Principal's welcome

Welcome to our 2022 first newsletter. The year has started off well despite the challenges of COVID and the rain during assembly on our first day. It just shows how resilient we are.

Below is an excerpt of the speech I gave at Assembly on our first day of school.

Good morning Invited Guests, Parents & Carers, Staff and Students

May I formally welcome you back to Matthew Flinders Girls, our wonderful school. And to all of our new staff, students and parents - welcome to you too. I hope that today you feel that you are starting to belong to our school community. 

The purpose of our assembly this morning is to welcome the new people (students, staff and parents/carers) into our school community and it is an invitation to you, our new community members, to embrace our school’s culture.

Know that you will be accepted for who you are, just as you are. You need to know that your ideas, questions and contributions to our school will be valued. This is our expectation of each other at MFG – that we are caring and respectful of ourselves and others.

So welcome everyone to our school.

To our returning students, staff and families I trust you take the time to look out for our new MFG community members. I know that you will help them to find their way and make them feel welcome.

It’s with great pleasure that I welcome some new teachers to our MFG community: 

• Mr John Kingma who will be teaching Music and leading our Instrumental Music program
• Mr James Van Kan who will be teaching Maths and Digital Tech
• Ms Linda Harris who will be teaching English
• Mr Stephen Bisinella who will be teaching VCAL and Humanities
• Mr Peter Schneider who will be teaching English

• Ms Allesha Fecondo who will  be teaching VCD and Art
• Ms Leah Higginson who will be teaching English and Humanities 
• Ms Nicolle Brigden who will be running the Library and teaching English
• Ms Jessica Sharp – Admin Assistant (started in our office) 
• Ms Amanda Lucas who will be teaching Outdoor Education and Student Advocacy
• Ms Matilda Hassall who will be teaching voice and running our choirs (and who is also an ex-student and Sweetheart)
• Ms Haziel Armstrong who will be supporting some students in a Learning Mentor position 
• Ms Lauren Goulding who is also a new Learning Mentor
• We also welcome back Ms Tanya O’Toole who will be teaching PE and English  

At the end of last year we also farewelled a number of long serving MFG staff who retired – Mr Kelly, Ms Kalamaris, Ms Burrill and Mr Sheriff – and we wish them well as they embark on their new adventures. Some of you will see Ms Burrill who will be continuing in her role to support the Sweethearts and students studying VET. You will continue to see Mr Sheriff around the school fixing things and working in a maintenance role. 

We normally commence our year with a welcome to country and a smoking ceremony but Niki and Norm who do this every year for us are supporting their first born to start school today. We will have this assembly as soon as possible and let you all know when this important event in our school year is going to occur. 

I do have a story for you though. 

As some of you know, my younger son Patrick is a zoo keeper. He looks after the elephants at the Melbourne zoo. When Patrick was training he visited other zoos and animal shelters in Australia and overseas. On the holidays he told me about some elephants he had seen in one animal shelter that were tied to a post with a flimsy rope. He asked the trainers how such a thin piece of rope stopped the elephants from running away. He could see that without any trouble the elephant could easily have broken the rope. The trainer told Paddy that when the elephants were little they were tied with the rope and could not get away and as a result they stopped trying and now the flimsy rope keeps them contained in their shelter. Mind you he (and I) would have preferred they were not held in by a rope at all.

When Patrick told me this story I thought about the elephants and how they had lost their hope for better things. I also wondered how often this happens to us too. 

How often do we not believe in ourselves enough and therefore stop doing things we love, or not try anymore?

Always continue to believe that what you want to achieve is possible – this is the first step. You have to believe that you can.

And, that is the focus of our MFG traits this term – be optimistic about the future - believing we can achieve what we want to achieve.

I wonder if you might turn to someone near you and share one thing you believe you are going to strive to achieve this year or the next 5 years.

Thank you everyone.

You are certainly going to need to be optimistic about the future this term and possibly for longer. 

With the number of COVID cases and those to come over the coming weeks we are going to need to be flexible enough as a school community to overcome the challenges of dealing with cases in our community and trying to continue our learning as best as we can. 

I ask that you are understanding of each other, your teachers and support staff and your parents. It is important that we all believe that we are coming from a place of good intention – we are all well meaning in what we say and do. 

There are some things I ask of you please:

1. Wear your masks correctly  –Professor Brett Sutton, the Chief Health Officer shared this simile – A mask worn incorrectly is as useful as wearing a bike helmet on our elbows. And we certainly would not do that.
2. Get outside as soon as possible at snack and lunch
3. Stay home if you are in anyway unwell
4. Give each other space (as much as we can), especially at our lockers and the canteen

RA Tests will be available at school and once they arrive we will inform you of the process to collect them. You need to take them home and do the RA Tests at home, not at school please. 

If you are positive, please do not come to school; isolate and contact us at the office and we will talk you through what the latest requirements are - they change almost daily, so this is the easiest way to ensure what you are doing is correct.

I wish everyone a wonderful year full of learning and fun. I encourage you to embrace the challenges and to persist even when your brains hurt. 

Speak often with your teachers and support staff; they really care for you and want to help. 

And finally, as our school motto says, may you keep - “looking forward.”

That motto is encompassed in the name of the building behind us. The Wathaurong word for “looking forward” is Merrya (pronounced Miyya).

Michelle Crofts

Matthew Flinders Girls Secondary College Principal