Principal's Post 

From the Principal

Building Project

Our builders, the Lloyd Group have commenced establishing their site sheds and site fencing. The demolition of old buildings will occur during the coming school holiday break, to allow for the construction of our Senior School Centre. The contract is due for completion at the end of term 3, 2020.

We have been advised by our local member Dustin Halse, that Ringwood Secondary will be receiving $255,000 to assist with maintenance, safety and school improvements over. The VSBA will be writing to us with exact details about the roll out from term 4. It will enable schools such as ours, to do essential works such as painting, replacing carpet and windows, landscaping, tree inspections and maintenance of infrastructure like roofs, drainage and  water services.

A significant highlight in the past few weeks has been the achievement of our Intermediate Girls AFL team who last week beat Montmorency SC in the State final 6-15=51 to 1-4=10. It was a great performance and congratulations to all those involved and to their coaches Ms Boutsikakis and Ms Lee, who have developed the team cohesiveness and skills in all the extra training sessions.

Its official - Ringwood Training is the Victorian Small Training Provider of the Year for 2019!

This award recognises a training provider that offers a specific range of training products and services and who also demonstrates excellence and high level performance in all aspects of the TAFE and training sector.

As the winner we receive $5000 in prize money and a Victorian Training Awards trophy. We have also been nominated to represent Victoria nationally at the Australian Training Awards in Brisbane at the end of November.

Congratulations are extended to all ensembles who have performed throughout this term at the Victorian Schools Musical Festival and Royal South Street in Ballarat. All have performed to their best and were great ambassadors for the college at such prestigious events.

Final tally for Victorian Schools Festival:

Platinum:

Senior Stage Band

Junior Stage Band

Symphonic Band

Gold:

Senior Strings

Senior Choir

Junior Concert Band

Intermediate Concert Band

Silver:

Symphony Orchestra

Intermediate Stage Band

Junior Choir

The results achieved so far at Ballarat have been outstanding:

Junior Choir-Gold Award

Senior Choir- 3rd place

Training Strings- Honourable Mention.

Intermediate Strings- 3rd Place.

Senior Strings- 3rd Place

Symphony Orchestra- Highly Commended

Intermediate Concert Band- 3rd place.

Jazz Combo- 2nd place

Senior Stage Band- Highly Commended

There will be a further opportunity to witness some of these great performances at our upcoming  

Gala Concert on Thursday 19th September at 7.30pm in the George Woods Performing Arts Centre, Yarra Valley Grammar School, Kalinda Rd, Ringwood.  

Chookas to all our performers in this year’s Victorian State Schools Spectacular  “Made of Stars ”,  that is being staged at Melbourne Arena this Saturday September 14th . We have broad representation once again in all elements of performance – lead singers, musicians, featured soloists, choir and dance.

Planning for next year is well advanced and our overall numbers will be around 1650 students  Following appeals for year 7, we expect 294 students.  

NAPLAN 2019.

The State-wide headlines for this has been:

The latest National Assessment Program - Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) results showed that Victorian primary school students achieved the strongest results in Australia this year, topping other states and territories in seven of ten measures and improved in 6 of the 10 measures. Year 7 reading, writing and numeracy have also improved. Year 9 results don’t show the same progress and many students don’t see the relevance of the test. As a result, a Specialist Principal’s Advisory Group will be established to review what approaches might be adopted moving forward.

At Ringwood Secondary College, I can report that our results in 2019 have remained solid expectations and reflects the alignment of key improvement strategies and actions in our Strategic and Annual Implementation Plans. Particular interest centres on student learning growth and I have included our results for Years 7-9 in Writing, Reading and Numeracy (attached) to highlight the strong performance of our students, when compared with similar schools, our network and the state.

NAPLAN provides us with a snapshot into what is happening for our students and needs to be used with other data to make judgements about how we are tracking. Year 7 results bode well for future success and our year 9 outcomes whilst slightly down on last year compare favourably against a range of indicators.

We can be satisfied with the progress against targets described below that were flagged in our AIP for 2019:

MAIN GOAL: OVER 75% ACHIEVE MEDIUM OR HIGH LEARNING GROWTH

READING – 72% (23% High, 49% Medium)

WRITING – 77% (26% High, 51% Medium)

NUMERACY– 73% (28% High, 45% Medium)

NAPLAN READING 2019

• Target 25% in top 2 bands at Year 9.      Actual result: 22%
• Target 13% or less in bottom 2 bands at Year 9.  Actual result: 23%

NAPLAN NUMERACY 2019

• Target 21% in top 2 bands at Year 9. Actual result: 25%
• Target 11% or less in bottom 2 bands at Year 9. Actual result: 13%

Michael Phillips

Principal