Principal Update August 2025

Dear Fitzroy High School community

Despite some challenges, there have been some huge successes this year so far. One success is our Student Attitudes to School data, where we exceeded nearly all our targets, as well as some very pleasing NAPLAN results. There will be more detailed reporting on this data and other data sets early next term.

I am very pleased to report the success of several co-curricular activities and events in which we have seen our students shine! These activities and events provide an opportunity for students to expand their experiences; develop and find their passions; and increase their sense of belonging in the school and with different friends. We often see the positive impact flow onto the classroom and into other aspects of school life.

It was heart-warming to be part of reinstating the tradition of the Fitzroy High School Cabaret. As a fixture for many years, alternating with the biannual school production, the Cabaret was forced to stop during Covid and then took a while to get off the ground again. The opportunity to perform in a bespoke venue, this year the Brunswick Ballroom, with parents and friends able to enjoy sitting at tables while watching, was a truly remarkable experience for the many students involved. I was backstage supporting the students for the first half of both performances and witnessed firsthand the courage and joy that the performers experienced. I also saw how they supported each other, and how their teachers were bursting with pride. I enjoyed being able to sit in the audience in the second half of each performance and to witness the audience’s warm and appreciative reaction. This event will hopefully be a fixture for many years to come.

On Friday night we had our debating team win in a playoff against Geelong Grammar for the State finals. We will await the next round to see how they go! This continues a recent tradition of Fitzroy High School and Wurun Senior Campus debating teams performing extremely well in debating. Last weekend we also had our first ever team participate in Tournament of Minds, an International educational program ‘challenging the world’ to develop creative problem-solving skills. As it was the first time that the school had entered a team, I decided to ask the Student Representative Team if they would enter on the school’s behalf and they accepted! After some discussion they decided to enter the Language and Literature section, which, this year, was based on an interpretation of Shaun Tan’s work under the title, “Tales of Light, Dark and Tan”. Not only did the seven-strong team display excellent teamwork and entrepreneurship in their preparation and delivery of their presentation, but they also won their section in the Northern Metro division and are now invited to participate in the state finals!

Jitske Wiersma, the Years 7-10 Arts and Technology leader and teacher of a range of arts subjects, will be leaving us at the beginning of Term 4 to take up residence in her home country of the Netherlands, in the Hague. I want to thank Jitske for her strong leadership of the learning area, for setting up the Maker Space and for being one of the inaugural VCE Product Design teachers. We wish her well and acknowledge the huge contribution that she has made to Fitzroy High School and Wurun Senior Campus over the past several years. We have advertised for someone to take Jitske’s teaching load in Term 4, and the other teachers will support in the transition. James Hardie will be taking over the Year 7-10 Arts and Technology leader role for Term 4. I also want to thank and acknowledge four other staff who have been on long term leave and who will not be returning to Fitzroy High School. Bianca Merkel is working at the Indi School; Vanessa Paciocco has taken up a position at Our Lady of Mercy Heidelberg; Mitchell Anderson has decided to stay living and working in South Australia; and Annabelle Nunan is pursuing work in outdoor education. All these staff have made incredible contributions over the years to Fitzroy High School and Wurun Senior Campus. I acknowledge and thank them all and wish them well in their new endeavours.

I also want to announce that I will be retiring at the end of this school term. I have been in the Principal role since 2018 and was in the Assistant Principal role at Fitzroy High School between 2012 and 2017. Prior to that I was an Assistant Principal and Leading Teacher in the government system and a Leading Teacher in the independent system. It has been a long career of over 40 years in education, one which I have always passionately believed in, and one of which I am very proud.

In particular, I am proud of three important and enduring initiatives that I brought to Fitzroy High School. The first was the introduction of VCAL (the Victorian Applied Learning Certificate) in 2015, a program which I also led and taught for several years. This certificate, which sat alongside VCE (the Victorian Certificate of Education), allowed students to choose a more practical and vocational pathway and kept many students in education who might otherwise have disengaged. With the Senior Secondary reforms of the past three years, VCAL has changed into the VCE Vocational Major and the Victorian Pathways Certificate, both of which we offer at Wurun Senior Campus along with the more traditional VCE. I am also proud of having introduced the New Metrics for Success partnership with the University of Melbourne to Fitzroy High School in 2020. It was a deliberate decision to start and embed New Metrics at Years 11 and 12 before bringing it into Yeats 7 to 10. The program has seen an increasing number of students at in Years 11 and 12 explicitly learn and be assessed on critical skills such Agency in Learning, Acting Ethically, Active Citizenship, Collaboration, Personal Development, Communication and Quality Thinking. An increasing number of students are now also achieving the formal Australian Learner Competency Credential, which, along with their portfolios, they will take with them into future pathways beyond school. In 2025, the Year 10s have begun the New Metrics journey with the portfolios and next year the program will be extended to other year levels. Finally, I am immensely proud of the role I played in imaging and setting up our unique and wonderful Wurun Senior Campus, which continues to build on the joint delivery of senior programs with Collingwood College that began over 15 years ago.

I want to thank so many people, but here I will just say the following: thankyou to the staff, students and families of Fitzroy High School who have supported me for the past 13 years as Principal and, before that, as Assistant Principal. Thank you also to the School Councils I have worked with and, in particular, the School Council presidents who put in so much time and effort for the school. And of course, thank you to the school leadership teams, both past and present, which have enacted the school’s vision and values in so many ways, as well as working hard for school improvement in challenging times. This also includes the leadership teams of Collingwood College, with which I have worked closely over the years.

The recruitment process for a new Principal is well underway and the School Council President will write to the school community once an appointment has been made. I will work with the successful candidate to hand over in time for them to start the job at the beginning of Term 4.

Now I look forward to some time with family and friends and being able to pursue my music and other hobbies. I wish everyone the best for the remainder of the year and beyond.

Kind regards

Linda Mitchell, Principal, Fitzroy High School