Dear Parents/Guardians,

I thought it was timely to remind parents and guardians of the E-Safety Commissioner website. It is a wonderful resource for parents, students and teachers focusing on how to keep teenagers safe online. Unfortunately, statistics indicate that one in five young Australians aged 8 to 17 years have been socially excluded, threatened or abused online. I do encourage all members of the Academy community to regularly visit this website for valuable information, resources and webinars. One such webinar is taking place on Wednesday 29th March. The webinar is entitled ‘Navigating Online Friendships’. This 30-minute webinar is designed for parents and carers of young people in secondary school. It will cover:

- how to support young people to have safe and respectful online relationships;
- what to do when something happens at school and ends up on social media or private messaging apps; and
- how to report to social media platforms and eSafety.

International Women’s Day & Mother Daughter Breakfast

Thank you to Ms. Fiona Tassone, the Justice Group, Ms. Jodie Muller and Senior Student Leadership Team for organising activities for IWD. At the beginning of last week, there was a ribbon cutting party to prepare for International Women's Day. Students cut over 1000 purple ribbons which were distributed. There were posters about inspirational women (especially women in STEM) displayed around the College. There was a hand painting activity recognizing the diversity in our community and the handprints were displayed around the College. And there was an ‘Inspiration Station’ where the girls wrote about women who have supported them.

As part of the IWD celebrations, we also had the Mother / Daughter Breakfast on Friday 10th March from 7am – 8:30pm in the Dillon Centre. There was hospitality, music and Georgia Hill (ex-Academy student) gave a most inspirational speech to the 250 people in attendance. It was a very fitting culmination to an extremely important week in the life of the College. Thank you to members of the Parent’s Association for their assistance with the organisation of this event.

House Swimming Carnival

A very big congratulations and well done to all students for their attendance and participation at the House Swimming Carnival on Tuesday 7 March. We had record numbers of students swimming, and it really was fantastic to see so many students represent their Houses not only in the pool but also with their House Spirit. Good luck to the students representing the Academy at the CGSAV Swimming Carnival on Thursday 23rd March at MSAC. I have no doubt that they will represent our College in an exemplary manner. Thank you to Mr. Aeneas Gallivan and all staff for all their hard work in the lead up to the day and also on the day itself.

Athletics Carnival

The Athletics Carnival is scheduled to take place Wednesday 22nd March. Parents and guardians are asked to note that there are some differences from previous years. The venue is Collingwood Athletics Track, not Doncaster. Year 10 – 12 Students are asked to make their own way to the venue and will be dismissed from the venue as well. They are asked to be there at 9:00am and will be dismissed at approximately 2:30 – 2:45pm. They will also be provided with a ‘travel plan’ which will assist them with this. Year 7 – 9 students will be bussed as per normal. Parents and guardians have already provided permission for their daughter to attend this event via the year level General Permission letter on Operoo disseminated at the beginning of the year.

All members of the community are reminded that the House Athletics Carnival is a compulsory school day and all students are expected to attend. Days such as this, amongst many other things, provide that important sense of belonging to students and also play an integral role in the positive wellbeing of all members of the Academy community. If a student is absent next Wednesday, they are asked to provide a medical certificate for this absence.

Director of Sport, Mr. Gallivan has provided more information to Year 10 – 12 parents via email. We are looking forward to another successful day.

Year 7 & 8 Parent Meet and Greet

The next event that the Parent’s Association have organised is Year 7 & 8 Parent Meet and Greet. It is scheduled to be held on Friday 24th March from approximately 7:00pm. For more details on the Community page and Important Dates.

Parents’ Association Meeting

The second meeting of the Parents’ Association will be taking place on Monday 27 March at 7:00pm in the College Library. If you would like to attend please email me directly by 9:00pm Monday evening as I plan to send out the Agenda and Minutes from last meeting on Tuesday.

For those parents who sent me an email for our first meeting, there is no need to re-send an email again as I have already added you to the email distribution list.

Looking forward to another great parent turnout.

As always, please remember never hesitate to be in touch should you have any queries or concerns

Mr Sam Di Camillo

Deputy Principal, Wellbeing & Operations

Middle School

Years 9 &10

YR 9

NAPLAN