Principal’s Message

News & Events 12/12/2022

Dear Families

Here we are near the end of another school year, with Christmas and the New Year rapidly approaching.

It seems so long ago that we started term 1 with Year 7s, 8s and 12s onsite and students in our other year levels working online. Although COVID created some disruptions, much has been achieved at Brighton Secondary School in 2022.

This year saw the introduction of our six new houses, as well as our ASPIRE values: Ambition, Success, Perseverance, Integrity, Respect and Empathy.

We maintained our strong commitment to academic achievement as well as to our students’ wellbeing, particularly given the challenges of the last few years.

To support this focus, we expanded our Wellbeing Team, incorporating a school psychologist and another youth worker, with plans to develop the team further in 2023. Our Wellbeing Team provides support for individual students, designs and delivers programs for groups, and contributes to both the home group program and staff professional development.

We also created a role specifically focused on building student connectedness through clubs and activities, to complement our wide range of sports offerings. Together with the high-level commitment of our staff, this role has supported a significant increase in clubs and activities for students to engage with at school.

This year has also seen growth in student leadership within the school, including the introduction of a range of middle school leadership opportunities, and this will be further enhanced next year with the introduction of Student Wellbeing Leaders.

Term 4 has been a particularly busy term.

Our Year 12s finished their studies and time with us, which was celebrated at the Valedictory Ceremony held recently at Her Majesty’s Theatre. Read more about the Valedictory, including a list of award winners, in our article celebrating the Class of 2022.

There have been several significant events this term, including our Remembrance Day Service on November 11 with the whole school on the front oval, Jazz in the Quad, and the ASPIRE Assembly, which recognised and acknowledged student leadership and achievement, both academic and in terms of our school values. Once again, a summary of award winners is included in our article on the 2022 ASPIRE Assembly.

On November 27 we held a highly successful 70th Anniversary for the school, which was well attended by old scholars across the decades. We very much appreciate the efforts of the Working Group and the staff who contributed both on the day and in the lead up, whose efforts led to the success of the event.

Last week we took a large contingent of students, staff and volunteers to the Australian Volleyball Schools Cup in Queensland. It was an extremely successful trip, with our school achieving:

  • Australian Champion School
  • Girls Champion School
  • Boys Champion School

The newest members of our Brighton Secondary School community are the Year 7s who will be joining us next year. There has been an extensive transition process put in place, involving primary school visits, Learner Profile Conversations with families, Acquaintance Evenings and Transition Day on Friday 9 December. On this day we had over 300 excited students onsite to meet their home group and home group teacher and engage in a range of transition activities in preparation for starting high school in the new year.

For important information regarding arrangements for the new school year, read our article about 2023 start information, including details about our staggered start to the year which will see Year 7s and Year 12s return to school on Monday 30 January and other year levels return the next day, Tuesday 31 January.

For information about the government’s new mobile phone policy for secondary schools in 2023, read our article on the change from our current local policy.

I would like to acknowledge and thank our staff, both teaching and non-teaching, for their commitment to the wellbeing and learning of our students.

This year has been a year of challenges and achievements and we look forward to continuing to work together and build on our partnership with you – our families – as an integral part of the ongoing development of our school.

Thank you also for your support during 2022 and I wish you a peaceful and joyful break over the festive season.

Kind regards

Tony

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