The police also encourage any victims of an attack to report it immediately to a responsible adult in the immediate area or by calling triple zero. Please see the attachment for further information.

Mobile Phone Policy

As most will be aware, late last year the State Government issued a new mobile phone policy banning them from use during the day at school. This isn’t a huge change for us. The main thing for students to get used to is actually locking them away in their locker for the day rather than carrying the phone on them in silent mode.  As such, it is even more important that students have a lock on their locker to keep all of their belongings safe. A copy of our mobile phone policy can be found by following this link. 

Welcome to new and returning staff

We again have a large number of new staff starting with us this year, to cover a few staff on leave and a number of extra staff to cater for our increase in student numbers. We welcome or welcome back the following staff to Mordialloc College: