From the Principal's desk

Principal Update

The news that we were to continue our Remote Learning experience until the end of this term was not a surprise but was well and truly far from what we had hoped for. This extension to time away from Campus and from students came about in a further effort to keep our community safe. Our capacity to remember that the purpose behind these lockdowns and subsequent RL is related to a sense of safety for all can be easy to forget as we grapple with the many aspects of daily life that we must forgo. 

We continue to monitor closely the level of engagement and work students are completing and can report that engagement levels are as high as they have been throughout any of the RL periods through the past two years. This is an outstanding achievement and comes in the face of the lockdown fatigue I am sure we are all experiencing. Connected to this work on site and at home by staff at NBC has been the outstanding support by all parents and carers at our school. This support is so crucial to the success of our RL programs, and we truly appreciate everything parents and carers are doing to encourage their children to interact with their classes and teachers. 

Data Success

The fruits of our labor as a school is certainly more than a few numbers on a page. It extends from those daily wins where our students realise their potential and capacity is higher than they ever gave themselves credit for - those aha moments that make us realise why we commit to this work. Our success can be seen in the relationships and personal interactions we have with students as they grow and develop. 

Having said this, the learning growth our students achieve will always carry a high degree of weight in any measurement of the impact our work has. With this in mind it is just so wonderful to report that first glances at our NAPLAN demonstrate such huge learning growth for our students. From the early look through this data what we can categorically say is that students who attended NBC over the past two years (the length of time between matched cohort data sets) achieve a significantly higher level of learning growth than what was delivered statewide. In fact, across our Year 5 and Year 7 cohorts our students outperformed state mean growth across all 5 domains of NAPLAN. (see below graphs)

This truly is an outstanding achievement and one we should celebrate and be so proud of. A huge congratulations to all!!

DET message - VCE Staff and Student priority Access to COVID Vaccine

Over the past two weeks we have communicated consistently with our school community regarding the Victorian Government effort to promote COVID 19 vaccinations. This has included advertising to our VE and VCAL students details of the vaccination blitz planned for the final two weeks of Term 3 where students and staff are provided priority access to vaccine appointments. We hope this message has been helpful in supporting families to make positive decisions around their health and wellbeing.

Goldsworthy Building Program

Through our architects Brendan and Pasquale from Biuro Ailtiri, the planning for our new facilities at Goldsworthy continue to come along nicely. As we are in the Detailed Design phase of this project we really get to see a true sense of what the final product will look like. A very exciting time for all.

Year 8 into 9 Information Session

It was so wonderful to see over 70 members of our Year 8 community tuning into our inaugural Year 8 into 9 information session. To have so many students and families getting to hear firsthand from their Year 9 teachers of what learning will look like for them at their new Campus in 2022 really was so nice. Thanks to all of the staff who contributed to this event - staff from all campuses and programs across our school. It highlighted just how big the team around the learner is here at NBC and our awareness that it takes the entire village to raise a child.

Afghanistan Crisis

Our staff have been active in providing a safe and supportive environment for our Afghan students and families following the recent tragic events in Afghanistan. 

A LINK is included to the Foundation House website where content to support schools with advice and guidance around supporting students of Afghan background is included. The images and stories that continue to emerge through this time are simply devastating and again we will be required to provide an educated, consistent and supportive response and environment for our students and wider community. 

August 27 PL Day - Postponed

We have again made the decision to postpone our already postponed PL Day. The restrictions still in place prevent us coming together for Professional Learning activities which again prevents the CUST work occurring in the meaningful way it is intended. We will look to hold the event in Term 4 or may even look to postpone this PL Day until 2022.

NBC Provisional Appointments

We are busily working through a fair bit of staffing for next year and beyond. Just recently we have completed several leadership team roles at the college. We congratulate the following staff (all current NBC) staff who have been successful in the following roles:

• James Bayard - Leading Teacher - Year 9 Learning Community Leader
• Tayla Weldon - Leading Teacher - Applied Learning Community Leader
• Stacey Conroy - Leading Teacher - Educational Priorities
• Kylie Armstrong - Leading Teacher - Disability & Inclusion Coordinator
• Megan Murfitt - P-8 Learning Community Leader 
• Meg Shannon - P-8 Learning Community Leader 

Regards,

Scott Diamond

College Principal