From the Principal

This is our final newsletter for Term 1, which has passed by with a flurry of purposeful activity and highlights.

Our Year 7s are feeling settled in, have made new connections and have practically mastered this secondary school game. They are now ready to head off to camp, to further extend their network of peers, and to demonstrate leadership capabilities, while discovering new things about how brave and supportive they can be.

Our Year 8s have all spent time at Boho Camp, (the last group is there this week), experiencing the challenge of the overnight hike, riding horses, and roughing it in tents.

The Year 9s are relishing in-depth learning in areas of passion within their Northcote Model subjects, whilst the Year 10s are working hard to prepare for Work Experience, which is coming up quickly next term.

We have noted the increasing maturity and focus of the Year 11s as they immerse themselves in the rigours of the VCE and chalk up completion of approximately slightly more than 1/8 of the VCE or VCAL. And the Year 12s are working hard and supporting each other, and eagerly awaiting the move to the new building.

It has been a busy term all round, with our School Review, the opening of the new building, School Council elections, Meet and Greet opportunities for all year levels along with the usual hum and buzz of a vibrant school. We have achieved so much together, over the course of the past 10 weeks.

Thank you to each of you for the contribution you have made, big or small, to providing the best education we can to the community of Northcote.

I encourage all staff, students and families (if possible) to take the time to wind down, relax and spend quality time with those that you love.

The Annual Report to the Community

Thursday evening was well attended for the Annual Report to the Community. Using the new building was a suitable celebration of our work in 2018. School Council formally acknowledged and thanked the staff for their outstanding work last year.

Our school captains, Marco Bellemo and Noah Sutherland spoke eloquently about the issues that are important to them, including sustainability and discriminatory language, and implored our community to do better at addressing these issues. Both of them had suggested ways forward that were considered and well thought out, and included in most cases, using our students as a resource.

Harmony Vocals, led by Cindy Frost, did a beautiful rendition of When I fall in love, and Lincoln LeFevre helped out with the sound. Kate Challis was her usual supernormal help, organising us all.

The crowd was much bigger than in previous years, with over 50 people listening intently to the outcomes of your tremendous work. Well done and congratulations to the Northcote High School Community.

You can find and read our 2018 Annual Report on the Northcote High School website, later in the week. I encourage you to do so. It illustrates clearly what a wonderful, progressive school we are, and this year, for the first time, it also includes a detailed outline of the Thrive Fund. Please look through this to see how your valuable donations support the students at the school.

It was also an opportunity to show the new building off, and everyone was very impressed.

Bon Voyage

We wish Angela Cappelli and Jai Rochester and the 13 students well for their trip to Italy, and Barry Drinan, Christine Martin and Connie Stewart and the 24 students going on the USA Art trip. Both trips left over the weekend.

Student Parent Teacher Conversations 

It was great to see so many families making the most of opportunities to discuss their child(ren)’s learning with staff on Thursday and Friday last week. I met many of you along the way, and everyone said they were getting positive feedback and something to take away to work on. I trust those who attended felt they were valuable.

It was remiss of me not to inform you prior to the event that we staggered the staff dinner break this time, so as to allow, as much as possible, continuity of appointments. Those of you who are experienced campaigners, were caught unaware about this new arrangement. It worked well this time, so we will continue to do it during the Term 3 sessions.

This was also another opportunity to showcase the new building, and the feedback from parents and students was incredibly positive. Everyone is excitedly waiting for Term 2, when we will be using it for regular classes.

Friends of Northcote, Performing Arts Trivia Night – Friday 22 March

A big thank you and congratulations to Jackie Brogan, Kirsten Kelly-Cleeve, Cindy Frost, and our wonderful parent helpers from the Friends of Northcote, for their efforts towards creating such a successful evening. The trivia night was a roaring success, with about 130 people in attendance. This year, my table came an honourable second. That’s an improvement on last year, when we came third. Watch out – we may be the winners in 2020.

We raised a wonderful $3,178.95 which goes towards our Thrive Fund – Innovate branch, and we are purchasing three more acoustic guitars for classroom music and are looking into the purchase of a Ptuba soon. A Ptuba (I learnt on the night), is not a spelling error, it is a plastic tuba for younger students to learn on.

Top Designs

On Friday 29, I joined Rohan Bevan, Barry Drinan, Connie Stewart and Paula Andreovski at the Melbourne Museum to help celebrate our five students’ success at the VCE Seasons of Excellence Exhibition launch.

Yianni Rowlands and Oliver Crawford Smith were there for the Top Screen entries, which were again on display which I have written about previously.

Jasmine Kennedy’s Top Design – Fabric was on display, and it was great to catch up with her and her family at the event. Charlie O’Brien (current year 12) was there with friends to celebrate his award winning Visual Communication folio, and Edward (Ned) Astbury was there with his father. Ned won the Dean’s Award for the best design and also the Museum Internship Award. He will get to spend a week with staff at the Museum. Ned’s vacuum style pill picker-upper was designed to help people with arthritis and limited mobility pick up dropped pills. Many people commented to me about Northcote’s excellent work. We have 5 of the 85 ‘Top’ entries. Congratulations to our students and to our staff, who nurtured and supported the students, provided feedback and guidance and assisted them (and many others) be so successful.

Coming up

New Performing Arts Building

I am eagerly awaiting news from the Minister for Education about his availability so that we can set a date for the Official Opening of the new building. It will be a great opportunity to have the Minister here to not only open it, but for him to hear of and see first-hand the need for further funding to commence the next stage of the Master Plan to build new permanent facilities.

Advocating for further funding for building upgrades is something our community needs to prioritise over the coming months.

Thank you to the 430 community members who have completed the survey about naming the new building. School Council will look at the list and determine a process for seeking further input from you about an official name.

Classes will start using the new building from Term 2, and the Senior Years sub-school office will also move in there. Students should check Compass for at the start of Term 2 for any room changes that may affect them, and keep an eye on the Compass Newsfeed and myNorthcoteHigh bulletin for general information about new spaces.

Open Morning – 30 April

We are looking forward to our Open Morning on Tuesday 30 April. It is a great opportunity for the community to see what a wonderful and productive environment it is here at Northcote High School. We have student led tours operating throughout the morning, and sessions run by students, myself and our Assistant Principals. If you know of prospective families, please spread the word and encourage them to come along.

Upgrades to St Georges Road

VicRoads will be resurfacing sections of St Georges Road (between Miller Street, Preston and Clarke Street, Northcote) from 4 April until 15 April 2019 between 9 pm – 5:30 am. During this time there will be closures.

Updates to a staged approach to addressing issues with uniform

Please be on the lookout for a Compass News Feed in the coming days, which outlines some refinements to our uniform processes.

We are also cognizant that as the temperature drops next term, students will be seeking warmth, and we encourage families to plan for and if need be, arrange the purchase of uniform items to ensure that students needs are met. The new uniform has a range of warm items that look good too.

If you need support to purchase warm items, please don’t hesitate to contact our Student Services Team, led by Leanne Petroff.

Introducing our Education Support Staff

Next term, we start a series of short introductions to our wonderful, professional and helpful Education Support staff.  Look out for this in future editions!