Principal 

Dear Parents and Carers

I hope that this Newletter finds you and the family well.

Lockdown

All families will be aware that the College experienced a lockdown at the Mentone Campus on Monday afternoon after students had been dismissed for the day.

Please refer to the letters sent to all families on Monday and Tuesday of this week in regard to the incident. I wish to thank all members of our Community for your well wishes for our students and staff and for your concern for the individual who caused that lockdown.

Parent/Student/Teacher Interviews

We have just completed the first stages of Cycle 1 of our Parent/Student/Teacher interviews. This Cycle will conclude on Monday of next week. The College moved to online interviews as a necessity last year to deal with the offsite learning aspects imposed on us through COVID. Given that the response to the format of those interviews was so overwhelmingly positive, it was decided to stay with that structure. The anecdotal evidence to date from the current interviews around the convenience and focus of these interviews has been extremely positive. We will again seek parental feedback regarding online interviews.

Amalgamation

The College has now had just over one term as an amalgamated school. As you would appreciate, there was a considerable amount of energy placed into the preparation for becoming a College of two campuses. We have been delighted so far with the enthusiasm shown by the students, staff and families from both campuses. Whilst we have worked through a significant number of logistics around policies, IT platforms, programs, uniform, timetable and signage, there has been a sense of purpose and forward thinking that has been evident.

Becoming a two campus College is a substantial venture, one that will have many long term benefits for students and families from Bentleigh East and Mentone. The College has a number of committees running to look at future academic and co-curricular programs and the best use of resources going forward. The previous newsletter gave a link to all of those committees for you to see what work they are undertaking. 

All families will receive a brief survey to complete on the Amalgamation in the latter stages of this term.

Council of International Schools (CIS)

The CIS allows the College to look at all our practices and policies in light of the practical implementation of our Mission and Vision. It also places the College within the context of being a Globally aware school. We are now moving into the third and final phase of Accreditation for the Mentone Campus. This phase will lead to a full panel visit by a CIS Team in March of 2022. This stage is all about verifying what we do and how we do it in line with our Mission and Vision. A full report from the stage two CIS Visit of November last year was sent to all families last term. Once we complete Accreditation for the Mentone Campus, we will then move to Accredit the Bentleigh East Campus.

Mother’s Day Breakfast

Our Mother’s Day breakfast was held today at the Mentone Campus.

Around 500 students and mothers, or special carers, attended this event along with a number of staff from both campuses.

I wish to acknowledge the power of gathering our Community for special events like this, a feature we do not take for granted as we come off a COVID impacted 2020. The dual campus attendance should also be recognised.

Thank you to:

Lindy and the Catering Team

The Maintenance Team

Our AV and IT Team

The Lasallian Youth Leaders with Ria Greene

The Parents and Friends Association

Our College Leaders

and

Jo Hynes and Deb Campion for overseeing the event and inviting The Happy Box Project

This was a wonderful Community gathering for our College.

 As part of the morning we were pleased to be able to support The Happy Box Project, an organisation that packs basic sanitary products for Indigenous women in their own family groups. The organisers are based in the Northern Territory.

 The link to their website is : happyboxesproject.com

Happy Boxes: https://vimeo.com/545304355/422a88781d

As well as hearing from this group a number of our Year 7 and Year 12 students spoke about their own mothers and two of our families responded on behalf of all present.

https://vimeo.com/545304023/c32ee699e3

Mother’s Day: (What does mum mean to me?)

The place of strong female role models can never be underestimated in working with boys to become fine men. Thank you to all who attended to make the morning a special event.

Old Collegians 10 Year Reunion

A very large number of young men descended on our Functions Room last Friday evening to re-join the Class of 2011.  This was an enthusiastic and jovial group who have gone into all types of work.  Many still live locally and remain strongly loyal to St Bede's.

College Board Induction

St Bede’s called for expressions of interest from our extended Community last year to ascertain who may be interested in becoming a Board member or a Committee member. There was a large response with over 40 people putting their name forward. Interviews were conducted with a number of new Board members chosen and a similar number of Committee members appointed.

All those new to a Committee or the Board had an induction session last week. We are blessed to have such a wealth of talent available and a strong willingness to be involved and support the College.

Parents and Friends

Congratulations to the new committee for this group.  

We wish Deborah Valentine (President), Katherine Cooling (Vice President) and Virginie (Secretary) well as they lead our Association in 2021.

Per Vias Rectas

John Finn

Principal