Weekly Wrap

Dear all,

Welcome to week 1.

Our Year 12 students have now completed their last full week of classes. An inspection of year 12 classrooms this week revealed a cohort who appeared well prepared for the upcoming exams. The students are very busy, working hard, but appear calm and relaxed about what lies ahead. The work they have done in relation to pathways with Careers Counsellor, Alice Romanis has no doubt put their fears about “what’s next” at ease. Our students all have pathway plans for next year with a range of options. Alice does outstanding work supporting and guiding our students to pathways options they are passionate about.

This week our Year 9 students attended camp at “The Summit Camp” in Trafalgar. The camp proudly claims to be the “perfect mix of fun and inspiration.” Our feedback during the camp is that they have had a brilliant time, participating in high ropes course challenges, the Giant Swing, Mud Run, the Monster Course and others. The students will have been challenged by activities which would normally fall well outside their comfort zone. The work they have done led by Sub School Team Leader Jess Hendrickson and her team will have seen them grow as people and help them realise they can achieve great things in life.

This week we enjoyed a visit from Education Minister, The Hon. Natalie Hutchins MP, local ALP candidate for Glen Waverly, John Mullahy and MP Eastern Metro, Sonja Terpstra. Along with myself and Year 7 students Damien and Claudia, they sat and discussed school priorities and the recent success of our Naplan data. The Minister spoke with great pride about the outstanding Naplan growth at FHC. The three politicians were keen to understand how they could assist the College continue its growth.  After a tour of the College, Natalie Hutchins expressed her congratulations at the quality of teaching and learning she witnessed. She was particularly impressed with our Model of Practice. She spoke in glowing terms of the enthusiasm our staff showed in all the classrooms she visited. She was very complimentary of the evidence of learning intentions and success criteria

We hope to hear from her soon about how she can support the College into the future. We have requested some facility upgrades to her and she is considering the requests.

This week as we returned to school, one of our Leading Teachers Adrienne Baucke travelled to Sydney to present at the Australian Positive Education Conference. The theme for the 2022 conference is “Re-Connect: Re-engaging Students, Re-invigorating Staff, Re-shaping Culture”. The conference offers the opportunity for the education community to reconnect with one another and to the fundamental pillars of wellbeing in schools. The conference offers participants access to the latest positive education and wellbeing science, providing the current developments in theory and research. Adrienne is an expert around this research, and we are very proud she is a leader of Positive Education across the nation. Adrienne is presenting on practical classroom and school-wide strategies to enhance student wellbeing and academic attainment.

I wanted to remind all families that mobile phones are required to be put in lockers upon arrival at school and then left in the lockers for the entire school day. Research has shown they are a distraction to learning, and the Victorian Government has mandated that they are banned during the school day. I am asking parents and guardians to help support us to make sure we are compliant with the Government’s rules. If you could remind your children of the rules, we would appreciate that. We have noticed an increase in the number of students carrying phones on them during school post covid.

Water has been a significant challenge for the College this week. I wanted to update everyone about this, as it caused a bit of disruption across the College on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Unfortunately, we discovered a burst water pipe underneath the slab of one of the College buildings on Monday. Once this had been repaired, another leak appeared, this time in the roof. We have a number of water pipes running through the ceilings. Throughout the repair process, the water was required to be turned off at times. This caused some disruption and inconvenience to students and staff. I apologise for this. Our only other alternative was to cancel classes and send students home, which we clearly did not want to do. We attempted to limit the times the water was turned off to times when students were either in class, or at the end of the school day. The leaks have now been repaired. We thank everyone for their understanding during this time.

Congratulations are extended to Tennis Academy student Charlie Brady, who has secured a scholarship to Jones College in the USA to pursue his tennis career and complete a Bachelor of Business Administration. Having also represented Victoria in Perth recently at the Pizzey Cup, Charlie is our first student/ athlete to achieve a US scholarship, and we are very proud of him. He departs for Mississippi in January.