Assistant Principal Update

As we approach the busy end of the school year, we’d like to share some of the wonderful community engagement events that have taken place this term. There has been an enormous amount of work in the marketing of our wonderful school, including an additional Open Day which we hosted earlier this term. The Open Morning Experience was devised as a plan to bring prospective families into the school in a unique way. Rather than touring our facilities, families were able to participate in high quality lessons run by our amazing staff. There were a variety of offerings from Visual Communications, Art, Food Tech and Science. Our leadership team including Principal Linda Mitchell and our Student Ambassadors supported families as they moved through 3 lessons. Staff arranged for active participation which was extremely well received by the families. The Open Morning Experience was a huge success, with bookings for the event at capacity. We had 65 participants on the day which was amazing. The group then toured Wurun Senior Campus in the capable hands of Acting College Principal Lucy Marshall.

The Open Morning Experience kicked off proceedings for the 20th Anniversary Celebration week. It was a jam-packed week which included the memorabilia walk in our corridor, the school production, a wonderful exhibition of student artwork at Tinpot Cafe and of course the whole school assembly as the finale. It was a high quality showcase of our wonderful school. The community engagement was very much appreciated. The energy was palpable! We have plans to recreate this week of events on the 2025 calendar.

Our Student Ambassadors participated in a fantastic outreach event just a few weeks ago. The Year 11, 10 and 9 students involved in the ambassadorial program went to the Fitzroy North PS fete. FHS had a marquee set up where our students shared information about our 7-10 and Senior campuses. It was a fantastic opportunity for the marketing of our school. A wonderful effort by the Student Ambassadors who spent their Sunday to help support the school.

We look forward to capitalising on these community engagement events in 2025.

In the midst of all the celebration and open day events, we have also welcomed next year’s yr 7 students to Fitzroy high school for their first full transition day. What started as a group of quiet, shy and slightly anxious students, ended up being a much more talkative group of young people, who reflected on the experiences they had and the connections they made at the end of the day. During the transition day, students got to participate in a scavenger hunt of sorts, where they were sent to different parts of the school to learn more about it. They also had a taster session of PE and music, where their collaboration skills were challenged and their creativity encouraged. We then spent some time over at the Wurun senior campus where the rooftop basketball court was a success.

We look forward to our second transition day, on the 10th of December, when we get to see this group of students again and introduce them to more of the cool things high school students get to do, such as cooking and science.

So far, the transition into high school has been very successful for our 2025 year 7s, with several of them commenting on how ‘it wasn’t so scary’ and ‘I think I’ve made a friend’, which is what we like to hear.

Margaret Doucas & Linda Ekman

Assistant Principals