Principal’s Update | June
Winter is here again and it is hard to believe we are already halfway through the year! This month has seen us ‘pivot’ once again as another Victorian lockdown was put in place, but we are very adept at adjusting to whatever comes our way, and our transition to and from online learning was once again extremely smooth. I continue to be most grateful for the way our staff and students remain focussed on their work regardless of circumstances; it is a real testament to our community’s commitment to doing our very best for our students. As you’ll see in our weekly Compass wrap-ups, on our social media, and in our students’ updates, wherever possible our events and programs remain, albeit sometimes in a new format, so that we honour the traditions, activities and fun that are the hallmarks of our school.
Our Year 9s this month began their exciting journey to ‘The Island’, completing their first block of our new interdisciplinary program. The kind of interdisciplinary work undertaken in ‘The Island’, helps our students make connections across the learning they are doing in discrete subject areas, encouraging them to see how ideas are developed in different contexts and how solutions to problems involve a range of perspectives and considerations. This will be terrific preparation for the type of learning our IB students will engage with, but is important in and of itself, teaching our students to be able to effectively collaborate, and to apply knowledge and skills to new and complex situations.
Recently we launched our new website, which I hope you’ll agree puts our students absolutely front and centre. The refreshed site is designed to reflect our warm, inclusive and student-centred school, and within it you’ll see and hear much more from our students themselves. The website is our ‘outward-facing’ space, designed to provide the wider community with a sense of our school and what matters to us. Soon, we’ll also be launching our ‘Family Portal’, an internal space for families to find key information and contacts, and another way for us to build richer connections with our families. Strong connections between home and school are important in supporting students to achieve their potential, and we continue to develop and deepen these partnerships of learning.
This Term we’ve been working with staff and students on the updates to our school values, to ensure these reflect our community now and our direction moving forward. I thank all those who have been involved in these discussions over the past six months; our new values will be shared with our community next term, and will help shape all our actions and ideas into the future.
Finally, as this is my last newsletter as Principal of Mac.Rob, I would like to thank our community - staff, students and families - for their support, engagement and trust over these past three years. It has been a pleasure and a privilege to lead Mac.Rob, and across my time, we have certainly had some experiences to remember! From building floods that caused us to evacuate Lakeside, to a pandemic which caused us to evacuate the school altogether - what adventures we have shared! Our leadership team will continue to drive our school’s strategic goals to benefit our students, and our staff and students will continue in their dedicated pursuit of ‘outstanding’; I know that Mac.Rob will continue to go from strength to strength.
Wishing you all a happy, healthy and restful holidays!
Ms. Anne Stout, Principal