Welcome

We would like to welcome some new staff to the College this term.

Teachers:

• Ranjili Mudaliar  – English / Humanities
• Andy Nguyen – Science
• Lela Seely –  English VM Literacy
• Damien McDonald – English

Education Support:

• Thuy Nguyen – Individual Needs – Integration Aide
• Yumiko Kawada – Japanese Language Assistant
• Mary Nguyen – General Office Reception

Mr Mathew Wenham and Mr Ali Yamin are new to the Middle Sub School Coordination Team.  The sub school will email parent where there has been a change of coordinator.

We would like to welcome all the new staff to the college, and wish the staff taking up new roles all the best.

Congratulations

Congratulations to Ms Kristy Le and her partner on the birth of their daughter, Aurelia Son.  Aurelia was born on 30 April, 2024 weighing 3.48 kg.  Best wishes to the gowing family.

Anzac Day Service

The College commemorated ANZAC Day this year on 24 April 2024.  Students, staff and special guests gathered to remember and pay their respects to those who have served in the armed services.  We hold this service annually in honour of the anniversary of when Australian and New Zealand soldiers landed on the beach at Gallipoli in Turkey on 25 April 1915. Thank you to our VCE-VM students and staff who organised this event and a big thank you to special guest alumni  Corporal Laurence Gatt and Corporal Amar Hujdurovic who joined us for this very important day in our College calendar.

We are Better Together Week

Year 7-11 students at College participated in a series of facilitated Workshops where they explored and unpacked prevalent issues within their school and community. After hearing project ideas from their peers aimed at addressing different community issues, students voted to focus their funded project on building community connectedness in the community.

The young people in the project wanted to create something that could bring members of the school community together, to build connection and pride in contrast to some of the negative news that been in the community lately. They also wanted to see St Albans as a community showcased in a positive way. Finally, this project also aimed to help develop the capacity of staff at the College to address the challenges students face and help them feel safe at school and empowered to make a positive contribution to our school community. This training, led by an external facilitator, working Sub School and Wellbeing staff, has commenced and will continue over the course of the term.

The student project work culminated last week in  “We are better together week”. Through this event students had the opportunity to engage in pro-social, artistic, sporting and cultural experiences and workshops.  The week celebrated the diversity of the school by partnering with our VCE-VM students who ran a multicultural day. The talents of students were also showcased through performances across the week.  The final component of this project, the development of documentary and a student art and film competition, will be finalised in the coming weeks to help us remember every day “we are better together!”

Prepared for Learning Goals

All year 7, 8  & 9 students should now have a PFL goal recorded on COMPASS under the Insights tab for parents to view. The students have created these goals (learning and wellbeing) by reflecting on their Term 1 progress reports, work habits and general preparedness for learning. If you have a look and the goal is not there, please remind your child to speak to their Learning Manager if they need help to do it. We ask parents to discuss ways you can support your child to achieve their goals. It might include supporting them with routines at home, checking in with them each day to see how they are going, encouraging a growth mindset when things don’t go as planned or promoting healthy habits. Students in Years 10-12 will be given an opportunity to set a PFL goal for Semester 2.

Year 8 Proactive Programs – Man Cave and 1000 Generations

We had two proactive programs that ran this week on Tuesday for Year 8 students to assist them to navigate the transition to adulthood designed specifically for each gender as a way to share stories and grow as individuals.

The Man Cave and 1000 Generations programs are designed to provide a safe space for students to develop the social and emotional tools they need to connect deeper with themselves and with their friends.  It was run by a facilitator with support from school staff.

The program provided a timely forum for student connections providing a guide to have open discussions to work through current issues in a supportive environment. There will be a more detailed article in next months’ newsletter.

Grade 6 Taster Days

We have had two Taster Days for grade 6 students in local primary schools.  The students were presented with a taste of what a day in secondary school involves and had classes across a range of subjects throughout the day. There was a sausage sizzle at lunchtime and a concert at the end of the day and it was a great opportunity for us to meet some of our potential students for Year 7 in 2025.  Well done to the Transition team ably lead by Mr Ron Brown and Ms Lauren Honeycombe. The days were each well received with plenty of happy faces at the end of the day.  We’d like to thank all the staff who took the grade 6 lessons or assisted on the day.

Year 7 and 8 Excursions

We’d like to thank the Humanities and Science teams for their organisation of the excursions for Year 7 and Year 8 during the third week of term.  On Tuesday 30 April Year 8 went to Melbourne Museum and IMAX to complement their studies of landforms and landscapes in Geography and geology in Science. They rotated through a number of galleries at the museum, including Dynamic Earth and A Bug’s Life, and viewed the three dimensional presentation,  A Beautiful Planet at IMAX. 

 

 

On Thursday 2 April Year 7 students went to the Zoo to investigate the adaptations animals have that allow them to survive in various habitats.  During the day they also explored the classification of animals and investigated their conservation status.

Both of these excursions were well attended and provided a rich experience beyond the classroom where students could make valuable connections to their learning. Well done to Ms Angela Hanley and Ms Katie O’Connell who put a great deal of time and thought in to organising these events and thank you to all those staff who participated on the days.