Welcome back to what will be another busy year in the Middle School. My name is Ian MacLeod, I am the Campus Principal who works with Middle School. I would particularly like to welcome our Year 9 students and families as they start their journey at the Senior Campus of the college. We welcomed our Year 9 and 10 students to the college last week.
Year 9 Inspire Program
The Year 9 Inspire program had many different activities for students and staff to engage with including a Careers session, locker allocation, a scavenger hunt and wellbeing sessions. Thank you to Ms Asha Vazirani, Ms Jo Rogers, Mr Jackson Waters and Ms Juliz Mathews for their work in organising and running this program.
Year 10 Camp
Camp Coonawarra was the venue for our Year 10 Camp. The students were kept busy with a wide range of activities including canoeing, raft making, flying fox and giant swing to name juts a few. Thank you to at the staff who attended Linda Davies, Melissa Knowles, Tristan Dunkley, Amanda Irwin, Lisa McKiernan, Tristan Kent, Adam Wheeler, Olivia Lin, Kelvin Nguyen, Michelle Kelly, Mathew Turner, Stephanie Lamborn, Madeline Kerr, Sally Robotham, Jessica Panther, Tiffany Zhang, Robert Cetincic, Alisha Smith, and Anthony Borya. To Jo Rogers, Grace Leszczynski and Stepahnie Xing thank for your work in organising and leading the camp – well done!
Middle School Team
The Middle School team are here to help you support our Year 9 and 10 students both inside and outside the classroom. Please contact the coordinators if you need any support.
The team is as follows:
Head of Middle School – Ms Asha Vazirani
Leader of Middle School – Ms Jo Rogers
Year 9 Coordinators – MrJackson Waters and Ms Juliz Mathew
Year 10 Coordinators – Ms Grace Leszczynski and Ms Stephanie Xing
Middle School Admin Support: Ms Karen Box
Student Diaries
Student have received their diaries which are valuable tool to support their learning. Students should record homework and upcoming events to assist with time management and organisation. The diary also contains many worthwhile resources and parents are encouraged to check it weekly and discuss “What went well” for the week.
Parking in and around the Senior Campus
The Senior Campus has parking which is for staff only. The carparks at the Senior Campus should not be used for dropping off or picking up students as this creates safety issues for both staff and students. Students should be dropped off and picked up in adjacent side streets near the Senior Campus. When parking near the college it is important that parking signs are observed and we ask that you respect our local residents by not blocking their driveways as you drop off or pick up your children.
Student Safety
With the commencement of the school year, it is timely to remind all members of our college community to observe all road laws. In particular cyclists must wear helmets and when students are crossing roads, it needs to be done with care and observing traffic signals and the crossing supervisor if present. Please discuss this with your son/daughter and emphasise the need to follow correct road safety practices to keep everyone safe.
Compass
All parents should now have access to Compass. Compass is used to communicate with parents on a wide range of activities within the school. Compass can be access through the college website using any web browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari) via your desktop computer or mobile device. Alternatively, parents can also download the Compass App from the Apple App store or Goggle Play by searching “Compass School Manager” which will allow you to access Compass through their mobile device. It is important to note that some of features of Compass are only available in the “browser” version.
Holiday Works
Across the holiday period the ICT and Facilities Teams were busy improving the college. If you see anything different from last year on campus it’s the ICT and Facilities teams that have made this happen!
The ICT Works undertaken included:
- Prepared new and setting up laptops and notebooks for staff
- Work on switches and ordered equipment for the STEAM building
- Replaced projectors in P4, LA21, and LA 63.
- Connected JC projectors to the network for remote access.
- Server updates
- Wireless software upgrade
- Organised new ICT equipment for H2 upgrade
- Assisted new students with their device set up
- Repairing damaged laptops
- Created network accounts
- Created Learning Tasks.
Thanks to Aro, Andrew and Jacob for their work across the break. Well done!
The Facilities Team also worked hard across the break with the focus on the following:
- Filter changes in all Air Purifiers across both campuses
- Line marking on the Senior Campus
- Painting in various locations across both campuses
- Test and tagging
- Fire services inspections
- Resurfacing the hall floors on both campuses
- Cleaning drains and adding in new drainage on SC
Thanks to Wendy and Kevin for their great work across the holiday period.
Major Projects
STEAM Centre
Work has continued across the break on the STEAM Centre with much of the internal framework being completed. We will see walls being added and windows across the coming weeks. At this stage we are looking at taking ownership of the building in the middle of the year which is every exciting.
Courts and Oval
Work has continued across the break on this exciting project. Work has concentrated on the Junior Campus to ensure we can get this back on-line for the students and staff as soon as possible.
H2 Food Tech Upgrade
The transformation of H2 into a modern Food Tech room is nothing short of amazing. A huge amount of work happened across the holiday period, including the installation of all cabinetry and stainless benches, delivery and installation of cooktops and ovens and associated electrical and plumbing works as well as painting and installing ICT equipment. This new room will be back on-line in March.
School Photos
Arthur Read Photos took our school photos on Thursday 9 February. Information on how to order photos was given to students on the day. For any students that missed out there will be a catch day on Monday 27 February.
Mr Ian MacLeod
Campus Principal – Middle School