From our Principal

Croydon SDS a great place to be!

'Reading is Magic' book week this week has been enjoyable, with many books being read across the school.  

Students have read 2024 CBCA Shortlisted books including, Timeless, One Little Duck, Grace and Mr Mulligan, Can You Teach a Fish to Climb a Tree?, and Bear and Duck are Friends.  Students in primary were also treated to a special live performance of Gymnastica Fantastica by two of our leaders, Lauren and Jess. 

Next week we are looking forward to another live performance, this time by theatre company, Meerkat Productions.

Croydon SDS Mini-Olympics Community Day

Students are in training for our Mini-Olympics Day on Wednesday 11th September. Students are encouraged to wear their house colours to help get into the spirit of the day and cheer on their fellow house mates as they complete various activities. 

We invite families to join in this special event during the morning session, 9:30-10:30am. This will be followed by a sausage sizzle, which families are also invited to stay for.

Please see your child's classroom teacher if you have any questions about the day.

OSHC Survey

Thank you to all parents and carers who completed the survey.  We've had a good response rate showing great interest in accessing an OSHC program at Croydon SDS, both for after school hours and a holiday program.  

School Council will continue to explore OSHC program options to support family needs.  We may have an opportunity to work with an OSHC provider to provide a service in 2025; we'll keep you informed. 

Policies - New and Updated

At our last school council meeting, the following policies were endorsed: 

• Child Safety
• Child Safety Code of Conduct
• Child Safety Responding and Reporting Obligations 
• Personal Care (new)

A Child Safe Review Panel consisting of parents and staff reviewed our child safe policies. These policies were then presented for consultation with various teams of staff across the school.  The main two areas of change are:

• Staff using school owned devices to take photos and videos of students, (no longer staff owned devices to be used).
• A new Personal Hygiene Support and Learning Plan to be developed between parents/carers and the classroom teacher on student enrolment and reviewed in a student’s first year in Secondary. 

We encourage you to read the updated policies.  

All current school policies can be accessed through our school website and Compass under the 'School Documentation' tab. 

Staff Professional Learning 

At Croydon SDS, we value our staff and their professional learning and development, and the positive impacts this has on student outcomes and school improvement. 

We are proud to share that Lauren Shannon recently completed Create: Middle Leaders at the Victorian Academy of Teaching and Leadership.  

This program equips educators with the confidence and skills to influence and lead improvement in classroom and educational practices in their school. Through completion of this program, Lauren has built greater understanding of what good leadership looks like, and has learned about emerging research in teaching, learning and leadership. Additionally, the program has helped Lauren to build further capacity to lead school improvement, and to develop strategies that help create impact.  

We look forward to working with Lauren to implement the knowledge and skills from the program to continue to support student outcomes and wellbeing.