Issue 1 2025 - Principal

Principal

Wayne Austin

Welcome to Term 1

Welcome back to the new school year. We have had such a great start to the year, the students have settled in well and so have our staff. It has been great to welcome some new staff into the College this year. We have new staff in teaching with Mrs Tia Hughes and Mr Peter Riley in Mathematics, Mr Nick Virgona in Science and Ms Valda Weiland in English. In residential staff, we welcome Maz Palmer and David Cooke to the team. We have some changes in kitchen staff, with Natasha Cardoso on leave, allowing Trever Pederson to join us as a permanent staff member. Rachelle Richards has also come on board to assist in equine. On farm, we welcome Vendy Jesslova to assist in the dairy. Welcome to all new staff, your contribution to the College is much appreciated.

Our Year 12 class of 2024 left us with some outstanding results. Our WACE attainment sat at 95%, higher than the state average of 92%. This year, we will work to improve this percentage as OLNA was the only thing that prevented 100% attainment. 

Laura Webster achieved the top ATAR score of 91.25, with Phoebe Mottram and Jesse Oldfield close behind her attaining scores of 88.55 and 88.70 respectively. There were 7 students who were eligible to gain university entrance with a score higher than the required 70 ATAR. A great result for our ATAR students.

In the VET space, our Year 12 students left the College with 37 Certificate I, 143 Certificate II and 23 Certificate III awards. Jesse Oldfield achieved a VET Exhibition and VET Certificate of Excellence Award, both demonstrating his excellence in VET studies. Phoebe Mottram achieved a Certificate of Distinction, and four students received Certificates of Merit; Isaac Dobbe, Jesse Oldfield, Cameron van der Heide and Laura Webster.

The opportunities afforded to our students allows them to achieve at high levels on par with or better than schools across the state. Congratulations to all of our award winners.

As we head towards the second half of the term, we will see our students attend the University tour and the Industry Adventure Tour. Again, these are great opportunities for our students as they provide them with information on post College options. 

I look forward to our ongoing excellent results across all aspects of the College as we head into 2025.

Wayne Austin
Principal
WACOA - Denmark