Dear Parents & Carers, 

Where has the year gone?  It seems like only yesterday we welcomed in our new year 7 students and families, had our first cohort of year 9's and started digging up the grounds for our planned Stage 2 buildings.  Here we are, nearly 12 months later, ready for our first senior school cohort of year 10 students with the new senior uniform, brand new buildings in the final stages of completion and about 190 new year 7 students ready to commence their high schooling with us in 2022.  

This year has seen another significant milestone for our College and over the past few weeks I have been reminded once again what a great school we have and how much we have achieved in such a short period of time.  One such example occurred 2 weeks ago when I had the privilege to attend the Premiers Coding Award ceremony held in the Brisbane Museum with 4 of our students.  As a college, we won 3 out of a possible 4 award categories for Coding state-wide, an achievement never seen before in the history of the competition.  All this we achieved in our first year of entering, competing against the competitions largest entry pool of over 599 entries. This combined with our students winning the State Finals in the eSports FUSE cup are just some of the many examples where our students are achieving excellence in a range of pursuits.  Congratulations Mr Sogathur and his coding champions. 

It is not only the State and National Awards that some of our students have achieved that has made our year great.  Equally as pleasing has been the significant improvement and growth I have seen in our students academic, physical and mental maturity.  Increasingly students have been attending Maths, English and homework tutoring clubs throughout the year in their own time.  Students have stepped up to increase their responsibilities of learning in a high school setting and many students have significantly improved their grades and achievements through developing good study habits and practices.  All of these small changes have made a big difference in your child's outcomes and I thank you as parents for encouraging and supporting your child through this process.  

As our College continues to grow, we are constantly reviewing our existing processes to make sure that we are providing the best service possible to our families and students.  As a result of this review process, next year we have changed the student management process for our students.  Instead of students or parents speaking to a House Coordinator or House HOD; next year students and parents will have a Year Level Coordinator and HOD.  This student management change will allow our students and families to have improved communication and access to support as we grow.  Information on this student management change will be explained in the Deputy Principal - Cultural and Development article in this newsletter.  We will also communicate this to the students in upcoming parades and access classes.

Another significant change for us in 2022 is the departure of Mr Ben Aloia, one of our foundation Deputy Principals.  Ben has been seconded by the Department of Education to work in Central Office next year to oversee the State-wide roll out of the new GP in schools program.  Mr Aloia will still have a connection to our college as we will be hosting a GP in our school onr day a week in 2022, however he will not be based in our College as he takes on this new state-wide role.  As a result of this change, Mrs Angela Waugh will be the Acting Deputy Principal for Term 1, 2022 and Mr James Dunn the Acting HOD back-filling Angela.  In term 2, 2022 we hope to appoint a long term Deputy Principal replacement for the remainder of the 2022 calendar year.  I am sure you will join me in congratulating Mr Aloia in obtaining this new position and wish him all the best in this new endeavour. 

As our year rapidly draws to a close I want to thank the many staff, students and parents for your support and partnership with us this year.  I especially want to thank our P & C Executive team and members for their hard work and financial support throughout 2021.  Together they have raised over $60,000, all of which has been directly invested back into our College.  They have given up much time and energy to achieve this amazing result.  It takes a lot of people and hard work to achieve the results that we have accomplished this year.  We each have had a part to play and as we look forward to 2022, it is only by continuing to work together that we will build on these successes.  Have a safe and happy Christmas holiday and thank you once again for helping us fulfil our motto of Achieving Excellence Together.   

 Yours Sincerely,