From the Principal Class

Term 1 is well underway and we are pleased that students have established routines around learning and interacting with each other and staff. 

The long weekend has given us a chance to catch a breath, but we still have many positive events for students to look forward to before the end of term, including our Athletics Carnival, sporting days and the Music camp.

Year 7 Parent Welcome Evening

It was wonderful to welcome the parents of our Year 7 students back onsite (in a very Covid-safe way!) for a Welcome evening.  The Middle School Team did a fabulous job taking parents through the information needed to support their student in this important transition to secondary school.  We got some immediate and very positive feedback on the direction of the school, particularly the House structure and our Launch program.

College Council

At our first College Council meeting last week, we welcomed our new parent members, Adam Bird and Katrina Adams, both of whom have students starting in Year 7 at the College this year. 

I would also like to introduce our new student representative on Council, Maddy Luvaul. 

Maddy is a current Year 10 student and is replacing Tristan Western. Tristan completed his tenure and is completing Year 12 this year and we want to thank him for his insightful contributions to Council discussions.

Senior School Assembly - VCE High Achievers

On Friday 26th February, 2021, we had our first Senior School Assembly.

This assembly provided us with an opportunity to induct our College Leadership team and to recognise and celebrate the efforts of our 2020 VCE cohort.

During the assembly, we acknowledged the achievements of the students who achieved ATARs of 90+ as well as students who achieved individual study scores of 40+.  These are significant achievements, placing them in the top 10% of performance in the state.

Our current students were able to hear from our Dux, Sofia Gravier, who spoke of her journey throughout her time at Viewbank College, as well as giving some great advice regarding VCE success!

Congratulations to the following students for their accomplishments:

Sofia Gravier (Dux)

Lillian Brasch (2nd Top)

Ai Wei Chia (3rd Top)

Ashley Wakefield

Dtze Tan

Danica Jia

Ella Perani

Laura Liptakova

Mila Olsen

William Smith

Sylvia Mai

Long Pham

Melissa Wong

Zeping Wang

Yi Xu

Gudren Schering

Shane Twomey

Olivia Pearson

Jordan Rosman

Alicia Nguyen

Epiphany Kiriakidis

Lulu Xiao

Mitchell Fleskens

Tyler Haworth

Amelie Parkinson-Bates

Yuchi Pan

Louisa Markby

We also acknowledged the individual accomplishment of Epiphany Kiriakidis for her selection to Top Class Drama.

She will be performing her solo performance  "The Eco-Warrior" for the VCAA VCE Season of Excellence tomorrow (Wednesday 10th March).  

Well done and we wish Epiphany the very best!

Lillian Brasch also had an outstanding result in the Humanities domain, scoring a perfect study score of 50 for Legal Studies.  That is a wonderful achievement - well done!  

Viewbank College Study Support in Semester One

The 2020 school year has been an extraordinary and challenging one for every school community.  We spent much of Terms 2 and 3 learning remotely.  We know that the remote learning experience was different for every student. While some students thrived, some students may not have engaged as fully with remote learning.  Whilst for most of our students, regular high-quality teaching in 2021 will be enough to help them progress to the expected level of learning, some will benefit from additional intensive learning support.  

During semester one 2021, the Tutor Learning Initiative has enabled the College to engage 10 additional teachers as tutors to support students who need extra assistance with their learning.  By engaging additional teachers to support children with intensive learning, classroom teachers will have greater capacity to ensure that the learning growth, achievement, engagement and wellbeing needs of all students can be met.

Students who have been identified for direct ‘Tutor Learning Program’ support have been offered a position in the program via College email.  The Tutor Learning Program will occur in small groups 2-3 times per week.  For Years 7-9 students the support will occur in small-groups in class during Maths and English classes.  For Year 10, it will occur within the Overlay program on Fridays, during VET Study periods and may occur Thursday afternoons.  For Year 11 and 12 students it will occur on Tuesdays (period 4) and Fridays (period 1) during ‘Overlay’ time.

All students will also be able to access additional learning support through the new ‘Study Hall’ and ‘VCE Study Support’ sessions on offer.  Please see below for further details.

Years 7-12 Study Hall

We are excited to announce that Study Hall will now be held in the library on Monday’s from 3.30pm-4.30pm and on Thursdays from 3.30pm-5.00pm.

This semester, we will have teachers who are part of the Tutor Learning Program present in Study Hall to work with us to support students.

Study Hall is a place where students can come and get support for their schoolwork, homework, organisation and revision. It is also a great place for group work and study-groups to take place and provides an opportunity to meet people from other classes and year levels to learn from and with.

Attendance at Study Hall is casual/drop in, so no need to sign-up.

Students may be referred to Study Hall by their teacher/s or House Leader, and in these instances, Study Hall will appear on the student’s Compass schedule.

VCE Study Support 

• Study Hall – Monday 3.30pm-4.30pm, Thursday 3.30pm-5pm
• ‘Overlay Periods’ – Tuesday Period 4, Friday Period 1

Students identified for Tutor Learning Program and any VCE student who would like to have some further support with their studies are encouraged to take up this learning opportunity.  

There are a number of VCE level teachers available to support students with their classwork, homework, revision and general study skills.  

Students are encouraged to attend the scheduled session that best meets their needs. Students are welcome to drop in and seek support as required. 

This is also an excellent opportunity to form study-groups with your peers, accessing teacher support if required.

Please note: we will be advertising study rooms to students this week.

Viewbank College Dress Code Clarification

• Black leather lace up College Shoes or Black T-Bar Shoes

At Viewbank College we require students to wear black leather lace up or T-Bar shoes with plain white socks as shown in the photographs below. 

The leather provides protection for practical areas such as science, food technology and other practical areas.  It is also more hard wearing and long lasting than canvas or fabric shoes thus being more cost effective. There are a range of products that offer excellent value and support.

Shoes that are not acceptable include any canvas, fabric or other branded leather shoes that are not a school shoe style as per the images below. 

Shoes such as Dr. Martins or black leather Vans are not accepted, as they are not school shoe style and these brands can also be expensive compared to our recommended shoes.  

Key goals of our Dress Code is to provide equity amongst the student group at an affordable cost.

Sport style shoes maybe worn in PE lessons and other approved events only.

If you require any clarification, please contact your child’s House Leader or Head of House.

The Page Turner Project - Book Drive

Hi everyone! I’m Emma and I’m the leader of of the Page Turner Project. 

The Page Turner Project is a community collection of books, run by the Student Voice Network, that will be sent to people in need to help increase access to education, as education is the bottom line to fixing so many issues we are facing in the world today, such as poverty, hunger, inequality and climate change.

We’ve just launched a book drop point in the Viewbank College Library! 

Clean out your bookshelf and bring your old, great quality books to school to be donated. 

We do have some strict guidelines when it comes to your donation. We CANNOT accept any books that are damaged, yellowed, torn, drawn in, have religious themes, are textbooks or are for people aged 16+. We are very happy to accept books for kids aged 0-15 that are great quality, as well as atlases, dictionaries and unused school stationery such as exercise books and calculators. Please note that any donations that do not meet these guidelines cannot be accepted. 

The book drop point will close at the end of term.

 Your donated materials will be sent off to our 3 amazing partner charities:

• West Welcome Wagon, where they will then be distributed to asylum seekers in West Melbourne
• The Australian Literacy and Numeracy foundation, who will distribute them to remote marginalised communities and Indigenous communities around Australia
• The Give A Textbook Foundation, who will send them to the Philippines to be given to remote schools and communities.

Thank you for your donations and support! You can find more information at our website.

https://studentvoicenetau.wixsite.com/thepageturnerproject

Emma Parfitt

on behalf of the Page Turner Project team

A couple of administrative reminders:

Absences 

Students may not leave the school during the day without having the absence approved in Compass by a parent or guardian which states some urgent or special reason.  

This needs to be done at the start of the school day where possible.

Students must also sign out with the relevant Attendance Officer: 

• Years 11-12 - Fleur Lidyard in the Senior School office and
• Years 7-10 - Irene Srbinovski in the Middle School office

Dental and Medical appointments should be made outside school hours whenever possible.

If a student has been absent from school, parents/guardians are to approve the absence on Compass or bring a note from parent/guardian stating the absence date and reason for the absence.  This note must be handed to the relevant Attendance Officer on the students return to school.

Alternatively, an email can be sent to the Attendance Officer absences@viewbank.vic.edu.au prior to the student returning to school.

Contacting your child during the day

We encourage parents/guardians to please email your child via Compass as administration staff cannot guarantee to get a message to your child and will not be held responsible if a message is not able to be passed on.

Contacting staff

We encourage parents/guardians to email teachers via Compass.

If the matter is urgent, please select one of the following options when calling the College:

• 3 to contact Middle School (Years 7-10)
• 4 to contact Senior School (Years 11-12)

    Principal Class Team 

Sharon Grimes, Principal

John Munro, Assistant Principal

Emma Ford, Assistant Principal

Rachael Smith, Assistant Principal

Darren Murray, Acting Assistant Principal