2019 College Captain

Congratulations to Evana Miesen and Dylan Hassan who have been appointed as the 2019 College Captains.

Principals meeting with Department of Education

This afternoon I am attending a meeting with DEECD officials and Principals of other secondary schools in Melbourne.

This is the third such meeting that myself and Mr Blackley have been part of this year.

The purpose of this meeting is to to identify effective ways to engage at-risk youth in education, with a focus on school-level/community approaches.

Principals are hoping that schools can:

• improve educational attainment and retention rates amongst at-risk youth
• identify effective, evidence and outcome driven practices which could be replicated
• identify best practice approaches informing department’s culturally and linguistically diverse work and ongoing operational policy.

As part of this program we have engaged a mentor to help support the high numbers of students from CALD backgrounds. Two mentors have been appointed, one at Melton Secondary College and one at our College to work with students, parents and staff.

We welcome Simma Maniel to our community and look forward to him working with us. He will be working with us on Tuesday's and Wednesday's.

Parent/guardian School Improvement Survey

As you are aware, each year our school participates in School Improvement Surveys to gather information from school staff, students and parents/guardians to help improve our school. The surveys are organised by Catholic Education Melbourne (CEM). The survey of parents/guardians will be open from Monday 3 September and needs to be completed by Sunday 16 September.

When the survey is open, I will email a link to parent/guardians to access the survey.

I hope you will take the time to complete the survey. Our school believes it is important to encourage parent voice to help shape the ongoing improvement of the school. The survey will help us identify the strengths of our school and areas for improvement. The results will benefit everyone within the school community by providing valuable information about the ways in which our school can be improved.

PE Uniform

All students are required to wear the correct uniform at the correct times on all occasions. The PE uniform clearly states students are required to wear CRC sport socks. It is advisable to have more than one pair of CRC sport socks to ensure students are in the correct uniform each day the PE uniform is worn. Students are not permitted to wear visible hoodies under the PE uniform.

Poetry Competition

At the full school assembly early in the term the student audience had the opportunity to hear the winner of the Yr 8 Slam Poetry competition. A sample of student work is below.

2019 Subject Selections

Year 9 students must submit their Year 10, 2019 Final Selection page (from Selection Guide) and a copy of their Web Preferences receipt to their Homeroom teacher by Thursday, 23rd August.

Year 8 students and families, please note that information and selection guides for their Year 9, 2019 electives will be distributed on Tuesday, 28th August with final selections due on Wednesday, 5th September.

Staff Service Day

Friday, 24th August is the College’s Staff Service Day. The College will be closed as staff undertake various Social Justice activities.

As you know, our Parent Access Module (PAM) has undergone an update and will now email parents when a teacher assigns a letter to a student. This means parents will receive instant notification of the assignment of a variety of letters including Unsatisfactory Performance Letters, Attendance Letters, N Redemption Letters and VCE N Letters. These letters allow parents to monitor their student’s academic performance and support the achievement of successful academic outcomes for their student. In the coming weeks, teachers will no longer notify parents of the assignment of a letter via an email, the system will do it automatically using the email you have registered on your PAM account.

All parents/guardians are required to log in to the Parent Access Module to check that the email registered is correct and monitored daily. If the email is not correct, please note you will not receive these notifications and it will remain your responsibility to log on the PAM periodically to check for learning feedback in the form of letters.

Narelle Layton

Director of Learning

On Thursday 23rd August, the College will be having a casual clothes day to support the students going to the Ignite Youth Conference in Brisbane in the September school holidays. It is a conference where students from all over Australia come together to deepen their faith and meet other like-minded students. It is a great opportunity for our students and we are excited to bring a number of students for the first time from Catholic Regional College, Melton. Students are expected to wear appropriate clothing for the day and bring along a donation of $2 to support the cause. The theme is, "Keep warm and dress for the cold". Students are expected to wear appropriate clothing for the day. Any student that is not dressed appropriately will be asked to go home and change into their full school Winter uniform. We thank everyone for their support.

Louise Crocitti

IGNITE Youth Conference Organiser

World’s Greatest Shave

What an event it was! Friday lunchtime saw a huge crowd gather for the “greatest shave” of Rebecca Chin, Cassandra Nguyen and Cooper Brown all in the name of raising funds for the Leukaemia Foundation. Family members attended as well in support for their children.

What amazing young people we have. The students wer participating for various reasons but basically wanted to show support for those that have suffered with any form of blood cancers. The long hair is being sent off to be turned into wigs (for those who have lost their hair) and the short hair will be made into floatable booms that are used to soak up oil spills. The students, with the support of the community have raised approximately $4,000. Congratulations to our three “stars” and thank you to all that supported them. It’s a fantastic effort for a wonderful cause.

Jesus asked us to help the poor and the poor in spirit. Friday was a perfect example of that putting faith into action.

The Winter Sleep Out 2018

On Friday night students from across all year levels along with 5 Staff spent the night at school, sleeping rough in order to raise awareness around the issue of homelessness. Between the group we raised $1912 that will be donated to St. Vincent De Paul and to Hope St. Both organisations work for the care of the homeless, the latter working particularly in Melton.

The message that came across from all of our amazing guest speakers (including a past student) was that homelessness does not discriminate, it effects people from all sections of society and that it is important to reach out to someone if experiencing hardship. There was much focus on our own area of Melton and its surroundings.

The Sleepout gave me an insight into the issues faced by homeless people. It was extremely informative on what support systems are available to those who are experiencing homelessness in a local and national sense. Moreover, it left me more educated and attentive to the issue of homelessness - Annmariya John-Praveen

Congratulations to the whole community, including those that participated, those that sponsored students and those that donated. These funds will make a difference to the lives of many.

Marg Rowe-Watts

Social Justice Coordinator

Last Thursday, the Year 8 Humanities students held an exhibition displaying the wonderful talents and innovative ideas developed throughout their Business Economics Unit. Families were invited to attend the expo which was held in the schools Performing Arts Centre. Students were required to pitch their product or service to the audience, create a prototype of their product and produce an advertisement encouraging consumers to purchase their product. Overall it was an excellent night which displayed the diverse talents of our Year 8 students and their Humanities classrooms.

Daniela Harrington

Humanities Domain Leader