Principal's Report

Principal -

Mr. Tristan Lanarus

Dear Westall Secondary College Community,

I am pleased to inform you that for the 2nd consecutive year, Westall Secondary College has been recognised as a high performing school. The Education Department now uses a comprehensive assessment and analysis tool called a school performance report. This report measures a range of areas including NAPLAN results, VCE and VCAL results, Student Attendance and Staff, Parent and Student Opinion data. This is wonderful affirmation of the great work our students and staff do every day. The results also reflect the fantastic support we receive from parents and guardians. I want to use this example to especially thank our fantastic staff, who always go “above and beyond”, to support our students and who embody the CARE values of our school. Congratulations to all members of our College Community. Whilst we are incredibly proud and happy with our performance over the last 2 years, we will pursue KAIZEN (Japanese term for continuous improvement), to seek being better and better every year, in giving our students the best school possible.

Year 12 exams are currently taking place, and I want to congratulate all of our Year 12 graduates on the way you have conducted yourselves in your final days. I wish you all the very best with your exams and look forward to celebrating with you on Graduation Night (Thursday, 28th November). This year, our Graduation Ceremony will be held at Monash University, Clayton Campus. This is an exciting new venue and I am sure it will be a fantastic evening to recognise all of our Year 12s, along with our top performers at each year level.

Whilst Year 12s are finishing up now, the end of the year is not far away for all other year levels. We are now into our last 4 weeks of classes, with final assessments and exams looming around the corner. 2020 classes (Headstart) commence on Monday, 2nd December, with current Year 10 and 11 students completing 1 week of classes and being dismissed on Friday 6th December. Current Year 7, 8 and 9 students will complete 2 weeks of 2020 classes, before having our Annual Activities Week, Monday 16th December to Thursday 19th December.

In regards to 2020 subjects and the new timetable, this is due to be released in the next week. Other key dates to note are our 2019 Awards Assembly at 12pm on Thursday 21st November. This will be held in the School Gymnasium and parents are welcome to attend this. Please also note our final Student Free Day to support staff prepare for our new 2020 classes, will be on Friday, 29th November.

Finally, I want to thank all parents for your support in sending your students to school each day in full and correct uniform. This is an important aspect of our orderly school environment. Along with uniform, a new policy to be implemented in 2020 is the State-wide mobile phone policy. Every Victorian Government school is mandated to implement the mobile phone ban in 2020. What this will mean is that when students arrive to school in the morning, mobile phones must be placed in their locker. Phones must remain in lockers throughout the day (this means no mobile phone use at recess and lunch as well) and to be collected when students leave to go home.

Until next time!

Mr Tristan Lanarus