Weekly Wrap

Term 4 Week 10 Weekly Wrap

Welcome to the weekly wrap.

The past few weeks have been very busy.

The 2024 curriculum is well under way and the students are working hard in classes.

Preparation for Presentation Night is gaining momentum.

Awards have now been decided upon and invitations to families will be sent soon.

Presentation Night is Monday 11 December.

On Monday and Tuesday last week our student leadership camp was held in Merricks.

Students worked with staff to develop action plans for next year.

Our Prime Minister Jennifer Schutz then presented an overview of their 2024 plans to College Council on Wednesday night.

Some of their plans include a desire to implement Learning Area events, for example, in Term 1 2024, they want to focus on the Maths Learning Area.

Their ideas include the running of a Pi event and a Maths competition in teams, that would attract Tribe points.

Student Parliament wants to elevate student voice further through the conducting of more regular surveys of students in Connect.

They also plan to run the following free dress days – Wear it purple day and RUOK day, and to continue the very successful Appreciation Week that was introduced this year, early in term 3.

A major focus is an expansion of student lunchtime Clubs, and they have some excellent ideas, for example, Baking Club.

The leaders are aware the uniform contract is due for renewal in 2024, and have some ideas about some alterations they would like to make.

Work has continued constructing the new Makers Space for the STEAM Academy.

We have taken possession of our new Laser Cutter, and have continued refurbishing the teaching space.

It has been very pleasing to be able to use the skills of an ex student to do the carpentry work.

Lachie Smart is a qualified carpenter and he has been building the robot arena and installing storage and constructing furnishings to enable the students access to an excellent learning space for robotics.

On Friday morning a number of our Student Parliament representatives had the opportunity to work with our architects to understand what they think makes for great learning & teaching spaces.

They will initially ask staff and students for some ‘blue sky’ dreaming about imagining their ideal spaces and scenarios that would best support their learning & teaching goals.

They will then drill down to more specific questions about Science, Food Tech, Art and also the Canteen as a social gathering space.

They are also interested to hear what staff & students think is unique about the FHC learning environments and how this can be built upon.

An additional College Council meeting has been scheduled for 19 December to enable the architects to present some high level Master Planning to Council.

Once this has been signed off, progress on the actual designs of the spaces to be developed can commence.

We are still on track and expect construction to commence in the second half of 2024.

This is a very exciting project that will enable high quality learning to take place.

The second hand uniform and book sale was held last Friday.

We have seen a big uptake in the sale this year.

There has been much more uniform items and increased volume of books available for sale.

The Parents Association do a wonderful job volunteering their time to provide this highly valued service to our community.

Funds raised through the sale are used to purchase things for students.

At the moment they are sourcing outdoor table tennis tables, that we hope will be installed for the start of February.

Across the next few months works will commence on improving access to our school.

An audit of all access ramps has been conducted and we have been able to secure the funding to remove and replace all ramps that are not compliant with DDA specifications.

The work will commence as soon as classes finish.

This work is extensive, and address in excess of 30 entrances to rooms and access through courtyards.

David Rogers

College Principal

Student Leadership Camp

Our student leaders have participated in many activities that were facilitated by our new Parliamentary leaders.

They defined the qualities and role of leaders at FHC and carried out more specific planning for the upcoming year.

Mr Rogers attended camp to present our leaders with their badges.

He spoke to the leaders about their role at FHC and how it was valued.

For the first time, Tribe Captains have attended camp and formulated their plan for Tribe activities in 2024.