Head of Campus Update – 21 July 2016

I would like to extend a warm welcome back to our school community. I trust that you all managed to have a much needed break and spend some quality time together as a family.

I recently read an article on high performance schools and it was noted that the hallmark of high performing schools is their continued drive for greatness. That is, improving performance and outcomes for students, parents, teachers and the community regardless of the status of current results. I am pleased that as a school we continue to focus on academic improvement and achievement. Our primary focus continues to be working with the boys on improving their work ethic and fostering a positive attitude towards achieving excellence. Through this and many other areas our boys are being challenged. I look forward to the semester ahead and celebrating many of the achievements of our boys over the coming months.

There are a few notable achievements of our boys that I wish to celebrate and highlight with our community.

Trent Mitchell participated in the 2016 Year 8 Engineering Challenge at Monash University. He received a ‘Resources Engineering’ award for his work in the area of robotics. He learned about automatic vehicles that can be controlled remotely and drones that could be used in the mining industry to collect 3D images from tunnels. Trent has a keen interest in robotics which he pursues outside of school.

Christopher Heckenberg, Year 12 has been selected in the School Sport Victoria 19 Years and Under Football team competing in the School Sport Australia Australian Football Championships to be held at Perth, WA from 20-26 August, 2016.

Luke Bailey, Year 6 recently earned his position on the School Sports Victorian Under 12 tennis team. Luke will compete at the national championships in Albury towards the end of October.

Congratulations to these boys. On behalf of the community, I wish Christopher and Luke all the best in their respective championships.

On Thursday 28 July (A-K) and Thursday 4 August (L-Z) Parent-Teacher-Student Conferences (PTS) for Year 10 – 12 will be held at Berwick Grammar School. As the education of your son is a partnership between the school, the student and the parents, I strongly encourage you to attend the PTS to keep informed of your son’s progress and how we can work together to enable him to succeed and achieve excellence.

The diversity of our children and families is a strength of our community. As we look to the future and begin building the framework for a new five-year strategic plan a number of forums have been held to garner feedback and suggestions from our school community. It is important that we continue to plan for the future to ensure that teaching and learning remains relevant and engaging. This term, Mrs Reed will be hosting a forum focussed on Year 7 – 12. This forum will take place at St Margaret’s School, Lecture Theatre on Tuesday 2 August commencing at 7 pm.

Mr Charles Swanepoel
Head of Berwick Grammar School