VCE Building Progress
If you have been to the Senior Campus in recent weeks, you will have noticed considerable progress with our new VCE Building. This building will provide 18 classrooms, Careers Area, Year 12 Common Room, and staff areas as well as a gathering space for 300 students. I have placed below recent photographs showing where the building is currently at and another image of what it should look like when finished.

Final Parent Teacher Student Partnership Meetings
The final round of Parent Teacher Student Partnership Meetings will take place on Thursday 6 October via Microsoft Teams. I hope that you will find these informative and that teaching staff are able to highlight the areas where your child is doing well as well as areas for future improvement. This opportunity, scheduled at this time especially for students, reflects the key stage in the academic year for students. We hope the evening will provide an opportunity for dialogue for families that enables there to be every opportunity for success for our students between now and the end of their academic year. The interviews will run from 3.00pm. and conclude at 6.30pm.

NAPLAN Results
As most teachers of Years 7 & 9 students would be aware, students received a printout of their NAPLAN results this week. Whilst they are only a snapshot of each student’s level of achievement and an indication of how they have performed at a particular point in time, they do provide us, as a school, with valuable comparisons against the State and National performance. One of the best measures for our school is to look at the growth from Years 7 – 9 as it gives an indication as to whether we are progressing at the same rate as the rest of the state. State results are not available as yet, but we will provide this information as soon as it becomes available. Individual student results were mailed home to parents on Tuesday 6 September.

Year 12 Trial Exams
Year 12 Trial exams will take place in the second week of the upcoming school holidays for our VCE students. They will take place on Monday 26 September to Thursday 29 September and they are compulsory for all Year 12 VCE students completing a scored VCE. The timetable has been published and can be found on either the Year 12 page on MyPenola or the VCE page on MyPenola. These exams give students an indication as to their strengths and weaknesses and can assist in shaping their revision in the weeks leading up to the exams in late October.

I have listed below the schedule for Year 12 Trial Exams that will be conducted in the second week of the holidays.

School Review Final report
Our school review was held on 13 & 14 July which will form the basis of our School Improvement Plan for 2023-2026. The following Strengths and Opportunities were identified by the reviewers, and I have included their 3 recommendations for our School Improvement Plan:

Strengths

• Strong and consistent communication of the Catholic identity of the college including the Principal’s welcome message on the college website, commitment to the college RE program, iconography and sacred spaces throughout the two campuses.
• Development and implementation of the Wellbeing Framework, which has been informed by research on a range of programs to meet the identified needs of the Penola College community and the values of the Josephite charism.
• A focus on meeting the needs of a diverse student population, and developing the whole person, through provision of a broad range of post-compulsory pathways, and extensive co-curricular offerings on both campuses.
• A college leadership structure that enables effective communication between campuses and operational areas, and a commitment to strategically focus on the future development of the college.

Opportunities for improvement

• Increasing the visibility to staff of the purposeful scaffolding of previous learning and wellbeing initiatives, in order to engage staff in the college’s strategic improvement agenda.
• Ensuring the consistent implementation of agreed approaches to student behaviour management.
• Maximising the benefits of enhanced data systems, by sustaining the development of teacher capacity to use data to effectively plan for student learning and wellbeing, including challenge and extension.
• Developing processes to engage parents and incorporate their feedback into school policies and practices.

Recommendations
As Penola College engages in the process of strategic thinking and planning, manifesting in the development of its School Improvement Plan for the next four years, the reviewers recommends that the college:

Ensures a strategic approach to whole school improvement by

• Using a range of qualitative and quantitative data to identify needs and monitor progress
• Developing a professional learning plan that incorporates structures and processes for continuous improvement and accountability through targeted professional learning, regular feedback to teachers, peer observations and coaching
• Closely monitoring how CPTS are being used to develop collaborative practices and how effectively these practices are being employed in classrooms.
• Building a leadership development program

Builds teachers’ instructional capacity by

• Strengthening teachers’ skills in understanding and interpreting multiple forms of data
• Using formative assessment to identify and respond to each student’s point of need
• Ensuring student data, including ECSI data, and student feedback to teachers, is utilised in all learning areas.

Improves student wellbeing and engagement in learning by:

• Fostering practices that encourage active student participation in their learning and
• authentic student voice, including goal setting, monitoring their own learning, metacognition and reflective practices
• Ensuring leadership development processes encourage and support increased diversity of student leadership
• Embedding a consistent whole college community approach to the Penola College Wellbeing Framework to support positive student behaviour
• Increasing parental engagement in the learning partnership.

Year 7 Enrolments 2024
A reminder to all of our existing families that Year 7 enrolments for 2024 closed on Friday 19 August. A number of families applied after the close of enrolment last year and it makes it very difficult to accurately plan for the following year, so I ask that you submit your enrolment as soon as possible. Often families assume that we know that there is a younger sibling, but I would be very disappointed if one of our existing families missed out on an enrolment due to not submitting their enrolment in a timely manner.

Grade Prep enrolments in our Catholic Feeder Primary schools
One of the strengths that we have as a regional Catholic secondary school is the great relationship that we have with our feeder Primary Parish schools. We meet each term just to discuss what is happening in each of our respective schools. At our meeting last week, a number of my colleague Principals indicated that prep enrolments for 2023 had been slow and I said that I would place a reminder in our Newsletter as we share the same families. I have listed below the contact details for each of our Catholic Primary Schools:

• Corpus Christi Primary School Glenroy – 03 9306 3062
• Holy Child Primary School Dallas – 03 9309 1620
• School of the Good Shepherd, Gladstone Park 03 9338 7686
• St Carlo Borromeo, Greenvale 03 9333 2572
• St Dominic’s Primary School, Broadmeadows 03 9309 4146
• St Fidelis Primary School, Pascoe Vale 03 9383 3600
• St Francis de Sales Primary School, Oak Park 03 9306 9444
• St Matthews Primary School, Fawkner North 03 9359 5423
• St Marks Primary School, Fawkner 03 8335 4100
• St Thomas More Primary School, Hadfield 03 9312 8200
• St Therese Primary School, Essendon 03 9374 6100
• St Monicas Primary School, Moonee Ponds 03 9375 1132

On The Twenty First Anniversary of 9/11
We remember, God of history and remembrance, we remember. We remember when the towers fell and the lives were lost; we remember the dust and the smoke, the despair, and the grief. We remember that sense of vulnerability and shock. We remember the numbness that overwhelmed us as we watched our screens for hours and hours, waiting for an explanation and understanding that never came. We remember.

We remember, God of hope and presence, we remember. We remember the heroes, those who rushed to help, who guided the wounded down innumerable flights of stairs, who rose to overwhelm those who held death in their hands. We remember the hours and the days of binding wounds and healing hurts, giving comfort, drying tears. We remember words of support and compassion from nations far and wide. We remember.

We remember in part because we see the ripples of that tragic day continue to impact our world twenty-one years later. We grieve with allies today as our allies grieved with us twenty-one years ago. And together we wonder if there will ever be an end . . . to violence, to war, to hatred, to death. We remember and we grieve our world’s inability to learn the things that lead to peace.

We call to you now in our remembrance, God of justice and of peace. Give us a will to truly pray that your kingdom may come on earth as it is in heaven. Amen and Amen.

On this day of solemn remembrance:
May we honour the lives that were lost in this tragic act.
May we give thanks for those who served and saved, rendered aid and assistance.
May we give comfort to those who live with loss.
May we seek justice and peace where it is within our ability,
and rely on you when the ability escapes us.

On this day of solemn remembrance:
May we build what has been torn down.
May we mend what has been broken.
May live your love when hate seems to reign.
May we bear witness to the cause of peace.