Dear Families, Students and Community Members,

Mordialloc College Student Council 2022 and AGM

We have conducted our selection process for the many student leadership positions on our NEW Student Council, and these positions have formally been taken up from Headstart. I congratulate all students who went through an extensive application process where candidates delivered a speech to their year level (then a voting process is completed by students and staff), wrote a short application letter, and were interviewed by a panel (for Senior School – Jo Greenhalgh, Robyn Wilson and me; for Middle School – Daniel Williams, Laura Gorman, Georgia Davey and me).

Last Wednesday we held our inaugural AGM. It was very exciting to be launching this new leadership structure to promote and allow for greater student voice, agency, and leadership across our whole school for Year 7-12 students. I would like to thank both Mr Cummins for his organisation of the AGM and his leadership of the new structure and the teachers involved in leading or supporting a subcommittee.

At the end of our three periods together each sub-committee had their first draft of their action plan for Term 1 next year. Students reported back on this to the whole school assembly on Monday.

I am pleased to announce the successful candidates who will form the new Student Council - they were introduced to the whole school in our assembly on Monday. We will still have our formal leadership induction assembly with the presentation of badges and certificates mid Term 1 next year.

Senior School

College Captains: Emma Schultz & Daniel Loza

Vice Captains: Aston Hewet & Jeneya Tran

Sub-Committee Captains (Vice Captains also lead a subcommittee)

Curriculum: Tim Whitford & Tamsyn Russell

Facilities and Environment: Ronan Askew & Jade Goodman

Promotion and Fundraising: Alessia Gantzos, Isabella Siddall & Aston Hewet

The Arts: Performing Arts: Bronte Taylor & Stephen Elkington; Visual Arts: Aaliyah Zaph

Sports: Luke Collis & Jeneya Tran

Community and Well Being: Rhi Vaksman- Stovern

Senior House Captains:

Chantelle Ferguson & Lachlan Tomlinson - Kalura

Rhianne Blavo, Marnie Philpot & Laura Reeves - Yerlonga

Max Nowak - Iwala

TBC - Bunurong

Middle School

Captains: – Liliana Bell and Kyle McDonald

Vice Captains: – Anoushka Jithesh and Kylie Wolfe

Note: House captains at Years 8-11 have also been appointed and they have selected the subcommittee they want to be a part of in 2022.

Congratulations to all students who were nominated and went through the selection process for these important positions. In addition to these positions, our Year 7 students can still nominate for House Captains and to be on one of the subcommittees, and students across all year levels will be given the opportunity to join a subcommittee if interested.

Headstart Whole School Assembly

On Monday we held our Whole School Assembly in the gym, to officially launch the 2022 academic year for the whole school and our expectations of students for the remainder of the year in this program.

It is really important that, as a strong and positive school community, we are kind to each other, we are there for each other, that we all get along, showing respect to all and support and encourage one another to strive to achieve their personal best. With positive behaviours from all students living our College Values, we can ensure the provision of a safe school environment and positive school culture that supports all students and staff to be the best that they can be.

We hope students enjoy these last few weeks with their new teachers and classes and have started to build positive relationships that will set them up for success when they return next year. Student attendance, work in class, assigned homework and completion of set tasks will count towards their report for Semester One next year; and there will be a progress report issued at the end of Headstart.

Given what we have all been through over the last two years, I really hope students have a genuine appreciation of what it means to be back onsite for face-to-face learning and that they are all proud to be students here and will make the most of the many opportunities and challenges that will be presented to them. We should take nothing for granted and cherish the vast range of experiences that our school provides for our students.

During the assembly I also introduced our 2022 student leadership team forming the new Mordialloc College Student Council, including our new College Captains, Vice Captains and Middle School Captains who all gave their first speech in their respective new roles.

Kwong Lee Dow Young Scholars Program

The Kwong Lee Dow Young Scholars program is an academic enrichment program designed to support high-achieving Victorian and select New South Wales and South Australian border school students in realising their full potential. The program provides access to events, activities, and resources to give students a head start into university. Congratulations to Jeremy Thai-Chan a Year 10 student in 2021, who was successful in achieving one of the Melbourne University scholarships into this program which will run for the duration of Jeremy’s VCE studies at Mordialloc College. There were over 1500 applications received so a fantastic achievement for Jeremy!!

Facility Development

We are now permitted to have a full construction workforce onsite to continue working on the completion of our new two storey Year 7 and 8 Learning Centre. Neo Construct are now onsite six days a week to try and catch up a bit. The colour bond wall cladding is nearly completed, window glazing and flyscreen installation continues, as does wall and ceiling lining. The plan is to have the building at lock up stage by the school holidays. The lift is ready for installation, and this will occur once lock up is reached. They will be shut down for the holidays from 20/12/21 to 10/1/22, and back onsite from 11/01/22.

The in-ground stormwater works will be commencing soon and then the pathway can be completed from the gate currently locked up so students will have access to this main entry and exit point from the start of the school year in 2022. The building is still on track for end of Term 1 handover. In addition, our two new outside basketball courts and two new outside netball courts and fencing will also be complete.

Orientation Day

All our new students (246) starting next year in Year 7 will be having Orientation Day on Tuesday 7 December. This is a wonderful opportunity to make some new friends, become more familiar with the College and get to know the Year 7 teaching team. My thanks to all staff involved in running or supporting this program, especially our Year 7 Coordinator Andrew Potter and Assistant Year 7 Coordinator Liz McConville, and Director of Middle School Daniel Williams. As in previous years, we are running a special transition program in the lead up to this day for students in Grade 6 identified as at risk in transitioning to secondary school. This is being run over two days this week by our Year 7 coordinators and wellbeing team and involves our Year 10 Peer Support student leaders for 2022 assisting with these days and on Orientation Day. This program has been so important in ensuring Orientation Day isn’t so daunting to them (and of course the start of the next year).

Tutoring Program and other Intervention Supports

After another year of disruption and following feedback from Principals, the Department of Education and Training is continuing to fund the tutor learning program for one more year. After evaluating this year’s program and looking at our data and feedback from teachers, we will be focusing this funding next year on students in Years 9-11.

For our Year 12 students, we employ our high performing former students to be available to tutor our Year 12 students after school on different nights for different subjects.

Students in Years 7 and 8 are supported through our already established intervention programs at these levels and our Middle Years Literacy Numeracy Support (MYLNS) funding, again based on our data and feedback from teachers to identify students most in need of this extra support. MYLNS funding is also supporting students in Year 10, and we also run Literacy and Numeracy intervention electives in Year 9, which students (and parents) have elected to do as part of their learning program.

All parents of students selected for any of our intervention programs including the tutoring program will be contacted to give their consent for their child/s participation.

A new funding line for schools is the Disability Inclusion funding. This funding is to support the many students who don’t qualify for funding through Program for Students with Disabilities (PSD) (PSD students have an aide allocated to support their learning in the classroom). We will now be able to employ several additional aides to support students who have some form of learning difficulty. We are also considering entering the therapy dog program and are investigating the parameters and costs associated.

In our planning we need to have an overall picture of which students are getting what support out of all these programs, to ensure we are not leaving anyone behind and to also maximise the funding provided and, at the same time, have effective measures in place to gauge effectiveness of each form of intervention.

Awards Night and Production

As previously reported, to recognise and celebrate the achievements of our students across all year levels this year we pre-recorded this event again and this will be available to all families to watch by the end of this week or early next week. We will be sending the link to the video on our YouTube channel via Compass email. My sincere thanks to Marina Walsh, Sonja Hill, and Catherine Boulton for all their work in putting the event together for us. During the video, you will notice that in some sections we have masks on and others we don’t. This is a result of the change in the wearing of masks mandate in between recording days.

It was wonderful to welcome back our dux from 2020, David Le, to speak as part of this event. David is currently studying Biomedicine at Melbourne University. I will publish the names of the dux of each year level for 2021 in my next article in two weeks’ time. I prefer to have everyone watch these announcements on the video first.

This week we are filming some of the main numbers from the School Production of “We Will Rock You”. We will be able to share the link to families to watch this before the end of the year.

Student behaviour to and from school

A reminder we expect all students to proudly demonstrate our school values of Personal Best, Respect, Responsibility and Integrity in all actions and behaviours in school and out in the community at all times. We have high expectations of all of our students and ask that parents reinforce this at home in support of the school values. We ask all students to be mindful of their role as responsible young citizens in our local community, whether visiting one of our local shops, catching public transport, riding their bike, or walking to and from school.

Last few weeks’ arrangements and reports

Congratulations to all students for their positive engagement with our 2022 Headstart program to date. This program is compulsory for all students and will conclude on Friday 3 December for Year 11 and 12 students, Tuesday 7 December for Year 10 students and Friday 10 December for Years 8 and 9 students.

From Monday 13 – Friday 17 December an alternative program will run for students in Years 8-9 (7&8 2021 students). If your child will not be attending during this week, please contact the College. Semester 2, 2021 reports will be available via the Compass Parent and Student Portals on Friday 3 December, and 2022 Headstart progress checks will be available on Friday 17 December. Please contact the College if you have any trouble accessing or if you would like a hard copy. I hope parents take the opportunity to discuss the report/s with their student/s including appropriate actions to put in place to address any areas for improvement highlighted.

Michelle Roberts

Principal

College News

Responsibility - Personal Best - Integrity - Respect

Issue 38 · 01 Dec 2021

In this issue