As we near the end of our Term 1 – I hope our students and families have had a successful start to the new year.

Building update

Our STEM project to provide a new Science classroom and Home Economics classroom is set to get under way over the upcoming holidays. This work will be completed over the next few terms, and we are looking forward to being able to access these new facilities later in 2023 and in 2024.

Our main building project for the new teaching block, ESC and Art block is currently working through a tender process to appoint a new builder.  We look forward to hearing news that work will recommence in the near future.

Principal’s award

Thank you to Maria Pennington for nominating me for this award. I was very humbled by the nomination and I want to really acknowledge the amazing work of our language teachers and the leadership of Maria – who is an inspiration to all our staff and students. Her passion and enthusiasm for language learning is contagious and we are very fortunate to have her leading our language program.

STEM award

We congratulate our Year 11 students from the My Chemical Robots – Team 9191 who participated recently in the national FIRST robotocs competition in Wooloongong. They won the 'Rookie Allstar' Award and Toby Trent won the 'Dean’s List' award. We are very proud of their acheivements and you can read more about there success in this issue. I would like to sincerely thank our teachers Mitch Winstanley and Amber Bullock for giving up their time and energy to support these students. Thank you also to the parents for their ongoing support for the STEM robotic club.

World’s greatest shave

We saw an amazing example of our school values during the World’s Greatest Shave recently – where many of our students participated in fundraising, sponsoring others, donating and raising awareness for people impacted by blood cancers. Seven of our students shaved their hair for this worthy cause and collectively we raised nearly $5800.

Kalamunda 2023 | World's Greatest Shave | Leukaemia Foundation

Career expo

We recently held a Year 10 Career expo at our school organised and coordinated by our Career Practitioner Amanda Moreno-Diaz.  We had a great selection of industries, tertiary education providers and TAFE represented.  We thank all these professionals for their support in helping our students explore different careers and Amanda for her amazing work coordinating such an amazing opportunity for our students.

• Defence force- Defence Jobs Australia - Browse Jobs
• City of Kalamunda- Environmental Health and Art&Culture Department
• Kids Hq- Day care centre
• CTF-Construction Training Fund | Funding Training, Building Skills (ctf.wa.gov.au)
• Muresk Institute- Muresk Home (dtwd.wa.gov.au)
• Gold Industry group- Gold Industry Group
• Aurizon- Aurizon - Australia’s largest rail freight operator
• CCIWA-Chamber of Commerce and Industry WA — CCIWA
• Police- Let's Join Forces - WA Police Force (letsjoinforces.wa.gov.au)
• Financial Planning Association of Australia- Financial planners | Financial Planning Association of Australia | FPA
• Hospitality Group Training- Hospitality Training | WA (hgtwa.com.au)
• Emergency Service- Kalamunda Volunteer Bush Fire Brigade – Kalamunda Bush Fire Brigade (kalamundabfb.org.au)
• MPA-MPA Skills – Painting and Plumbing Pre Apprenticeships, Apprenticeship Employment and Training Courses in Perth
• Roshana Care Group- Roshana Care Group - Home
• ICRAR-Home - ICRAR
• SkillHire- Australia’s Leading Training, Staffing & Employment Agency | Skill Hire
• St John Ambulance- St John WA - Supporting the wellbeing of our local communities
• Senior Legal Division- Explore the department: | Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety (commerce.wa.gov.au)
• Public relations – Keegan Berke
• TAFE north and south- Discover your game plan | North Metropolitan TAFE (northmetrotafe.wa.edu.au)
• ECU-ECU | Joondalup Campus : Our campuses : About ECU
• Murdoch University- Murdoch University
• Curtin- Curtin University | Make tomorrow better
• UWA-The University of Western Australia - Seek wisdom with a leading university for employability (uwa.edu.au)
• Notre Dame University- Notre Dame | Notre Dame

Staffing updates

We wish Grace Oorschot and Rosie Fitoussi all the very best for the safe arrival of their babies and we welcome Tom Hall, Sarah Walker and Ruth Dogovski who will be covering their classes while they take leave.

We also wish Ibu Kuldeep Kaler all the very best as she retires at the end of this term.  Ibu Kaler has had a long 43 year career in teaching, with the last 19 years at our school.  She has been a passionate and caring teacher, enriching her classes with cultural experiences, overseas trips and exchange programs.  She has been a valued staff member and we wish her all the very best for the future.

Wishing everyone all the best for the start of term.