Performing Arts Camp I had the pleasure of attending a night at the Performing Arts Camp at Rutherford Park Country Retreat. It was wonderful to see the students working together to bring this year’s show to life. This year’s production is going to be The Wizard of Oz.
After witnessing what I saw at the camp I have no doubt this is going to be a fantastic show, and you wouldn’t want to miss it. The Production dates are August 27-30, more details will be released closer to the dates. Some students were also working towards the Winter Concert, which will be later this term on Wednesday June 25.
Attendance – Everyday Counts It was great to see the number of students who are making the most of their learning opportunities by attending school every day in Term 1.
Congratulations to the Year 11 students as they had the highest percentage of students that attended everyday with 44% of the cohort attending daily. The Year 12 students also had a great start to the year with 42% of students attending everyday for Term 1. Congratulations to the students that have attended everyday so far this year; let’s keep it going. For students that missed days in Term 1 I encourage them to challenge themselves with a goal to attend everyday in Term 2 or Term 3 (if they have already missed a day in Term 2).
School Tours have now concluded for Year 7 2026 enrolments It’s been a great pleasure conducting school tours for potential future students and their family. I really enjoying walking around our school watching the students highly engaged in their learning and making the most of the opportunities available to them. I’m pleased to say that there has been high interest from families in considering Wellington Secondary College.
Attitudes to School Survey (AtoSS) We value student voice as a means, which leads to improving student engagement, wellbeing and quality instruction and we are conducting a survey to find out what your child thinks of our school.
The AtoSS is an annual student survey offered by the Department of Education and Training to assist our school to gain an understanding of students’ perceptions and experience of school. Students will be asked about their thoughts and feelings in relation to their school, their learning, peer relationships, bullying and life in general.
There are also some questions about student health and wellbeing. Understanding health and wellbeing needs is important to support students to learn and thrive at school. The Department is providing this addition to the core survey to allow your child’s school to capture this information to support students.
Students will be asked about resilience, family relationships, community connections, health (including mental health), access to health services and physical activity.
Students will have the opportunity to provide feedback based on their thoughts and feelings regarding the school via the Attitudes to School Survey. This is a survey undertaken by students in years 4-12 across public schools. This data is used to measure schools’ performances in a variety of indicators as well as provide schools with a sense of the aspects within the school that are going well as well as identify areas for improvement. We encourage students to take this opportunity seriously and we look forward to receiving feedback from our students.
Parents will have the opportunity to complete a survey via the Parent Opinion Survey carried out in Term 3.
Annual Report to the Community The final Annual Report to the Community was endorsed and approved by Council. The report provides information on the 2024 school year. The information within the report highlighted that Wellington continues to be a high performing school, compared to ‘similar’ schools and state benchmarks. The final report has been uploaded to the school website.
Semester 1 Reports Please be informed that Monday June 16 will be a student free day with staff working on finalising the student assessments for Semester 1. These Semester 1 Reports will be available on Compass at the end of Term 2. More details to follow. Students will begin Semester 2 from Tuesday June 17.
The end of Semester is always a time to reflect on what has been, what could have been, and what will be. I encourage all parents/carers to discuss the feedback provided by teachers with your child. I also encourage families to contact the Sub Schools if they wish to follow up any concerns with the learning of their children.
End of term This is early notice; however, Term 2 will finish at 2.30pm on Friday July 4 and Term 3 will begin on Monday July 21. The Charter Bus schedule will be adjusted for the last day of term to cater for the early finish.
During the last month, the Department of Education held the annual Recognition of Service Awards. I would like to acknowledge and congratulate Sandy Smith for fifty years of service to the Department of Education. This is a fantastic accomplishment.
Sandy started working at Wellington Secondary College in June 1993. Sandy was the Business Manager for a long time at our school and now supports the administration team.
Year 10 English students were visited by the Eagle’s Nest Theatre Company who ran a workshop about our Year 10 play ‘Twelve Angry Men’ by Reginald Rose.
Actors performed key scenes from the play, and students were able to analyse and discuss these with the actors to deepen their understanding and analysis of the text. Some of our students even made it on stage at the end for a competition with the actors. Well done Year 10 Students!
Each year, more than 200,000 tonnes of clothing end up in landfill. By comparison, it would be the equivalent weight of nearly four Sydney Harbour Bridges! Most clothes are made of synthetic materials (around 69%), which leach toxic chemicals and dyes into the groundwater and soil. Materials like polyester, acrylic and other synthetic fibres will first break down into microplastics, which can linger in the environment for over 200 years. As for those clothes made from organic materials (e.g. cotton and hemp), they release methane when decomposing in landfills.
According to the World Resources Institute, it takes 2,700 litres of water to make just one cotton shirt, plus the associated carbon dioxide emissions from the various manufacturing and transporting operations. Therefore, it becomes essential that garments are being reused or repurposed. We need to value the resources that are used to make them such as raw materials, water and energy.
Knowing the above facts, the Sustainability Champions ran another Sustainable Fashion event, where the kindly donated pre-loved clothes by our school community were appreciated by the many students who came to support the effort. Alongside the offer of second-hand items, our year 12 student, Jonita Chea, repaired a wallet brought in by a student.
Our advice is: – Be mindful of your consumption, – Care for what you already own, – Choose second-hand, wherever possible, – Explore creative ways to extend the life of what you already own.
Together, we can all find ways to reduce our fashion footprint.
Ms Bruna Amaral Science Teacher | Sustainability Coordinator
Container Deposit Scheme
As part of the Victorian Container Deposit Scheme, the Sustainability Champions are collecting eligible 10-cent bottles and cans. These containers, including aluminium, glass, plastic and liquid paperboard drink containers, are then returned for refunds, and all funds raised will be donated to the Rotary Club to support community projects.
Getting involved has been a great experience for me. Over the past few weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to work alongside with Ms. Higgins and Ms. Amaral to help set up the collection point near the kitchenette in the senior centre. We designed and decorated the space with bright posters and signs to catch people’s attention.
Waste management is one of the biggest environmental challenges we face today and by recycling these containers, we’re not only giving the product a new life cycle, but also giving back to the community!
Terence Pham 11I
ResourceSmart School Energy Audit
On Friday, May 2, some of our students here at Wellington in Years 7-11 had the privilege of participating in an energy audit organised by EASL (Eastern Alliance for Sustainable Learning) and ResourceSmart schools in periods 1 and 2. The people who assisted with the audit were Emma, Ashlee, Gia and Cindy.
We split into several groups, Group 1 for measuring light with a Lux meter, Group 2 measuring temperature with an infrared thermometer, Group 3 (split into 3a and 3b) measured the energy usage of appliances with plug in power metres and Group 4 used a feather and strip of paper to observe draughts in windows and doors. All the groups visited the same or similar classrooms.
We found that a lot of classrooms were using energy way over the necessary amount and a lot of power points were left on without anything being plugged in them. Also, we only found one sign reminding people to switch off lights when they exited the room. Unfortunately, this was just a minuscule upside-down sticker. Another interesting and positive finding was that WSC uses a lot of LED lights.
Overall, this was an exciting experience where we got to use interesting tools and learn about sustainability. Now, let’s work together helping our school reduce its energy usage and become more eco-aware.
During Junior Assembly, Ashley and Nurali (Sustainability Captains) gave a summary of all the sustainability projects completed to date and introduced a guest from the ResourceSmart school team, Ashlee Lambton. She explained how our school became a finalist in the Student Action category for the ResourceSmart Schools Award 2025. Wellington Secondary College was chosen as one of 31 finalists from more than 50 participating schools. The judges were particularly impressed by how our Sustainability Champions led initiatives that were not only impactful but also enabled students to play to their strengths and develop their leadership skills. Monash City Council representatives also came to congratulate our school on becoming a finalist for such a prestigious award that recognises sustainability achievements in schools across Victoria. They will certainly be cheering for us to win on the 5th June (Environment Day), as a small group of students and teachers attend the Awards ceremony at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Ms Bruna Amaral Science Teacher | Sustainability Coordinator
What’s on the Menu?
Ms Rachael Andrews headed to our community garden looking for pesticide free produce, and harvested fresh parsley. In the kitchen, Miss Osmand taught the Year 9s how to cook Fish and Chips with home made tartare sauce where the parsley was used as the healthy garnish. There are scientific studies that claim that this herb offers several health benefits, including prevention of cardiovascular and liver diseases.
Ms Bruna Amaral Science Teacher | Sustainability Coordinator
Mother’s Day Bake Sale
The Sustainability Champions (from years 7 to 11) ran another successful Bake Sale in V-block. For this term, the theme was Mother’s Day and some students chose to buy sweet treats to take home for their mother. With the intention of raising awareness about the huge issue we are facing with biodiversity loss, the paper bags that held the baked goods were designed to include the image of a few Australian endangered animals (mother and offspring), such as the sea lion.
The money raised will go towards sustainability projects around the school. Thank you to Ms Andrews for the much appreciated assistance during the baking process.
Ms Bruna Amaral Science Teacher | Sustainability Coordinator
The Victorian Government is delivering the School Saving Bonus (SSB) – a one-off support of $400 for eligible government school students in 2025. This money was allocated to all eligible families in November 2024.
The SSB can be used for uniforms, school activities and textbooks until Monday 30 June 2025.
How to use the SSB for Uniform As we are now approaching the cooler months, it is a great opportunity for families to use any remaining funds to help purchase warmer items such as jumpers and jackets in time for winter. If you would like to use your SSB funds to purchase uniform, please log onto the SSB portal https://www.schoolsavingbonus.vic.gov.au/s/ enter your email address and bonus code that was emailed to you last year. (Please call us on 9547 6822, if you don’t know what your bonus code is) and allocate the funds to uniform. The voucher can be used online or instore.
How to use SSB for School Activities We have a number of school activities coming up, excursions, sporting events etc. If you would like to use your SSB money to cover the cost of these events, please log onto the SSB portal enter your email address and bonus code (Please call us on 9547 6822, if you don’t know what your code is) and allocate the funds to school activities. Please allow 48 hours for the transfer to take place. Then log onto Compass and give consent for the event and select SSB as the payment method.
Any funds remaining after 30 June 2025, including online voucher amounts that have not been redeemed, will become a credit to use on school activities. However, the credit will not be available on your family account at our school until late July.
To use any remaining SSB funds to cover the cost of school activities in July, please refer to the SSB online system and allocate the funds to school activities before 30 June 2025.
To learn more about the SSB online system, download the step-by-step System guide for parents and carers or watch this School Saving Bonus video.
