Nominations closed for College Council last week and I’m happy to announce that all councillors who had completed their two-year tenure have successfully re-nominated and been returned. Our parent representatives are Robyn Hayes, Lynda Reid, Maree Loader, Mark Robertson, Jamie Lake, Debbie Whitehead, Teena Dalziel and Gavin Hore. The DET representatives are Melissa Gould, Cathy Kervin, Brett Ayres and Karen Vick. We also have a community representative, Mark Thomson. Throughout the year we will have student representatives attend Council meetings as part of their leadership development. This month Council will hold its AGM at 7.00 pm on March 18th and confirm Council appointments and elect a Council President, Treasurer and approve newly nominated members to College Council.
Our successful ‘Peer Support’ program for Year 7 students has been running this term. The focus of the program is to support Year 7 students during the first few months of the year and also to provide a senior student as a friend to talk to if the need arises. Our Year 11 students completed training as ‘Peer Support’ leaders last year and while their main function is to support their younger peers, the training is valuable to them as leaders in the College. The leaders and their group meet once a week during the term and in this time complete activities that provide an opportunity for conversations about school, classes and how the transition from primary to secondary school is going. Students will meet at different times each week to avoid missing the same class and at the end of the term all Year 7s and their leaders will meet for a final celebration. The goal of the program is to help Year 7 students to feel comfortable in their new environment and to also make their secondary experience a great experience.
Congratulations to Luke Judd who represented our College in the Lions Youth of the Year competition held last week. Luke completed an interview with Lions Club members and with other students from the district competed in the public speaking component of the competition at Rich River Golf Club. Luke spoke on the topic of ‘The Benefits of Music’. He now goes on to the district finals to be held at Girgarre later in the term.
The College will be holding its Student Leadership Induction Ceremony on Monday 21st March in the College in our refurbished stadium area at 9.15am. The induction ceremony provides an opportunity to formally acknowledge the College’s student leaders for 2016 and to also introduce them to the College community. While the ceremony will not exceed 30 minutes, the role our young leaders play is yearlong. The College invites our community to attend this important occasion to see College Captains, House Captains, House Leaders and Beacon Leaders inducted for 2016.
Three weeks ago our students competed in the ‘School Sports Victoria’ swimming sports at Echuca against the districts secondary schools both government and non-government. Echuca College won the day convincingly with some outstanding individual and team performances. The College had seven aged group champions and our swimmers broke eight of the nine records broken on the day. As a consequence, a team of 23 swimmers will head for Swan Hill next Thursday to compete in the Loddon Mallee Regional competition with 12 swimmers in individual races and 10 relays.
Early notification to parents and students about our mid semester Parent/Teacher interviews on Tuesday 12th and Wednesday 13th April from 4.00 to 6.00 pm (week one of term 2). Interviews for all year levels will be conducted on both afternoons but part time staff may only be available on one of the two sessions. Bookings for the interviews will be on XUNO before the end of term and Student Assessment Summaries will also be available to students and parents on XUNO at the start of term two.
