2026 School Captains

After a lengthy application process which involved a written application, searching for references, a speech to their entire Year 11 cohort, a student vote and an interview, the 2026 NGSC School Captains have been selected.

The College Captains for 2026 are:

Tanishka Negi

Louis Smith

Academic Captain: Lila Fennell

Sports Captain: Maria Pagtolon-an

Cultural Captain: Julia Gamboa

Arts Captain: Ezra Washington

The new Captains held their first whole school assembly on Wednesday where they were formally introduced and made a speech. We look forward to working with all Captains and having them represent our College in 2026.

Middle Years Leadership Scholarships

Year 9 students are encouraged to apply for the Middle Years Leadership Scholarships and are awarded for demonstrating excellent leadership skills, communication skills, taking initiative, and having a passion to motivate, delegate, guide and lead fellow students. Congratulations to the successful recipients:

• Patricia Joy Mina
• Mia Joldzic
• Jayden Mangat
• Deborah Bijimba

Senior Academic Scholarships

Every year, NGSC has an amazing opportunity for the Year 10 students to apply for one of four Academic Scholarships to support their VCE studies over the next two years. Students had to submit a written application and sit an interview to demonstrate their success in either English, Humanities, Science or Mathematics. There was a really competitive pool of applicants that applied, and we would like to congratulate everyone that went through the application process. The recipients of the four VCE Academic Scholarships are:

• RJ Cathro
• Georgie Webster
• Ayush Singh
• Will Devlin

7-10 Testing Week

Recently all students in Years 7-10 completed testing for Mathematics and English. This end of year data is used by students to reflect on their personal growth, as well as by teachers for report writing and Sub-Schools also access this data for 2026 class selections. It was wonderful to see the level of effort put in by all students involved. Below are the top performing students for the Acer-PAT Mathematics and Reading tests. Congratulations to these students:

Mathematics

Year 7 - Lachlan Wright & Justin Acharya

Year 8 - Ethan Hoff

Year 9 - Zach Darling

Year 10 - Fatima Shirvani

English - Reading

Year 7 - Justin Acharya

Year 8 - Georgia Ferreria

Year 9 - Sadie Dorais

Year 10 - Hayden Hubacsek

Be Bold Be Heard

CELEBRATION FORUM

This has been an amazing year for the Be Bold, Be Heard initiative. We have celebrated some incredible new initiatives that included Student Leadership Training sessions through YLead and Staff Champion Training. We extended offers to new schools outside of our region and continued to embrace our non-government schools for different and the same perspectives. Soroptimists International have continued to provide support through a partnership, to enable 10 students to participate in the program. In addition to this, they have representatives who have joined our newly appointed committee. The committee, which has grown over the years and will develop further in 2026, has added staff from various schools and Respectful Relationships leaders. One early highlight being the speeches of BBBH Alumni, Anna (GHS) and Nya (NGSC -at a principal conference).

In Term 2, we had Iona College lead a forum, then in Term 3 Bellarine Secondary College and this really underpinned what the program is about, student voice agency and leadership. These forums epitomised this and inspired the leadership in others. Including some primary school students on the Bellarine, who wrote about it in their own newsletters as something that they really look forward to in the years to come.

Our guest speakers have continued to volunteer their time happily and contribute to the program even after inspiring the students. Politicians such as Ella George and Alison Marchant cannot get enough of the program and readily volunteer their time to assist, but also to celebrate the work of these girls. It is an outstanding feeling to be a part of such a vibrant and uplifting program where community leaders engage as part of their own fulfilment whilst inspiring others.

But all this is where the components of a build up to a wonderful event…the Celebration Forum. 

All our work prior to this would appear to be in place to prepare students for this day. Students presented their achievements to camera on entry to the event to have their work recorded for future presentations and inspirations of others. This was led by students and supported by Courtney McCullough (NGSC) who ran the media component of the day. Student leaders then continued to organise and manage the event like a well-oiled machine, each with their own responsibilities they did not miss a beat. Even at one point saw Mollie Brilliant (Sacred Heart) using initiative and running an activity with the guests so they were engaged and involved.

The MCs were outstanding and managed to, for the first time keep to the time schedule of the agenda and should be congratulated. Leading us off however, was Cat Salt who reminded students that we should all be considerate of the stories behind a person and her inspirations were articulated in the feedback of the students later in the day.

Thoma and Rushneet (NGSC) relished the opportunity to speak up and be heard (constantly).

The students, in between a fantastic spread of morning tea and lunch, presented their actions and achievements for the year. Some were complete, others were ongoing because of determined efforts to see it come to fruition. Ultimately, they were not just individualised, they were big picture things to have vast impact on their cohort, gender or college. Quite incredible really! What really resonated with me was their goals were in the realms of the work of the Principal team and in the week prior we were unable to solve some of the issues relating to toilets and yet the students willingly and enthusiastically tackled the opportunity creating posters, creating happy colourful designs and visiting Bunnings for paint. Perhaps that is why the initiative is starting to embed in the action planning of schools around the region.

Again, the speakers Nicole Briscoe (swimmer), Karen Feldman (Clawdia - Geelong FC cat) and Michelle Tither (Mint) were inspiring and delivered wonderful anecdotes and enabled students to envision positive future aspirations in their own lives.

Thank you to all the schools for supporting the program in 2025 and well done to the students.

Finally, thanks to the committee members for supporting the growth of the program and I look forward to further growth and development of this program in 2026! If you would like to join the committee in 2026, please contact bradley.headlam@education.vic.gov.au

Climbing Mt Everest

At the beginning of the year students were set the challenge of “Climbing Mt Everest” with the amount of Green Positive Entries earned by the students. The target was 8,849 entries, one for each metre of height that Mt Everest stretches, by Multicultural Day in Term 4. The students surpassed this goal with 10,084 positive entries with a few weeks to spare. The students were promised a whole school reward, which the SRC wanted a Halloween Dress Up Day, which we had on Friday 31st October. Great effort to the students and a new goal will be set early in 2026 for the students to achieve.