PRINCIPAL'S REPORT
Principal - Erin Wright
Firstly, a huge thank you to the whole Surf Coast Secondary College community for their support of each other in this challenging time. Thank you to all of our incredible staff for their hard work in setting up and commencing the College’s remote learning plan, and to parents and carers for all of your support and understanding that this is new for everyone. As per my communications that have been sent out via Compass to families, whilst SCSC has always been a strong digital learning school, there are still aspects of practice that will enhance remote learning that staff will need to learn or adapt as well.
Thank you foremost to our students for being resilient, open to new ways of doing things and for getting on with your work online via Canvas. Whilst your learning is important and I have loved reading the discussion threads and ways that you are supporting each other and interacting with your teachers online, your wellbeing, safety and health are paramount at this time more than ever. Ensure you make time each day to engage in some of the wellbeing activities your teachers are providing for you via Canvas, or by doing things that you enjoy and engaging in some exercise each day.
We have commenced some feedback surveys last week, starting with our Year 12 students, and will be sending more of these to the wider student population and also parents in the next week or so, to enable us to better understand the remote learning experience and how we can improve this as we continue the journey this term.
Welcome to New Staff and Families
We have welcomed the following new staff to SCSC this term. I would like to congratulate them not only on their appointments, but for their dedicated efforts in becoming familiar with our college online systems as best they can and as fast as they can so that they can support their classes remotely.
Justin Keenan - Maths Methods and Further Mathematics
Sharyn Seipolt - Year 9 STEM and Year 10 Maths and Science
Daniel Gray - Year 9 FUSE and Year 9 Environmental Studies
Michael Jennings - Year 7 FUSE
Natalie Wood - Commencing in week three for Year 10 Maths and IT
We have also welcomed 8 new students to SCSC. We understand that joining a new school and not being able to meet your peers and teachers in person is a challenge, but we hope that you feel well supported and are getting used to our system of remote learning this term. We cannot wait to meet you properly once on-site learning resumes.
I would also like to congratulate the following staff who have been appointed to new leadership roles this term:
Narelle Geary – Acting Assistant Principal – Middle years and College Organisation. Narelle will be replacing Aaron Gleeson who is on a period of leave.
Andrew Brown – Acting Assistant Principal – Curriculum and Professional Learning
Shaun Miller – Acting Learning Specialist – Digital Learning
Ellyse Brady – Acting Director of Learning – Year 7
Ben McKay – Acting Director of Learning – Senior School
Zoe Christie has also moved into a different leadership role as Director of Learning – Strategic Initiatives from her prior position in the senior team.
COVID-19 and Remote Learning for Term Two
At this stage, we are in a remote learning plan for the entirety of term two.
Learning programs are being facilitated largely through Canvas and via our staff communicating with students by needs in various different forms to ensure they feel supported. We did not commence the term video conferencing with students, and I know that there were many questions about why this was not occurring. I hope that the communications that have come out since term two commenced has shown that SCSC is undertaking our remote learning implementation with deep consideration for students, staff and parents and we want to ensure that we are doing things properly, in a well-planned manner and we are not overwhelming people either.
Discussions and planning have been undertaken to introduce video conferencing from week three of this term with Year 11 and 12 students to begin with, two times a week per class. This will be done via Google Meet which is embedded in their Canvas course. A timetable will be clearly communicated to all families and students along with instructions about how this will work.
We will also look to use video conferencing with students with learning needs to ensure that them and their parents/carers are well supported at home and that individualised plans and supports are in place.
The use of video conferencing in Years 7-10 will continue to be examined as a support for the learning materials that are currently mapped out for students on Canvas. Staff will also be pre-recording tutorials and using more interactive content over the coming weeks; all of these practices need to be learned by some staff, or refined by others.
We are proud that as of Tuesday April 21st, all families in need of a device if theirs was not working or optimal for remote learning, has been loaned one.
Assistance has been requested by several families also with no or troublesome internet connections. The College has not received information from DET about WiFi provision, and we have not been able to source ones to purchase as all retailers are out of stock. We have been very fortunate to have a few families donate one they are not using to other families and we have almost finished purchasing sim cards to get these setup. A HUGE thank you to the College community for your support of each other in this challenging time.
We do have some students attending on-site whose parents are unable to supervise them at home. This has been working well and I would like to acknowledge the staff who have volunteered to come on site to supervise, and have been doing their best to engage students, play some social-distancing safe table tennis with them at breaks, and keeping their morale up whilst they are doing their remote learning tasks also. If you also feel your child is in need of onsite supervision and have not contacted me, please email wright.erin.j@edumail.vic.gov.au and I will send you the information about onsite supervision and discuss whether your child meets the criteria for onsite supervision. The Victorian Government has said that any student who can learn from home, must learn from home. We know that this presents challenges, but thank you all for the role you are playing in keeping our community and the people in it safe.
Lastly, what a strange way this is for me to commence my Principalship of Surf Coast Secondary College. I am so proud and honoured to have been appointed as the substantive Principal and dearly love the people in this community. I miss seeing our students' smiling faces here every day and whilst it is important that we are all following the guidelines to ensure that people are safe and healthy, I cannot wait to see you all back here when the time comes. I have also been so proud of the staff that we have at SCSC who have been going above and beyond to contact students, learn new skills, work remotely in new and challenging ways to continue to support your young people that they are all deeply committed to. I thank them all so much.
We will be sending out some parent and student surveys via Compass in the coming days. So please do respond to these so that we can understand how we can continue to seek to improve in this journey of remote learning this term.
Thank you for your ongoing support,
Erin Wright
Gym Expansion Building Project
The gym expansion building project in conjunction with the Shire to give the Torquay community a fabulous new and improved sports facility is still on target for its completion date later this year. It has not been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic thus far.
The walls are going up and lots of internal infrastructure and it is really starting to take shape. I am so excited to see the students’ reactions to the building when we are back on site. What a fabulous facility we will have access to!
