Principal

On Wednesday 2nd May we welcomed approximately 300 visitors to school for Open Day. Our Open Day activities allowed prospective students, parents and other interested members of our community to take part in student led tours and to witness our school functioning on a reasonably typical school day. Thank you to everyone who took part and contributed towards the success of the day.

A frequent question I am asked in the community is, “What’s happening at the Etty St Campus?” CSC continues to use four of the buildings at the Etty St Campus. These buildings are the Library, Food Technology Room, Music Centre and Art Building. Our VCAL and Year 9 & 10 Flexible Learning Options Programs are based at Etty St, which means that this campus continues to be the “base” campus for approximately 30 CSC students. In addition to these students, we also continue to bus senior Food Technology and Ceramics classes to Etty Street a few times each week since the facilities to run these classes have not yet been built at Blakeley Road. In the meantime, discussions continue with regards to finding a tenant for the remaining buildings. Unfortunately, the disused buildings at Etty Street have become a target for vandals outside of school hours and there appears to be a mindset that damaging these buildings is causing no harm. Sadly, this is not true since we are hopeful of these buildings be used again soon, and the cost of repairs will be borne by CSC. In the meantime, I am working with the Police and Department of Education and Training to improve security at the Etty St Campus.

Following last month’s exciting news of $11.5 million funding to finish our school rebuild at Blakeley Road, I have started discussions with the Department of Education and Training about a timeline for our building project. The first step in this process will involve the appointment architects for the final stages of this re-build, and we expect to complete this appointment process by the end of this term, and then begin designing the buildings in the second half of this year. I look forward to working with our architects and consulting widely with staff, students and other members of the school community to design the best possible buildings for our students into the future.

ANZAC Day

Once again our students marched in the ANZAC Day Parade and  Des Cook & Nioka Mellick-Cooper carried on the privilege of guest speakers as the Captains of Castlemaine Secondary College, with  Vice Captains Murray Hammersley & Sidney Showell laying the school's wreath.

Paul Frye

Principal

CULTURE OF HIGH EXPECTATIONS

In our last newsletter I mentioned the important of establishing a culture of high expectations and how this has a profound effect of productivity of an educational environment. At CSC all staff are working collaboratively with students, parents and the local community to refine existing procedures to gradually improve and consolidate our own unique culture of high expectations. The starting point for students is ensuring they are always attired in our College uniform, which demonstrates connectedness to CSC. The simple symbolic gesture of being in uniform sends a clear message to the local community of how proud students are to be part of our College. Through vast research and my own educational experiences in Australia and England, it has been clearly evident that correctly attired and connected students perform better academically. Please contact the College if your family requires assistance in providing uniform for your child / children.

NAPLAN

The 2018 NAPLAN testing will occur at CSC from Tuesday 15th until Thursday 17th May. It is expected all Year 7 and 9 students, who attend school on these days will be required to complete these tests, with the exception of those students who applied for exemption. Information relating to the Exemption Process was distributed to families earlier this term and must be completed prior to the testing for a student to be exempt. Students are strongly encouraged to do their absolute best during this testing, because the information generated from these days is utilised to plan for future educational programs within CSC. Student timetables have already been distributed to the students. 

Justin Hird

Assistant Principal