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Newsletter Edition 10 – Wednesday 20 December 2023

20th December 2023

In this Issue:

College Principal’s Report
Middle Years Campus – Principal’s Message
Senior Years Campus – Principal’s Message

Upcoming Events

School Holidays

Dec 20 2024 – Jan 27 2025 all-day

Offices Open for 2025

Tickets

Jan 22 – Jan 24 all-day

Public Holiday

Jan 27 all-day

All Staff Return for 2025

Jan 28 all-day

Years 7, 10, 11 & 12 Start for 2025

Tickets

Jan 29 all-day

College Principal’s Report

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As we come to the final day of term would like to thank all members of our school community for their support across the year. Our Year 12 students were able to formally mark the end of their time at secondary school with our Graduation Celebration last week.

This was a fantastic event, and I was as so proud of all of the young people who stepped up onto the stage to receive their certificates and awards. We were able to acknowledge the Dux of our college, Nihar Baldota, as well as academic award winners from all VCE and VCAL subjects. It was fantastic to see the level of support and acknowledgement for these students from their peers in the audience. As I said on the evening – our students understand the level of commitment, discipline, and effort to achieve at this level, and I would also like to offer my congratulations for their efforts and achievements.

There were many positive VCE results across all subjects, and pleasingly our mean VCE Study score increased by two points from 24 in 2021, to 26 this year. This is a credit to our students and their teachers, and it is a trend that is moving in the right direction for the college. While they may not have received an academic award, all our Year 12 students have now passed a significant milestone and individually, they have all grown and developed across the year. I congratulate them and wish them the very best for their next steps beyond Mill Park Secondary College. As I said on the evening: We will be sad to see you go, but we cannot wait to hear what happens next.

As one door closes, another one opens, and we were also able to welcome our incoming cohort of Year 7 students at our recent Orientation Day. This was highly successful, and it is so good to be able to welcome new families into our school community. We are looking forward to commencing high school with our new students on 30 January 2024.

For all students there is much to look forward to in 2024. Students’ academic performance on key assessment tasks will be visible in real time via Compass. Our new timetable and curriculum structure will offer students additional opportunities for learning, and we will continue to deepen our outstanding cocurricular program in Sport, The Arts, Leadership and Community Engagement. Our new 400 seat theatre will be handed over to the school at the beginning of the school year and I cannot wait to welcome our families into this space to attend college events.

Our dedicated staff, like our students are ready for a break, but they are looking forwards to returning in the new year. We are fully staffed, and we will be commencing with a number of new teachers across a range of subject areas which is an exciting prospect for the school.

I wish all students and their families a safe and happy holiday season. I hope that you find time to rest and recharge and I look forward to seeing our students walking back through the school gates when school re-commences. This will be on January 30 for students in Year 7, 10, 11, and 12. Students in Years 8 and 9 will return on January 31. See you then!

Middle Years Campus – Principal’s Message

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It is with great pride that I farewell our Middle Years Campus students for 2023. I am thrilled with their achievements and growth throughout this year. Every single one of our young people, have something to be proud of in 2023. For some of them it may be the improvement they have achieved in a particular subject, or a learning task they completed that they were particularly proud of. It may be a new friendship that they were able to forge, a sporting team that they played in, their involvement in our College Production or our other performing arts events, or a piece of artwork that they never thought they could create but did. It could be something they built in Materials Technology or Hands on Learning, or something they made in Textiles. Whatever their achievement is this year, we congratulate them for living our school values of Respect, Responsibility, Achievement and Enjoyment.

I am also particularly proud of the way our students have grown as people this year, not just in terms of their height, but also as young people finding their way through this at times, very confusing stage of their life. My role, and the role of my staff is to walk with our students and make sure they are supported both in their learning and in their development as young people. It has been a pleasure to be part of this journey with them over the course of this year.

I would like to acknowledge all the staff here at the Middle Year’s Campus who have worked tirelessly to ensure that our students are able to flourish in their educational program. I also want to acknowledge our families who have worked in partnership with us to support our student’s secondary school journey so far.

A reminder that Year 7 students begin school next year on the 30/1/2024 followed by Year 8 and 9 students on the 31/1/2024.

I wish all our Mill Park families a safe and Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year. I look forward to working together again in 2024.

Senior Years Campus – Principal’s Message

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With 2023 now finished, it is a time to look back on the year and reflect, and also to look forward to 2024. Students in Years 9, 10 and 11 all completed a week of Headstart and should now be well placed to get straight into the work at the start of 2024 after completing a small amount of holiday work.

Year 12 Graduation

On Thursday 14 December, Year 12 students and their families attended the Year 12 Graduation and Awards Ceremony at Manor on High in Epping.

After the 2023 Captains address by Louise and Naomi, the evening was run by the new College Captains, Mily, Aadit and Kiara. Tayyab was absent as he is currently overseas.

The first award was presented by the Honourable Lily D’Ambrosio, the member of parliament for the Mil Park electorate. This award for a Year 12 student displaying outstanding commitment to the community through their involvement in civic and community groups went to Rachel.

Many other awards were presented and musical items broke up the presenting of Year 12 students with their completion certificates.

The International Students address was given by Year 12 International student Jiaqi and the guest speaker, Liam Twomey, spoke on the challenges of living and overcoming a disability. After having his right leg amputated at the young age of 7, Liam had a difficult teenage life but found a new passion for life from his love of athletics and is now competing for Australia as a triathlete with the aim of going to the Olympics.

Many students received awards for their individual effort in each of the Year 12 subjects and each of these students should be proud of their achievement as it represents 13 years of formal education to get to this point.

The night was finished off with the Valedictorians address by Jessica and the presentation of the Top 5 performing students in the school by Mr Natoli, the College Principal.

The Top 5 performing students for 2023 were;

Edelyn, Agamdeep, Maja, Daniel and Nihar.

The highest achieving student and therefor the Dux was Nihar.

There were a number of Year 11 students that completed a Year 12 subject and achieved the highest score for their subject. They will be acknowledged at a special assembly at the start of 2024.