The Falcon Newsletter

Junior School News

Welcome to our new cohort of Year 7s

Term 1 is busy, especially for our new students in year 7 with camps, BBQs and NAPLAN. It has been wonderful to see how resilient our students are as they embark on their journey through secondary school. 

Thank you to all of the families that attended our Year 7 Welcome BBQ. It is always lovely to spend time meeting families and putting faces to names. Please remember that you can use Compass to reach out to any of your child’s teachers via email if you have any questions or concerns.

 

Congratulations to our Junior School Captains for 2024

Haania Haidary

Kaya Miskulin

Emily Nguyen

Pavithran Partheepan

 

NAPLAN

In order to better utilise the results of NAPLAN to inform teaching, the testing has been moved to term one. We are proud of the efforts of all students in years 7 and 9 who followed instructions and remained focused throughout the testing. Results will be sent home to families later in the year.

 

Open Days and Open Night

This term we welcomed over 300 grade six students into Lyndale Secondary College from 5 different primary schools to get a taste of high school before making the important choice of where to enrol for year 7 in 2025. Our student volunteers from years 7, 8 and 9 were the most important part of these events and we are incredibly proud and thankful of their efforts. The feedback from the primary school teachers who visited with their classes for Open Day and the parents who visited on Open Night was overwhelmingly positive.

 

Thank you

We would like to extend our thanks to Corey Martin who will be moving to a school closer to home at the beginning of term 2. Corey has worked with students in the Junior School for many years and his calm but firm approach has provided guidance and support to many. He will be missed.

Fortunately, we have been able to appoint Adam Nettleingham in his position from the start of term 2. Adam started with us at Lyndale at the beginning of this year and comes to us with many years of coordination experience at his last school. 

 

Junior School Team

Director of Junior School: Nina Kempinger

Year 7: Lucy Hawkes & Megan Maxwell

Year 8: Karen Hyunh & Dylan Mersin

Year 9: Corey Martin/Adam Nettleingham & Emilia Megroz  

Admin: Chuc Hua

 

Code of conduct for school students on buses

It is every student's responsibility to behave in a manner that demonstrates our values of respect in ensuring the safety and comfort of passengers and drivers. This includes:

 

Behaving appropriately

  • Respect the needs and comfort of other passengers, such as no use of offensive or racist language, fighting, placing feet on seats, throwing things in or from the bus, eating or drinking - except water - unless the bus operator gives written permission.
  • Give up seats to all adults and disabled passengers.
  • Adhere to the law that bans smoking and vaping on buses.
  • Obey reasonable directions from the driver, such as where to sit or to remain in the bus.
  • Keep arms, legs and heads inside the bus.
  • Refrain from attracting the attention of the driver except in the case of emergency.

Respecting property

  • Protect bus property.
  • Ensure that buses are not vandalised.
  • Report any vandalism, such as graffiti and window etching.

Holding passes

  • Tap on using myki when boarding, or when requested.
  • Use the myki pass only for its intended purpose.
  • Keep your myki pass for your own use - you should not lend your pass to other students or borrow one from them.

 

School Wide Positive Behaviour Support

The goal of School Wide Positive Behaviour Support at Lyndale Secondary College is to create and maintain a positive and safe learning environment that enhances our school culture where we maximise individual academic and social growth. It focuses on teaching and reinforcing positive behaviours while providing targeted assistance to students who may need extra support, leading to a more successful and inclusive learning community. Lyndale students and staff have all worked together to develop a key set of behavioural expectations that are in line with our key College values. These behavioural expectations can be found in our matrix, which clarifies what our behaviours and values should look like across the school environment. Our matrix is displayed in all classrooms across the school and is referred to and discussed with all students on a regular basis.

SWPB Behaviour matrix poster.pdf

 

Continuum for Responding to Challenging Behaviours

Whilst a majority of our students arrive at school consistently demonstrating positive behaviours, there are times when students may not demonstrate our values to the standards we expect. In order to create and maintain a safe and supportive learning environment, as mentioned, we held various student focus groups across the College to give us feedback on what a positive learning environment looks like to them. Students had to outline the behaviours they see in the classroom which they feel may disrupt their learning opportunities, as well as the behaviours that have potential to make them feel unsafe. This information was then shared with staff, where together we developed a continuum for responding to challenging behaviours. Part of the follow up with this continuum is for staff to contact families when students have challenges adhering to the values, as we believe it is important to work together in helping our young people demonstrate these positive values in both the school and wider community moving forward.