From the Principal's desk

Dear community members

I wish to congratulate all of our students, families and staff on what has really been an outstanding term. There really has been so much achieved through this term - so much of it under the complex cloud that COVID continues to add to our lives and work. 

It has been an enormous pleasure to see that excursions and community events are back to provide our students with invaluable experiences outside of the classroom. There has been so much taking place and students have been terrific in their responses to these opportunities, many of which have been missed over the past two years. Well done everyone.

The newsletter content

As always I encourage you to look at all the pages in the newsletter menu, especially over the 2 week break.  The students do so much, so looking at the photos on each page and hearing their own stories gives such great insight into our Northern Bay College. Each page evidences how vibrant and focussed our community is on Growth, Collaboration, Persistence and Kindness, our new and developing College Values.

Harmony Day

Harmony day was celebrated at Goldsworthy Campus on Monday March 21 bathed in beautiful sunshine and blue skies.  This is such an important and wonderful event for Northern Bay College, where Cultural diversity is celebrated.  

The assembly at Goldsworthy did not disappoint this year and was full of colour and cultural pride, and our College Captains did a marvellous job of MCing this event.  All campuses were represented at the assembly with the junior students helping with Acknowledgement of Country, cultural dancing, and singing in the IMPACT performance.  

The letters of HARMONY were decorated by each campus and featured in the cultural dance and in the finale of the waving flag song.  The VET music band showcased 3 songs and their talent shined through on the day with a very polished performance. (see below).

Thank you to everyone for your participation and to the Goldsworthy students who were a wonderful audience.

Koorie Aspirations Day

Our students had the invaluable opportunity to join a special program at GMHBA Stadium. Please make sure you see their report page.

 Programs Page

Some incredible work from our special programs teams in SEED and IMPACT with major excursions for the 7-8 program ASCEND.

Heights don't seem to be a problem for this age group!  and some of the student art works are sensational.

Year 7-12 Athletics Carnival

Be sure to check out the special pages in the newsletter. The carnival page has a great range of photos on a day when the weather was very kind and the students ...terrific!

Here is a snippet 

The Family Learning Centre

Had a special day this week and 200 family members had a wonderful time being in a community sharing environment for the first time in two years. Some of the photos taken of our youngest community members at the Centre on Goldsworthy Road are inspiring as they experience things for the first time in their lives and we know there will be many more when they start schooling at Northern Bay College.

The Band Is back

Congratulations to all of our students who for the past two years have not been able to practice for the College Concert Band.

We are Back!

Bunnings BBQ Fundraising 

Bunnings are terrific in supporting our fundraising activities by allocating the college a number of spots for the weekend BBQ in North Geelong. 

Having been allocated the dates we next have to find volunteers who are willing to work for an extended period during their weekend time off. This year Goldsworthy VCAL students worked with the extended VCAL staff team on Saturday March 19. Thank you.

The following Saturday 26 March the efforts at Bunnings were for funds for our Early Learning Centre on Goldsworthy Road and the volunteers were terrific on a busy day. Joining staff from across the campuses and the ELC were VCE and VCAL students. Thank you staff and students for giving up your Saturday.

Next day, Sunday 27 March we thank the staff from Peacock Campus who were not sure whether it was hotter cooking the snags or queueing in the 30 degree heat. It was a hot day! Happily lots of people braved the heat and visited Bunnings and bought a sausage.

Final thanks are for the community members who go to Bunnings to support fundraising every weekend for local groups but especially for coming to our March sessions and saying hello to our teams. With their help each group averaged $1500 for the day.

DET Photoshoot

The Department of Education invited Northern Bay College to be part of the new layout of Department Publications, promotional material and the DET Website. Here are some examples

I would like to thank the many families who signed permission forms for this special project even though many of the students were not able to be included on the day. The students lucky to be available at the time were really cooperative and especially the younger children thought that they were 'Stars' 

The college will get a copy of these photos in due course and many will be seen around the campuses.

Thanks to all families, students and staff

An Introduction to Northern Bay Alumni (former students) program

Northern Bay has started an alumni program to build and mobilise the school’s alumni community, with the help of Ourschool which is a not-for profit service that helps public high schools build a thriving alumni network to benefit current students and the school community. Alumni programs in private schools and universities are well established and provide huge benefits to students. Our alumni program will help us grow our alumni community to benefit our students.

The alumni program will focus on doing these key things:

• Find and connect with alumni
• Invite alumni back to school to inspire students about study and career pathways
• Create opportunities for students via alumni providing work experience placements
• Invite alumni to provide philanthropic support for students and our school by contributing to school fundraising projects, student scholarships or gifts in wills (longer term goals)

We have started connecting and engaging with former students from Northern Bay and foundation schools (Norlane High, Corio Tech, Corio Snr SC, Flinders Peak, Corio South, Corio, Rosewall, Corio West, Norlane West and North Shore), and have loved finding what our Alumni are up to. There are some very diverse and exciting career pathways to discover.

One such Alumni is Megan, who graduated from Norlane High, and who’s passion for science directed her towards a career as a phlebotomist (blood and pathology collector) for 4Cyte Pathology. Her role takes her around the community and it’s a career that’s always essential, but more than ever during the Covid pandemic. If you are reading this and you are a former student of Northern Bay College or one of the foundation schools, we’d love to hear from you.

Please get in touch with us by sending an email to: alumni@nbc.vic.edu.au or share in Alumni stories at https://www.facebook.com/Northern-Bay-College-and-Schools-Alumni-108962595081117/

Out and About

I was delighted to see some of the photos of our young year levels many of whom were on their first ever school excursion.

Geelong Waterfront has never looked better.

Finally, may I wish you all the happiest of Autumn breaks and celebrations that your family may have planned for Easter, Ramadan and other cultural activities. 

Regards,

Scott Diamond

College Principal