School Council & SRC

School Council delights in budget announcement

School Council members are not only very happy with the announcement in the state budget about $11.85m funding for completing the school, but we are terribly relieved. We finally have the money to complete the entire Master Plan that was developed quite a few years ago by Council and past Principal, Mary McPherson.

This Master Plan has always been supported by Member for Bendigo, Maree Edwards, who has not only advocated on our behalf for the funding from both the Education Minister and the Premier, but always seems to have our backs when it comes to strengthening and supporting public education in the local community.

I would also like to thank the Castlemaine branch of the Labor Party who wrote to the Education Minister late last year in support of finishing our capital works program and again, supporting local public education.

School Council is currently working on a number of areas:

-the Profile and Communications Portfolio approved a company to develop a new CSC website which will include a number of ‘add ons’ and social media facilities. This new website will be part of a package to improve communications at CSC, and will include a review of the Xuno and Moodle software currently being used.

-the Buildings and Grounds Portfolio is going to work with students to improve the ‘top courts’ area, as well as install a tank in the garden. We will advertise the date for this working bee and appreciate any parent helpers.

-the Support Groups Portfolio will be working with the Arts Department to set up an Arts Support Group to sit alongside Music, Drama, Sport, and Parent/Teacher Support Groups.

-As School Council President, I have been working with the SRC, teachers Stephen Samuel and Jane Sanderson, and parent Jennifer Pryce to drive the ResourceSmart Program in the school. There are four modules involved – waste, water, energy and biodiversity. We are just finishing up the waste module and will be able to promote a set of actions soon which will largely be about REDUCING WASTE ON THE SCHOOL GROUNDS!! To start with, we are asking students, parents, carers and staff to reduce the amount of waste they are bringing here every day and to be responsible with the way it is disposed of. Stay tuned for more on this in the next newsletter.

School Council recently approved a Hire of Facilities lease for a new arts initiative. This new project involves CSC music teacher Justin Marshall, parent Lucy Young, and past student Declan Kennedy and is about running a rehearsal, recording and performing space at the old Etty Street Music Centre.

The Etty Street Music Centre is one of four buildings that CSC currently retains at Etty Street. The rest of the buildings were ‘handed back’ to the Department of Education by School Council when we all moved to Blakely Road. When the project is up and running, we will advertise how to book the space.

Beth Mellick

CSC School Council President

Regional Partnerships Loddon Campaspe Assembly - CSC SRC

On Thursday the 3rd of May I was lucky enough to represent the school as a member of the SRC ( School Representative Council) at the third Regional Partnerships Loddon Campaspe Assembly” which gathers together six municipalities (Campaspe Shire, Central Goldfields Shire, City of Greater Bendigo, Loddon Shire, Macedon Ranges Shire, Mount Alexander Shire). The Loddon Campaspe Regional Partnership is one of nine Partnerships across the state, established by the Victorian Government in 2016, recognising that local communities are in the best position to understand the challenges and opportunities faced by their region. Over the past two years, the Partnership has heard from thousands of people living and working in Loddon Campaspe.

I had the privilege to attend last year’s assembly, so I was interested in the way the assembly would be run this year in Kyneton at the Mechanics Hall. There were six main priorities up for discussion as decided last year: health, a connected region, create the best possible start for every child, supporting youth - our critical asset, a growing economy, a great environment to live in. We were welcomed by Chairperson Nigel McGuckian and then introduced to the topics before watching a short video on health within the community. We then moved off to smaller work groups for discussions about our topics, mine was “youth, our critical asset”. We had three youth guest speakers, give their personal account on topics, which affect our youth today. Each talked about a key aspect facing youth daily – public transport, support options for youth and who are our mentors. All talks started with a personal account and then opened up for discussion on the topics. Our public transport conversation covered the need for more trains for students travelling to school and how connecting services need to communicate together to make delays have less impact on students and protect us from getting stuck at unmanned stations at night or generally stranded. The second was a very personal story of the struggle to get support for a brother suffering from substance abuse and how her family did not know who to turn to. We talked about making support more available, better promotion within schools, awareness, Dr’s in School Program (should be funded in ALL schools – we did not qualify for funding) as children relate to doctors as a safe person to talk to. I brought up how I feel we at CSC have a good awareness of supports services offered to students as we have access to social workers, a chaplain, school nurse and now our volunteer local doctors in school. We also have a huge wellbeing program, which promotes services, strategies and general good health for our students. From sharing our story we have been asked to have discussions with other  youth workers from different shires on how they could learn from our schools journey. The third speaker talked about mentoring and how we look at who inspires us. This comes in many different forms and how as young people we need to find connections with people from all walks of life.  In closing the evening we had The Premier of Victoria, Daniel Andrews speak and challenge the other leaders in the room to act on what we want delivered for our area.

The assembly is great platform for having our voices heard and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Sidney Showell – Vice Captain Yr 12