PRINCIPAL'S REPORT

Erin Wright - Principal 

Strive

Our Year 12 students are enacting some student voice at the moment and forming committees on different aspects of work around the College. The staff have also been offering some workshops after school from 3:00pm - 3.30pm for students to engage in developing themselves in some areas such as study skills, or handwriting etc. It has been pleasing to see that so many students are engaging in these offers and we encourage you to speak to your Year 12 student about becoming involved.

We also had our first School Council meeting of the year this week and I would like to congratulate Chris Zois on being voted in as the new School Council President. Chris has been a member of the College Council since 2012 and has had three children enrolled at SCSC; two have graduated and one is in Year 11 this year. Congratulations Chris and thank you for your ongoing commitment to the College. It was also wonderful to see three of the College Captains, Maya S, Jason S and Tyson W at the School Council meeting as representatives this week. They were sharing their views openly with other Council members and making valued contributions – well done!

Unite

It is normal for teenagers to push boundaries and take risks. Teenage risk taking is an important part of their journey in finding their identities and becoming independent young adults. During adolescence there are changes in the brain that make teenagers more focused on the reward they feel when they are admired by their friends, and the positive reinforcement they get by being included. This is why friends and peers become incredibly important during the teenage years, and why they feel real distress if they don’t have friends or are socially rejected.

The areas that handle impulse control and planning also don’t completely mature until about age 25. This means teenagers are more likely than adults to make quick and risky decisions.

The College takes our role in assisting our young people to engage in positive choices seriously. Whilst there are multiple opportunities in the regular Health curriculum and in SURF pastoral care sessions for students to engage in drug education, the College felt the need to engage students in some targeted education this week. Much of this has been due to the increasing number of incidences being reported about young people engaging in risky and dangerous behaviours on weekends in the community. Many of these young people are not Surf Coast SC students; they are others from Geelong or further that are coming to our great town to socialise and engage in anti-social behaviours unfortunately. 

We want to do whatever we can to ensure that Surf Coast SC students are as best informed and supported as they can be to be safe and make positive choices in relation to drugs and alcohol. To this end, on 17 March, our local Community Liaison Police Officer, Cathie Hastie, presented to all year levels about the dangers of drugs and alcohol, and also the protective behaviours that young people can take when they are in risky situations to keep themselves, and their mates safe. 

We hope that all of our young people took something away from these sessions. Please ask your child/ren about what they learned or had clarified for them. Please also contact the College if you are concerned about your child’s risk-taking behaviours as we may be able to provide support and connect you to other agencies to provide support.

Respect

As we are all aware, mobile phones are not allowed to be used during school hours by students. Unfortunately, some students have been removing their phone from their locker at lunch time to use this to pay for items at the canteen. This cannot continue to occur. The canteen will no longer be taking phone payments and there will be signs displayed to this effect and students notified. Please support this by ensuring that your child has cash or a card in order to pay for food at the College.

We have also put in place a new process for pre-ordering. Students can report to the canteen before school or at recess to order their lunch and they will be given a card/token that they need to show the teacher on duty at lunch and they will get earlier access to the canteen. Please also ensure that your child is aware of this. Ordering early is a great way for our students to ensure that they get the food that they want at lunch before things sell out, in a fast manner also.

Flourish 

Our College Open Evening is on tonight (March 22nd). We are so excited to be once again able to open our doors to prospective new families. Existing families are also welcome to attend to see the excellent facilities that your child/ren enjoy each day up close. Our event will be COVIDSafe and has been registered as a public event and we will be sticking to density limits in all rooms on the night. Additional to the Open Evening, we have just finished work on a virtual tour of the College. This was published last week on our College Facebook page and can also be found on the home page of the College website by Clicking Here

It is a wonderful representation of our fabulous school and we thank Roseneath Creative for their work in producing this video for us.