Clyde North Campus News

Welcome Back to Term 2

The holidays were needed by us all to relax, recharge and rest.

We know that every day counts when it comes to young people experiencing success at school in all areas, learning, and social and emotional development. And this has always been the message from the experts, the education department, and schools, however COVID-19 interrupted our routine of coming to school every day.

We want our students to get a great education, and the building blocks for a great education begin with students coming to school each day. If students miss school regularly, they miss out on learning the fundamental skills that will set them up for success in the later years of school. There is no safe number of days for missing school – each day a student misses puts them behind and can affect their educational outcomes. Each missed day is associated with progressively lower achievement in numeracy, writing and reading.

Lateness can at times be outside the control of the student, however we are seeing an increase in some students assuming it is ok to be late to school and to classes during the day. As shown in the graphic below, the accumulation of being late over the course of the day or several days, adds up to significant lost learning opportunities which cannot be replaced, because we cannot just create more time than what is given in the moment it is given. The message is simple, be at school every day

and don’t be late.

Students who arrived late to school without a parental permission will receive a strike and those students who are late to classes, again without proper permission, will also receive a strike. Three strikes equal a one hour after school detention. Being on time for school models the real world and it is part of our ROCKS, particularly Respect and Organisation. I encourage parents to speak with their child about showing greater responsibility in being organised and ready for school on time. 

Term 2 will also see a strong focus on Organisation and Collaboration, the O and C of ROCKS. It is timely that as we gain more confidence that the routine of coming to school, we begin to focus on the work we do at school. Being organised and collaborative are critical ingredients for successful learning. These are very simple and accessible goals for all students. 

I have included several photographs here that I think set the tone of the Term where fun, activity, exercise, respect, engagement, organisation, and collaboration will be the key ingredients to a successful Term. 

Anzac Service

My special thanks to the VCAL students and College Captains who conducted a beautiful and moving ANZAC service for the Campus last week. This was the first opportunity we had to come together to commemorate this important occasion. The service concluded when the Last Post and Reveille were played by Ms Brooke Massee, leaving no doubt in all our hearts the significance of the sacrifice that was made so our lives are free.  Thank you to Ms Massee. 

A Year 11 Reflection

"The main focus of VCAL for Term 1 has been the ANZAC Unit. We spent Term 1 researching the ANZAC Legacy which included a trip to the 1000 Steps Kokoda Walk and the Running Rabbits Military Museum at the Upwey RSL. On the 28th April, the Year 11 VCAL students were responsible for the ANZAC Day Ceremony and also cooking and serving the morning tea. We have two Year 11 VCAL classes so one class had the responsibility of cooking the morning tea and the other class got the responsibility of setting up and running the ANZAC ceremony which was my class. We first started by inviting our guest speaker, Vietnam Veteran Barry Rogers who spoke to us about ANZAC day and his experiences in Vietnam, we also invited residents of the Blue Hills Rise retirement village. Then on Tuesday the 26th  April my class and I were responsible for setting up the ANZAC ceremony by putting out all of the poppies across the hill and then followed by putting out our white crosses in rows which were to represent the fallen soldiers. While we were doing that the other class was making ANZAC biscuits, scones, and sandwiches for our special guests. We came back to school on the 28th April and had to set up the rest of the ceremony which involved us setting up two shade tents so that our guests had a shaded area to sit under. Once we had done that we had to set up 30 chairs underneath those shade tents. After that we quickly set up the House flags so everyone knew where they were going. While we were doing this the other class was getting all of the food ready so we could have morning tea after the ceremony. We held the ceremony at 10:45 am. Once we had finished the ceremony we all went over to have morning tea with our special guests. We were also very privileged to be able to ask Barry Rogers some questions, which I found really interesting. I demonstrated skills such as problem solving when we ran out of sticks for the crosses. We had to look around the school for more which we did and found enough to finish the crosses. We sent out an invitation to our special guests via email. We received some feedback from our special guests that some of them do not know how to use email so next time we would also make paper copies so we would be able to drop them in their letter boxes. We would like to thank Ms Massee for playing the trumpet, our special Guests from Blue Hills Rise and also our guest speaker Barry Rogers from the Cranbourne/ Dandenong RSL."

I wish you all a safe and productive week.

Julie Banda

Deputy Principal - Head of Clyde North Campus