Principal's message

Dear MGSC School Community

I find it hard to remember a time when we have all been asked to be so adaptive to the constant changes in our daily lives, so aware of our vulnerabilities and so grateful for contact with family and friends. The simple things that we took for granted are now even more treasured in our daily lives.

I am sitting at my desk in a school without students and without 95% of the staff. Everyone is online. I can’t hear the sound of regular footsteps travelling down the passageway. I miss walking into the school yard and seeing our students engrossed in conversation and full of energy. I miss the VCE and Year 10 students who have been coming to school to take advantage of onsite learning over the past three weeks and I miss the buzz of a full staff room at morning tea and lunchtime.

Over the past three weeks Carol Duggan and I have been visiting our students in their VCE classes first thing each morning. It was a little like speed dating as we took everyone’s temperatures and shared throw away lines in hopes to raise a smile each morning. We were trying not to disturb their classes more than we needed to as this time was precious. I miss that opportunity to touch base with them all and to comment on the creative masks that they were wearing. It was our way to let them know that we were happy to see them and were glad they were with us on site. On Monday every student and many teachers wore their pyjamas around the school to mark the day.

Of course, this Stage 4 lockdown is important to all Australians and our students will be well looked after online by their teachers when all students return to remote learning. I believe the connections that our teachers established with their classes in Semester 1 were enduring. When I look back at any of the newsletters from that time it is testimony to the huge amount of learning going on but there was also the focus on building relationships and keeping an eye on student wellbeing.

If this were a non-Covid-19 parallel timeline, we would have been having our visit from our sister school Nakamura Senior High School and they would have been staying with our families and performing at our whole school assembly. We would have been having onsite activities for Languages Week and students would be participating in interschool sport. We would have been celebrating 65 years of students attending MGSC and there would have been an Open Day to invite past students back into our school to see what has remained the same and what has changed. Alas, this parallel world is not the world we live in. But regardless of this, the MGSC community are together in spirit and online. We can’t lose the culture that we have built over many years and decades and we will support each other through this period.

We are getting ready for the Parent/Teacher/Student Interviews which will go online this semester. So we look forward to seeing you in that context as well.

Keep safe and well.

All the best,

Linda Brown