Principal's Report 

Ms Jennifer Roep

Dear Families, Students and Community Members,

On Friday 22nd October, our Year 12 students attended for their official final day of secondary school. Many students had gone to great effort to decorate their uniforms and dress them up with bright colours. They looked amazing! 

This year we have not been able to celebrate the achievements of our Year 12 students because of the restrictions placed on schools. The Senior Study Centre was decorated for them by the senior team and there were photos placed all around the lockers of them from when they started in Year 7 and at various times throughout their schooling. They looked so young when they started here and have grown into impressive young adults. Normal classes ran for the first 4 sessions and then we gathered in the study centre for a couple of speeches and then it was time to celebrate with food and signing of their uniforms. 

There was a mix of emotions for many of them. Friday, for our VCAL students, was their last day. For the VCE students, they still have their exams to undertake so will be back with us until they finish these.

We acknowledged that the last 2 years have been challenging, but it wasn’t impossible as they were all there celebrating the last day having experienced many different emotions, many different challenges and much adversity to get there. 

On behalf of the whole College Community, I would like to wish all Year 12 students every success for the examination period, which began on Wednesday 27th October. I am confident they will all achieve the VCE or VCAL results they deserve and have worked towards all year. No matter what their pathway on leaving Maffra Secondary College, I encourage them to choose to live their life with purpose, and as they leave us, to go out and be the best version of themselves. 

I would like to thank our Senior School Leader Marie Clark, Senior School Assistant Leaders Carol Caffrey and Fiona Ray, Administration Assistant Tanya McIntosh, Assistant Principals Cheryl Evans and Nathan Wallace and all of our Year 12 teachers who have all worked tirelessly to support our Year 12 students this year. 

We will be able to recognise all of our Year 12s again at the Valedictory Dinner on Friday 12th November at Duart Homestead. We are hoping  parents will be able to join their children on this evening as State-wide restrictions continue to ease. All staff, students and family members will need to be double vaccinated to attend this.

School process if a confirmed COVID case attends onsite

At the beginning of the week I attended a meeting outlining the process for school closures, if a confirmed COVID case attends onsite. Over the last fortnight there have been more than 100 schools close in South East Victoria, with a majority of them closing for only 24 hours. 

When a school closes as a result of a confirmed case, all students will need to stay at home while we identify primary close contacts (PCCs) of the confirmed case and the school undergoes a clean. The criteria for a PCC is any person who is in the same room as a positive case for 2 hours (cumulative). The infectious period is deemed to be 48 hours prior to the onset of symptoms or 48 hours prior to testing if asymptomatic.

I am conscious that there are confirmed cases now in our area so I am reinforcing how important it is that any person with COVID symptoms remains at home and gets tested as soon as possible. It is also important for all staff and students onsite to maintain COVIDSafe behaviours in terms of physical distancing where possible, wearing a face mask correctly and maintaining good hand hygiene. We are doing what we can to ensure appropriate ventilation in classrooms by opening doors and windows. 

To support us in contact tracing, could families please let the Front Office know by ringing 5147 1790, if your child is double vaccinated. Whilst this is not mandatory, it will speed up the contact tracing if we have this information provided. Part of the process when identifying PCCs is to inform DFFH of the vaccination status of each PCC. This will determine whether there is a 7-day isolation period (double vaccination) or 14 days (none or 1 vaccination) required for each PCC. If your child is not vaccinated then you do not need to contact the office.

I really appreciate your support with this and hope that we do not need to use this information. Please be assured that this information will be kept confidential and only used if we are contact tracing. It will not be shared with members of our community. If you have any questions in relation to this, please contact me to discuss. 

College Captains – 2022

This year we reviewed our student leadership positions at the College and the selection process for this. Last week, candidates for the School Captain positions in 2022 submitted their written applications and were interviewed by a panel of staff. The panel consisted of myself, Nathan Wallace, Carol Caffrey and Gerard Abdoo. Short videos (since we couldn’t hold an assembly) have been shown in Learn2Learn classes this week and students and staff will have an opportunity to vote for their preferred Captain. Once voting closes, the interview panel will reconvene to look at the votes from students and staff, along with the endorsements provided for each candidate. 

The components of the new selection process are weighted equally with interview and application contributing to 50% of the decision and the staff and student votes equally weighted at 25% each. This year, all candidates needed to identify 2 staff members and 1 student to endorse their application and they provided a rating against 9 statements (like a confidential referee check). This endorsement will contribute to the 50% application/interview section. 

I look forward to being able to announce our Captains and Vice Captains for 2022 at the beginning of our Headstart program and look forward to all of our candidates participating in Remembrance Day coming up in November. 

School Review

Over the last 2 weeks, we have undertaken our school review. This finished on Friday with our Panel Day where we identified 3 goals, a range of targets and key improvement strategies to support the implementation of the goals. I would like to thank Hans Simon (School Council President) for his contribution to the review and being an active member of the review panel. Our challenge partners were outstanding and provided constructive feedback, probing questions and shared great insights into our College. They were extremely valuable members of the Panel. Our Reviewer, Bob Stephens, coordinated the whole process extremely well and was fantastic in his approach to the process. He provided ongoing feedback throughout the process and was well received by the panel for his thoughtfulness, manner and strong support for our College and improving the outcomes for all of our students. 

I will provide further information to the community once we have received the Report from our Reviewer and share the School Strategic Plan 2022 – 2025 once it has been finalised. I would like to thank the parents who completed the survey at the end of last term, providing feedback on different aspects of the College and to those that also participated in the parent focus groups with our Reviewer. We also had 55 students involved in focus groups during the review and many more at the end of Term 3. Thank you to everyone who participated and shared their thoughts. It has helped to develop our direction over the next 4 years.

Cup Eve 1st November

Monday 1st November will be our student-free day that we re-scheduled from August this year. The first half of the day will be focused on our School Review, with our Reviewer - Bob Stephens, presenting back to all staff on the findings and new School Strategic Plan Goals, Targets and Key Improvement Strategies (KIS). The second half of the day will be focused on staff wellbeing with some professional learning and then time for staff to participate in a range of activities to support their wellbeing.

 

Jennifer Roep
Jennifer Roep

Ms Jennifer Roep

MSC Principal