PRINCIPAL'S REPORT

Welcome to Term 3

Term 3 started with a terrific amount of high energy and readiness to learn for 4 days last week until Victoria rolled into another stint of lockdown. Whilst our State continues to flow in and out of lockdown, I want to commend the school community on their resilience in returning once again to remote and flexible learning. The experience of families is so different, with some celebrating the return of 24-hour pyjama wearing, while others find the remote learning environment especially challenging. The best we can do is check on each other and offer any support that we can. If you are worried about your child or a friend of theirs, then please get in contact with the school via our learning community leaders or the student wellbeing team, so that we can arrange suitable supports for them.

I wanted to really thank our students for engaging as best they can with their learning during the past week or so. Our Year 11 and 12 students have certainly shown how to remain stoic and optimistic in really changing and challenging circumstances. 

As more information in the coming days arrives from our state government and Chief Health Officer, we will communicate the changes and impact that these may have on our term 3 calendar etc. and look forward to returning to on-site learning as soon as possible.

Welcome

Welcome to our 16 new students and their families who commenced their learning at WHC at the start of term 3. We also very warmly welcome Mr. Ben Cook and Ms. Thanh Rodda to our school community to work in the Maths and Science Year 7-9 learning areas.

General Achievement Test (GAT)

This morning I have received notification from VCAA that the GAT test will be re-scheduled too Thursday 12 August. The new date will allow students across Victoria who have been impacted by school closures, the need to quarantine and self-isolate a chance to prepare and participate in the test.

Consideration of Educational Disadvantage (CED)

Consideration of Educational Disadvantage (CED) is a process that accounts for the disruption to student learning caused the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. It makes sure that final VCE results are valid and fair for all students.

It applies to every student completing scored one or more VCE or scored VCE VET Unit 3-4 sequences in 2021 (including Year 11 and 10 students).

It considers how students have been affected by circumstances, including:

• school closures
• direct impacts on the health of a student
• students dealing with substantial extra family responsibilities
• ongoing issues with remote learning (including intermittent access and suitability)
• mental health challenges.

It restores students’ results to where they would have been without these disruptions that have occurred throughout the year. Every student at WHC will be considered through the CED. Teachers will make a professional judgement based on all available information about their students, performance during the year and the degree to which performance has been affected by the corona virus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Special consideration will also be applied to our VCAL students. There will be more information provided about these processes directly to our affected students and their families in Year 10, 11 and 12 who are involved in these studies.

Leaders and Achievers Lunch

We were planning to conduct our annual “Leaders and Achievers Presentation Lunch” for students who had excelled in their learning last semester on Friday 30 July. It is now highly unlikely that this event will be able to go ahead as planned with guests on next Friday due to COVID restrictions. Currently, we are planning to host this event with just students on Friday 30 July and will live stream the event to our community but will confirm arrangements prior to our return to on-site learning once confirmed.

Congratulations

Congratulations to Ollie Northam who was recently selected to represent the Victorian Country U17 AFL Football Team in the National Championships which were planned to be conducted at the Gold Coast during the school holiday break. Unfortunately, due to COVID, these championships were cancelled but AFL Victoria did arrange for the Victorian boys to play 3 games with the Victorian Metro Team V the Victorian Country Team during the holidays which Ollie played in. From reports Ollie, was a solid performer for the Vic Country Team in all games.  Our school community is very proud of Ollie who is currently in our Specialist Basketball Program. He has tremendous skills in both codes but most importantly is developing into a well-balanced young man who is also doing really well in his Head Start school apprenticeship in building and his studies. Keep up the great work Ollie!

Good Luck

Our school community wishes our super coach David Herbert well over the next few weeks as he jets off to Hungary to coach the Australian U20 Women’s basketball team in the World Championships. This is a wonderful opportunity for David and we wish him and the team every success.

Disability and Inclusion Funding

The Disability Inclusion reform package will be introduced over a staged roll out between 2021 to 2025 as a new funding and support model for students with disability. Schools in the Bayside Peninsula, Barwon and Loddon Campaspe Areas and 5 supported inclusion schools will participate in Year 1 of the Disability Inclusion rollout from Term 3, 2021. This includes schools in Geelong and Western Heights College.

For term 3 and 4, Western Heights College will receive some additional funding to support students identified via a developed learning profile who are need of additional learning supports. This will be a great support to many students.

Disability Inclusion will progressively replace the PSD, the Language and Learning Disabilities Support Program (LLDSP) in mainstream schools. Disability Inclusion will introduce:

• a new school funding model for students with disability, with 2 new funding allocations (Tier 2 school-level funding and Tier 3 student-level funding) to support inclusive practice in schools.
• a new Disability Inclusion Profile process to help schools and families identify the strengths, needs and educational adjustments schools can make to assist students with disability – this process will inform Tier 3 student-level funding allocations
• new initiatives to strengthen skills and knowledge in inclusive education across the school system
• additional regional disability support roles and dedicated implementation teams.

The funding model has 3 tiers, based on the increasing level of need for educational adjustments and targeted support:

• Tier 1 – Core student learning funding: funding for all student’s core learning needs through the Student Resource Package (SRP). This funding includes students with disability and additional needs and will not change with the introduction of Disability Inclusion.
• Tier 2 – School-level funding: additional funding to strengthen capacity and capability to deliver adjustments and inclusive practice for students with disability.
• Tier 3 – student-level funding: additional funding to Tier 1 and 2, to support schools to deliver adjustments for individual students with complex and high needs.

This funding will support WHC to make reasonable adjustments to ensure that students with disability can access and participate in education on the same basis as students without disability, regardless of the availability of additional funding. I will look forward to sharing with our community throughout this semester plans for the use of this additional funding to support our students learning needs.

Reflection

As I finish my newsletter piece this morning, I have been thinking about the Olympics which officially start tonight and the Paralympics. Last year, I was planning to take some long service leave and attend the Olympics in Tokyo after having the most amazing experience attending the Olympic Games in 2016 in Rio, watching friends and superstars from across the planet compete. In many ways, the Olympics are a television show, and the camera people are masters at keeping what they want in focus and blocking you from seeing what’s out of frame. The out of frame this year will be the no crowds.

So, I, like you hopefully, will choose to celebrate the athletes in the middle. When I am up all night watching the swimming, I’ll do so with the understanding that the athletes waited their whole lives to be in that pool, on my TV. I will remember what every runner, cyclist, basketballer, gymnast, triathlete, surfer and athlete has done to get there. I will think about their dream and hard work of them as individuals and that of their families to get to Tokyo.

But I will also be mindful of what’s off to the side – and in particularly the world battling a pandemic.

This will be an ethically compromising Olympics for Tokyo, yet there will be great stories, too which we should celebrate. Those are the facts.

My hope is that we can still find a way to do what most of us really want every four years, which is to celebrate the power of sports and the athletes who are the best in the world at what they do. But another skill we’ve all hopefully sharpened over the last 16 months is being more aware of everything else going on in the world, too. Especially as we spend another weekend in lockdown.

Take care everyone,

Fiona Taylor

College Principal

Child Safety at WHC

Western Heights College is a child safe organisation committed to protecting students from all forms of abuse.

Our College has stringent protocols in place and endeavours at all times to be fully compliant with the Child Safe Standards set out under Ministerial Order 870.

Our College has the following documents and policies in place to achieve compliance with the Standards. All of these documents are available for downloading on our website or contact the school for a copy. 

1. Commitment to Child Safety
2. Child Safety Policy
3. Child Safety Code of Conduct
4. Child Protection Policy and Procedures