Parent Newsletter Issue 13 2026

School Annual General Meeting

Thank you to the parents who attended our Annual General Meeting on Tuesday 18 August. Your continued interest and involvement in our school community is greatly appreciated.

The 2025 Annual Report was presented at the meeting and is available to view here.

2026 Parent / Carer Opinion Survey – Now Open

The 2026 Parent / Carer Opinion Survey is open for parents and carers to complete until Friday 18 September.

The survey is run by the Department of Education and helps us understand families’ views on school climate, student behaviour and student engagement. It’s optional, but we encourage everyone to take part.

We use the results to identify areas for improvement and professional development, and to guide school planning.

The survey takes about 20 minutes and can be completed on any device, at any time that suits you.

Login details have been sent via email from our 7842-info@schools.vic.edu.au address to one parent / guardian from each family, with one invitation per household. Parents/carers living together are asked to complete one survey jointly, while those living separately are welcome to complete individual surveys.

It’s available in English and 10 other languages, including Arabic, Greek, Hakha Chin, Hindi, Japanese, Punjabi, Simplified Chinese, Somali, Turkish and Vietnamese. If you’d like a survey guide in your language, contact Kaylene Tanti at 7842-info@schools.vic.edu.au.

Please get in touch if you have any questions.

Jillian English

Principal

Our year 11 and 12 Art Making and Exhibiting (AME) students gained valuable industry insights to support their VCE studies during their ACCA & NGV exhibitions visit on Friday 14/08. 

At the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA), students engaged with gallery professionals to learn about conservation methods, exploring how exhibitions are curated, as well as how modern artworks are preserved, handled, and maintained within a contemporary space.

Next, they headed to NGV Australia at Federation Square. The group immersed themselves in the permanent collections, checking out incredible curatorial styles and diverse art forms up close. It’s always a wonderful opportunity for our students to see their classroom lessons come to life in the real world.

The excursion to Kryal Castle near Ballarat last week was a great success!

Students got to engage in a number of different activities to help deepen their understanding of Medieval Europe. Students in 8W provided the following comments:

“It was fun. I enjoyed how the place had been themed as if it really was in the olden times. I enjoyed the effort they put into making it feel like that.”

“I was super happy we got to go visit Kryal Castle last week on Thursday. We got to do many activities such as medieval bandage making, looking at old armour and even seeing some animals and looking at the castle’s features! It was a really fun day even though it was chilly and rainy.”

“I think Kryal Castle was quite entertaining, I liked how realistic it was and how inclusive the activities were.”

“I liked it. It gave me some info on castles and now I’m better educated. I liked getting scared in the haunted house.”

Footscray High School year nine students continue to develop great connections with their local community. 

Whether it’s hosting a sustainability treasure hunt for students from Rosamond Special School or visiting local Aged Care Residences for board games and dancing, our students demonstrate their willingness to ‘give back’ to society. 

Taking part in a food drop (student/parent donations and harvest from the Kinnear Farm) and tour of the Asylum Seekers Resource Centre demonstrates our year nine students’ empathy and caring personalities. 

These experiences inform student choices of the issues they will discuss during their Westsider radio shows and ultimately research these issues so they can present their findings to Mayor Mohamed Semra at Footscray Town Hall at the conclusion of the Local term of the CIP program.

On Tuesday August 18th, AFL Victoria and three Western Bulldogs players came to Barkly Campus to run a 60 minute clinic. 

Around 30 students from Barkly and Pilgrim (in year 7, 8 and 9) got together at Barkly to meet 3 current players from the Western Bulldogs. 

I was one of those 30 students that got to participate in a clinic / workshop with other classmates, students and of course the Bulldogs players.

We were lucky enough to ask them questions, kick the footy with them, do drills with them, and even take photos with them. 

The players that were at the little clinic / workshop were the following…

Oskar Baker: He plays as a forward with the unlucky number 13, and his favourite fruit is a banana.

Michael Sellwood: He plays as a defender with the odd number 37, and his favourite fruit is watermelon.

Jordan Croft: He plays as a key defender with the normal number 16, and his favourite fruit is also watermelon.

Now for the record I do not follow them and watch them eat fruit, this is simply the way they introduced themselves.

Everyone had a great time, even Nancy… and she’s an Essendon supporter!

Anyways, it’s great to know that the community is so inclusive, close and connected that FHS – a local high school – gets to participate and create so many (big and small) events, clinics or programs with the amazing country famous Western Bulldogs.

Thanks for listening in, see you next time. Go Doggies!

– Marley O

On Monday the 17th of August our Boys and Girls Intermediate Basketball teams hit the court at Altona Stadium. 

The Girls had 4 games in their pool and won 2 of the 4 with Frankie V leading the charge with her aggression to the rim with great ball handling and speed. 

The Boys won their Pool C games against Rosehill and Harvester, with a nailbiter semi-final against Buckley Park to get over the line by a point. The Boys blew away Mount Alexander in the final to claim the title and make their way to the regional finals on Friday October 23rd. Congrats to the boys with a great team effort and everybody playing their role and to Coach Hector R taking on the duties. 

Well done to all students today, great display of FHS pillars. 

The latest Australian Jobs 2026, released by Jobs and Skills Australia, provides a valuable snapshot of where Australia’s labour market is heading and what this means for students making decisions today. 

 Several messages stand out.

The most important message is that careers are becoming less linear. Students are likely to move between occupations, industries and further education throughout their lives. Helping them understand their transferable strengths and capabilities may therefore be more valuable than trying to identify one lifelong occupation.

Qualifications matter, but there is no single “best” pathway. More than 90% of employment growth over the decade to 2035 is expected to require post-school training. Importantly, VET, apprenticeships and university should be presented as parallel pathways, with the right choice depending on the student’s interests, strengths and aspirations. 

School subjects are one way to explore careers, but they don’t tell the whole story. When students first understand who they are, what they’re naturally good at and the strengths they bring, they can explore careers that genuinely fit them, often discovering opportunities they may never have considered

Helping a young person understand who they are, what they’re naturally good at and the strengths they bring to work provides a much stronger foundation for exploring careers. Year 9 students completing the MyCareerMatch profile gives them a personal starting point, combined with labour-market information to help them identify realistic and motivating pathways.

At the moment, growth is particularly strong in Health Care and Social Assistance, with Education and Training, Construction, and Professional, Scientific and Technical Services also expanding. At the same time, AI is expected to change how many jobs are performed rather than simply replace them, increasing the value of human capabilities such as judgement, communication and problem-solving.

Always a feature of the Term 3 calendar, Book Week is a celebration of all things literary.

Reading fires the imagination and allows us to live a thousand lives in a thousand places. While the highlight of the week is indubitably our Costume Day on Tuesday August 25th, our libraries will be holding events all week, including the ZOOM! scavenger hunt, Dress-a-duck, Book-in-a-Jar (a perennial favourite) and more.  All staff are fired up and ready to talk about their favourite books, both now and when they were teens. 

Everyone, including staff, are encouraged to create fun, clever, witty or outrageous costumes to wear on Tuesday. Almost anything goes, as long as it’s not offensive and doesn’t have any sharp, dangerous bits or create a tripping hazard.  There will be lunchtime parades at each campus and prizes galore!

Our friendly library staff are always at hand to find that perfect book for everyone. If your student doesn’t love reading, it’s because they haven’t found the perfect book yet. 

We’re introducing a new fob system for our Year 10 toilets, using student cards to open the external door only (cubicles remain unlocked as usual).

The fob will record who enters the toilet and at what time, but not when they leave. To ensure privacy, this information is only accessible by senior leadership. This trial is aimed at reducing ongoing damage and helping keep facilities safe and welcoming for all students. This measure is in addition to existing strategies already in place, including increased yard duty supervision and externally facing cameras.

If your child misplaces their card, they can purchase a replacement at the front office, and can use other toilets around the school in the meantime.

We appreciate this is a change, and thank you for your support as we work to protect our facilities.

Please reach out with any questions.