City

Campus News

Endings and beginnings

At City, we love celebrating our transitions. As we reflect on the growth at each age and at every stage of learning, we look forward to what awaits us in the next phase. For our Year 12 students, it has been wonderful to see them on Level 8, studying in the lead up to each of their VCE exams. They have worked hard and are focused.

Our Years 7 and 8 were hard at work in the lead up to exams and their results and feedback from their teachers have helped them better understand how to effectively study in the future. These lessons are all part of the learning journey. Our Year 8s have proudly graduated Middle School and started Term 1A in Year 9, which we call Pre-Senior.

Our Year 4 students are eagerly anticipating joining Girls and Boys Middle Schools, as are the students in Pre-Prep about the wonderful learning that awaits them in the Junior School.

We look forward to celebrating these transition points together with our City families in the coming weeks.

Celebration of Excellence

Our annual Celebration of Excellence (formerly known as Speech Night) is fast approaching and will be held on Friday, 28 November. All Middle School students will attend, and we look forward to a night celebrating excellence in all facets of our Haileybury program. If Junior School students attend, they should wear their Haileybury School uniform. Details are on the app.

Early Learning Centre

Our animal habitat creations!

Reception continues to learn about animals and their habitats by investigating the natural environment. To bring their discoveries to life, the children have been creating dioramas showing different habitats, including jungles, deserts, oceans and forests. With shoe boxes, paint, playdough and natural materials, the children built homes for their favourite animals and talked about how different weather affects where animals live. This ongoing project has helped our children learn new vocabulary, develop fine motor skills and express their creativity. Most of all, they had so much fun sharing their dioramas with their peers.

What a wonderful way to learn through play and develop our imagination.

Board games in action!

The Pre-Preps have been enjoying classic games such as Connect 4, Snakes and Ladders, Snail Race and UNO as a fun and engaging way to learn. These games provide wonderful opportunities to practise number counting, number recognition, and important social skills such as taking turns and showing good sportsmanship.

Through play, children develop patience, strategic thinking and cooperation, as well as having fun with their friends. These playful experiences help build strong foundations for future learning and positive interactions.

Sun safety in the ELC

As the weather is warming up and the sun is shining, it is important to protect our children’s skin. Throughout the day, educators will support your child to reapply sunscreen, however, children should have sunscreen applied before they arrive at the ELC. A daily UV rating, as stated by the SunSmart app, is displayed in the ELC foyer to ensure sun safety is part of our daily routine.

Junior School

Junior School sport in action

The Junior School students were delighted to showcase their PE skills to families during our Junior School Sport in Action at Ron Barassi Park. Students rotated through a series of sports games including soccer, rugby and AFL skills, as well as relays and obstacle courses. Being cheered on and supported by families throughout the sunny afternoon was a wonderful way to celebrate sport in the Junior School. The students were delighted to be treated to a cupcake from the Haileybury Parents and Friends Committee during the event too.

Future Leaders Day

Haileybury City Campus was proud to host the Year 3 students from Castlefield, Newlands and Edrington for the Future Leaders Day. Beginning the morning on Level 9, the students heard about key leadership skills and qualities from current Year 8 Middle School Captains, Oscar and Mavis, as well as hearing from members of the Old Haileyburian community, Billy Si and Kiara Borgonha. The cohorts explored skills of communication, resilience and fun with a progressive dance class run by Kyle from Kinect2Dance on the City Campus’s Level 2 Performing Arts Floor. Our Year 3s engaged in a range of team-building and code-breaking activities on site, before crossing to Flagstaff Gardens to enjoy the city’s lovely weather. The day enabled our Year 3s to learn about key attributes necessary for effective leadership, preparing them to be leaders of the Junior School in 2026 at their own campuses.

Scrolls

The City and Newlands Scrolls String Recital took place at Aikman Hall earlier this term. The students from Years 3 and 4 cross-campus ensemble came together to perform Wilam: A Birrarung Story led by Ms Tania Casey and Ms Kim Ho. The City students were delighted to share the stage with their Newlands peers and performed a variety of songs to showcase each section of the ensemble. Thank you to the parents and siblings for attending the performance and cheering on their children.

Middle School

Year 7 and 8 Examinations

Congratulations to our Years 7 and 8 students who have recently completed their examinations. This was a particularly momentous occasion for our Year 7 boys and girls as this was the first extensive examination period for them, but the first of many as they continue their schooling journey towards their VCE exams. These assessments allow our students to display the knowledge they have gained while equally important are the skills they learn and develop, such as creating their own notes, the importance of routine, chunking study into short sessions, developing the ideal study environment and setting study goals, that will further grow and hold them in good stead as they progress through Haileybury.

Post-exams celebrations

Following their examinations, our Years 7 and 8 students celebrated their hard work and had some well-deserved celebrations with activities planned by the Heads of Middle School. Students feasted at Queen Victoria Market, enjoyed a cinematic experience, undertook a leadership workshop, visited and dined in Chinatown and participated in House activities at Flagstaff Gardens. A highlight was the Year 8s venturing to Game Worlds playable exhibition at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image followed by lunch at Melbourne Central. Spanning over 50 years of play, Game Worlds features more than 30 videogames from the 1970s to today, with 44 playable moments, original builds, rare design materials and hands-on prototypes the students could not find anywhere else.

Wednesday was a cross-campus extravaganza as all Years 7 and 8s from across Haileybury came together at the Keysborough campus to view the very best of student enterprise and entrepreneurship at the StartUp Pitch Showcase. This event is the culmination of the Year 8 students’ work during Haileybury’s unique StartUp subject in which they create a business idea from scratch. The strongest concept from each campus was selected to compete in the StartUp Pitch Showcase. This was followed by a Colour Run which saw the students being showered in coloured powder by their teachers as they made their way around a 1.5km course. Cross-campus connections were further developed and plenty of fun was had.

Year 8 Graduation

We bid our Year 8 students farewell and wished them the very best as they concluded their final day in Middle School on Friday 14 November with their Year 8 Graduations. It was wonderful to hear from our Middle School Captains, Oscar and Mavis , who have been outstanding in their roles, leading by example and driving the culture of their respective schools, as they reflected on the time spent in Middle School by them and their peers. We acknowledge the positive impact the graduating Year 8s of 2025 have had on the Middle School at the City Campus and also recognise the contributions of their families, whose love, guidance and support, as well as their strong partnership with the School, has allowed their children to achieve their potential.

Caroline Merrick
Head of City

Haileybury Parents & Friends City (HPF City)

Grooving and 'fun'raising! Doing it for the kids

On Friday, 24 October, a gathering of Haileybury parents and friends, along with the Haileybury City Executive, came together on Level 2 to shine, sparkle and dance at our biggest event of the year.

We had a wonderful time with dinner, drinks, DJ, dancing, prizes, raffles and auctions, while raising funds for:

• a scholarship for a student who would not otherwise attend our school.
• student-led enhancements like ELC scooters, Junior School play equipment and Senior School microwaves.

The outfits were tremendous and the dancing was sublime (if we do say so ourselves), and even better, we raised around $7,000 in funds to support the HPF City goals.

We could not let the moment pass without a few happy snaps to share and showcase just how amazing the night was.

As co-presidents we would like to take the opportunity to express our gratitude to the following:

• The staff who set up the night, run the night and pack it all down again. Without their support this event would not be possible.
• Caroline Merrick, Head of Haileybury City Campus for ongoing support and collaboration.
• The Haileybury Exec team who gave up their Friday night to come and ‘hang’ with City parents.
• The HPF Executive members and social representatives who, as volunteers, take charge of the event prior to setup, and during the night to help bring the event together seamlessly and with ease.
• A special call out to Tina Lee from Grown Florists in Moonee Ponds who arranged much of the decoration and balloon garlands to transform the event space.
• The families, friends and businesses that donate the much-appreciated goods and items that are packaged into fantastic items for live and silent auctions , raffles and door prizes.
• A special call out to: Shirley Family | Digenakis Family | Ho Family | Lee Family | Noone Uniform | Meyers Family |Garofalo Family | Copeland Family | White Family | OsteoStrong South Melbourne | Fader Family | Woolard Family | Brickville in Kensington | Fisher Family | Neele Family.
• And all the anonymous donations – THANK YOU.
• Finally, a big thank you to those families that bring the community together. We are grateful for your time, some extra funds and your dance moves and/or connection with us.

HPF Executive Committee and social representatives for 2026

Stay tuned for an update in the next Insight edition announcing your 2026 representatives, following the HPF City AGM held on Thursday, 13 November at Bleakhouse Hotel, Albert Park when the HPF City community hear from the Head of Haileybury and HPF Co-Presidents on the year’s activities, financials and other AGM matters.

Second-hand Uniform Shop Reminder

The last uniform pop-up shop for 2025 will be held on Up Day, Tuesday, 18 November from 8.00 am – 9.00 am and 3.00 pm – 4.00pm. Come in and say hi, have a cuppa and grab a few items for 2026.

Melissa Fisher and Michelle White
Co-Presidents, Haileybury Parents & Friends City