Principal's Update

Dear Families, Students and Community Members,

VCE results and DUX 2019 

Congratulations to all of our Year 12 students who received their results last Thursday. I am pleased to report that Mordialloc College students in 2019 achieved an excellent success rate in completing their VCE studies. Special mention in this newsletter must go to our Dux for 2019, William Hampson, who achieved an ATAR of 95.3, a fantastic result. William achieved scores of 40 plus in three of his subjects, with a score of 48 out 50 for English his highest. A student scoring over 40, means they are in the top 8% in the state for that subject! William has applied to complete a Commerce degree at Melbourne University. Congratulations also to Rory Thompson who scored 90.15 and is applying to study Engineering at RMIT. An outstanding success story that you may have already read about in The Age last Friday, is that of Josh Youngson who scored 85.25. Josh suffered a stroke in July 2017 when in Year 10. He lost the ability to walk, talk, write and had to relearn these basic skills. Josh achieved an amazing score of 46 for English and it’s a credit to his perseverance in the face of adversity and his determination to achieve his personal best. Josh should be an inspiration to all. He is applying to study Global Studies at Monash University before moving on to studying Law.

On a subject level we achieved some excellent results far exceeding the state average. This includes for English, Media Studies, Accounting, History, Physical Education, Physics and Studio Arts. 

While we celebrate individual student success stories, it is important to remind everyone that your final ATAR score does not define you as a person. In the end it is a rank for tertiary admission. It won’t necessarily determine where you will go in the future or how happy you will be. All students should feel proud of their efforts and be satisfied they have given their personal best.

Awards night 

Our annual Awards Night held at the City of Kingston Town Hall in Moorabbin on Thursday, 12 December was such a wonderful celebration of achievement of Personal Best. We had the opportunity to celebrate student successes in a variety of areas such as Academic Excellence, Achievement Endeavour, the Arts &Technology, Sport and Community Involvement.    High quality entertainment was also provided by students in the areas of Music and Dance. It was also a most significant occasion for our Year 12 students. All students were presented on stage in academic gowns to celebrate the achievements of the graduating class with the entire school community. It was wonderful to welcome back our Dux from 2018, Sabrina Berg. She gave a wonderful speech reflecting on her time at Mordialloc College and the past year studying Science Advance Global Challenges at Monash University. We also welcomed back Annie Ea, winner of the Premiers Award for English, to present this year’s Year 12 English Award to William Hampson. Our School Captains, Levi Burns and Elizabeth Ng, were our MCs for the night. They did a terrific job and gave very thoughtful and inspiring speeches.

There are many prizes awarded on the night. Students are nominated by their teachers at the end of each semester and this can be in one or more categories: Academic Excellence ­-The ‘Academic Excellence’ award is bestowed upon students who have demonstrated outstanding academic results within a subject. They have consistently worked above the expected level and/or have achieving a B or an A (in relation to Victorian Curriculum Achievement levels) on their reports where possible. At a VCE level students need to be consistently attaining high or very high on all assessments; Achievement Endeavour - The ‘Achievement Endeavour’ award is awarded to students in recognition of consistent efforts made to strive for their personal best.  They have demonstrated academic progress within a subject and have made significant improvements to reach their learning goals; and Community Service - The ‘Community Service’ award is awarded to students from across each year level who have served the College in a particular way. For example participation in a variety of school activities as determined on an annual basis such as: SRC, House Athletics, House Swimming, School Production, subject competitions, contribution to the College Magazine, participation in Open Night, primary school visits etc.

Unfortunately, given the size of our school, we can’t recognise all students at the Awards Night presentation and thus we have set criteria for each year level (how many awards nominations they must receive) to be invited on the night. Therefore,  invitees are the top performing students in their year level. All other students who were nominated by their teachers for an award will have received these academic or achievement certificates last Friday in class. They should still be very proud of their positive work ethic and achievements this year.

This year we introduced a new award category – Dux of each year level based on close examination of achievement data over the year. The Dux for each year level was only revealed on the night, and so students weren’t named in the program.

Congratulations to the following students: 

Charlotte Zaph DUX of Year 7

Reema Ababneh – DUX of Year 8

Timothy Whitford – DUX of Year 9

Victoria Vasilenko – DUX of Year 10

Kijana Pauline – DUX of Year 11

My thanks must go to Peter Walters and Catherin Boulton for all their work in putting the evening together for us and to my teaching staff who all had an allocated role on the night to ensure the effective running of this significant event.

Orientation Day

All of our new students starting next year in Year 7 enjoyed Orientation Day last Tuesday - making new friends, becoming more familiar with the College and getting to know the Year 7 teaching team. My thanks to all staff involved in running or supporting these programs, especially our Year 7 Coordinators Laura Gorman and Julia Hockey and Director of Middle School Daniel Williams. As in previous years, we also ran a special transition program the previous week over two days for students in Grade 6 identified as at risk in transitioning to secondary school. This was organised and led by our Wellbeing team, supported by our wonderful Year 10 Peer Support student leaders. This program is so important in ensuring both Orientation Day and the start of the following year aren't so daunting for these students.