Principal Team Editorial
The year 2021 continues to throw many challenges at us, but as a community we continue to come together and tackle them head on. Whilst we were optimistic and hopeful at the start of the year that we would avoid any significant disruptions due to the pandemic, reality hit us hard recently, with the lockdown that forced us back into a period of remote learning and cancelled many planned events.
Just as we were about to return, last week’s storm then resulted in a power blackout impacting our school, forcing us to all work from home for the final two days of last week. To have two major incidents like this occurring at the same time is unprecedented, but we managed to cope with very little disruption to learning, considering the challenging circumstances. We should continue to be proud of the way our staff, students and parents demonstrate considerable resilience during this challenging period. We will endeavour to reschedule any events that have been impacted and hope to run them at other times of the year.
Recently our Parents Association (PA) met to allocate considerable funds to learning area projects identified as a priority by our teachers.
Through the hard work of our PA over many years, they have raised a considerable amount of money, allowing them to support an extensive amount of learning areas with equipment grants. This year, projects that the PA are funding include:
- stage blocks for drama
- conductivity meters for science
- 3d printers and drones for technology.
On behalf of the staff and students who benefit from this amazing support I would like to thank President Heidi Slattery, the executive and all members of the PA this year and in previous years for working so hard to provide much valued support to our school community. Please start gathering your books to donate to the PA’s Mega Book Fair on 10th October!
The PA and the Parents of Performing Arts (POPA) continue to be the envy of many school and provide a great connection and opportunity for parents to directly influence and support the operations of our school.
To support students who developed a gap in their learning as a result of the significant period of remote learning in 2020, the state governments provided schools with significant financial resources to allow tutors to be employed, helping bridge the gap for many of these students that had been impacted. Some of our tutors will be finishing up with us at the end of this term, and I would like to thank Joelle Gao and Matthew Zaccaria for their hard work supporting our students and working with teachers to improve outcomes for students.
Finally, with the term break almost upon us, I wish everyone a great break during the holiday period, hopefully we can travel and enjoy the surrounds of regional Victoria and beyond! Please be aware that the first day of term 3 is s student free (curriculum) day.
Kevin Murphy
Principal