A message from Tami -Jo

What a jam-packed term!  We have had our school picnic, parent information sessions, our parent drop in afternoon, sports events, the Colour Run, swimming carnivals, excursions, incursions, Walk to School Day, the Year 7 camp, an Easter Bonnet parade and  Celebrations of Learning. This has been combined with robust learning within classrooms. It has been go, go ,go for everyone on the ground here at DCC.

Parent Information Nights

We held Parent Information Sessions around social and communication skills for the P-4 families and parenting in the online world for the years 5-8. We didn’t have the uptake from families that we would have liked, however the feedback we did receive was very positive and will help us plan for other sessions in the future. We are working very hard to provide families with the support they require so if you have any ideas of what you think may be helpful, please contact us and let us know. We have uploaded recordings of the sessions to Compass and recommend that you watch them; you may find information that is helpful to you but will also develop a deeper understanding of how we work here at DCC which can only make the home/school connection stronger. All of our staff attended the nights to further their understanding but to also support families within their class. A huge thank you to them for showing such commitment. 

Assemblies

We have been using assembly as an opportunity to build our student’s knowledge and develop a collective understanding around our school values and how we hang at DCC. We have also explored the power of words, both negatively and positively. Our students have some difficult ‘yarns’ around these ideas and discussed the behaviours that accompany our beliefs. It would be wonderful if you could follow up these ideas at home. We have been talking about how we display the values of kindness, respect, teamwork, integrity and learning consistently both in and out of the classroom. 

We celebrated Shrey Bethi at assembly this week because of an incident that was witnessed by one of our staff where he displayed the school values confidently, empathetically and purposefully. Congratulations to Shrey. He took home a basket of goodies that was donated from Truganina Thunder Football Club for his actions.

Colour Run

We raised around $10 000 for our multi-courts cover through the Colour run experience. We will let you know of upcoming fundraising events next term.

BYOD and devices at DCC

There are a number of families who have asked curious questions about the use of devices at school. We work very hard to ensure that there is a balance between the use of devices and paper/pen work here at DCC but it is important to acknowledge that the use of devices is a natural part of a student’s world at this point in time. Being able to store most of their work and information on one device certainly reduces what they have to carry around and bring to school. The biggest stand out for us has been how the use of devices affects NAPLAN preparation. The more comfortable students are on devices, the better equipped they are to participate in online testing. They are more intuitive with accessing the features of the testing but can also accurately represent their thoughts when writing if they are using devices more frequently. We cannot emphasise enough how the use of a device in Years 5-8 is important for their current but also their future learning. We will be sharing soon the move to bring the BYOD program to Years 3-9 for 2024.

Bikes

We have had some commotion around the school after hours and on weekends and would like to remind parents to not leave bikes or scooters at school overnight. Please see the information below abut personal property brought to school.

Personal-Property-Students-May-2023.pdf (dohertyscreekcollege.vic.edu.au)

Holidays

Remember that the holidays are a time for rest and reflection. It has been such a big term, particularly for our Preps. Children do not have to entertained all the time. One of the best skills you can help develop in your child is knowing how to manage boredom and learn to entertain themselves; not with a device but with all the other toys and options they have available to them. Please take advantage of the warm weather for as long as we have it. 

We are a village who takes care of each other. During the holidays if you see strangers around on the school grounds, particularly after hours and on the weekends, please contact the police.

We wish our families a happy and safe Easter and hope the Easter bunny is kind to you all. We also extend our best wishes for those celebrating Eid at the end of the school break. Be safe everyone.