Principal's Update
Welcome to Term 1, 2020
I wish to welcome back all students and staff from their summer holidays and I welcome our 225 Year 7 students and their families to our Coburg High School community. This year we have certainly come of age as a school now that we are a full school from Years 7 to 12.
So far the school year has started smoothly and it is great to see just how well our students have settled back into school routines and the way they have participated in the first events of the year, including the House Values Day last Friday.
There are numerous key updates in this first edition of the newsletter. I'd like to draw your attention to updates from our Student Support Team on page 4, including the upcoming Year 7 Meet the Teachers and Parents BBQ being held this Tuesday 11 February (from 5.30pm) and the upcoming 'Tech & Teens' panel and discussion evening on Thursday 20 February.
There is also key information about a range of special events, programs, clubs and opportunities on page 3 of this edition, including an upcoming information evening on the High Aspirations extension and enrichment program on Tuesday 3 March and further details about this year's musical production, the Wakakirri dance competition, instrumental music, games club, chess squad, VCE master classes, and various exciting new opportunities for student entrepreneurship.
Introducing new staff
It is a pleasure to welcome the following new staff to the school:
- Eve Lamb (who joins David Snaddon as our second Senior School Leader)
- Katie Radak (Year 9 Sub School Leader)
- Jeanette Williams (Food Studies & VET Coordinator)
- Selina Dennis (Computing & English)
- Theresa Pagon (Maths & Numeracy Improvement)
- Robyn Elliott (Food Studies & Health)
- Dominik Rafati (Maths & Science)
- Angela Cooper (Science & Maths)
- Hannah Glennie (Dance & Drama)
- Serena Gu (Mandarin)
- April Gallo (English & Music)
- Kelly Aguirre (English & Humanities)
- Hannah Willmott (Outdoor Education, Health & PE)
- Emma-Jane Hogan (English & Humanities)
- Eleanna Elliott (Visual Arts)
- Jillian McGinley (English)
- Donna O'Shea (Science & Mathematics)
I wish all of our new staff the very best as they settle into our school and I am sure they will make significant contributions to the education, learning and wellbeing of our students.
Please note that one of our longstanding sub-school leaders, Melanie Buscema-Moore, is taking maternity leave this year following the birth of her second son, Ignatius. As a result, Katie Radak has taken up the sub-school leader role for our Year 9 students.
Facilities Upgrades
There has been significant work around the school over the summer holidays, including renovations in the Arts spaces, insulation and soundproofing of the walls in several instrumental music rooms, replacement of the balustrades on one of our external ramps, repair of the sprinkler system for the oval, the fit-out of the new fitness area in the gym, installation of new ovens in the food studies room, re-painting most of the corridor walls throughout Building B and final set-up of the six new portable classrooms.
Thank you to the school leadership team and the school council for their support and work on these projects and special thanks to Haydn Burns in particular for his brilliant coordination of the renovations.
Youth Parliament Team
This year six Coburg High School students will be debating a bill in Victorian Parliament. In the middle of the year the following Humanities students will be demonstrating their prowess in the Victorian legal system along with 19 other teams from across the state. Each of these students are to be commended for their academic excellence and commitment to engaging in politics, which enabled them to be successfully accepted into this prestigious program.
The Coburg High School Youth Parliament Team for 2020 are:
Harry Ciantar
Angelina Correia
Aidan Dawson
Demita Floros
James Giampetrone
Charlie Hobson
We thank Fiona Patten MP, who is sponsoring our team this year, enabling their participation in this event which includes overnight camps and extensive leadership training.
Congratulations to Kody
Congratulations to Kody Lane who has recently represented Victoria in the Australian National Darts Championships.
She was recipient of the Australian Rookie of the Year award and also achieved the highest female peg of 129 and came fifth in Australia in overall open-age Australian rankings. An amazing achievement, Kody!
Coronavirus Update
As earlier posted on our Compass portal for parents, students and staff, the Commonwealth’s Chief Medical Officer and Victoria’s Chief Health Officer have applied a stronger precautionary approach to managing coronavirus for travellers returned from mainland China (not including Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan) from 1 February 2020.
This recommendation is that parents / guardians / carers should ensure that any student returning from mainland China (not including Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan) who was in mainland China on or after 1 February 2020 is isolated at home and should not attend school until 14 days after they were last in mainland China.
This recommendation does not apply retrospectively. It applies only to students who were in mainland China on or after 1 February 2020.
This new requirement is in addition to the existing advice which is that parents/guardians/carers of students should ensure that any student is isolated at home and should not attend school for 14 days:
• following exposure to any confirmed novel coronavirus case; or
• after leaving Hubei Province.
The Commonwealth has also advised that: “Additional border measures will be implemented to deny entry to Australia to people who have left or transited through mainland China from 1 February 2020, with the exception of Australian citizens, permanent residents and their immediate family and air crews who have been using appropriate personal protective equipment”.
We can all reduce the risk of potential infections by practising good hand hygiene and respiratory hygiene including:
- Covering your mouth and nose when coughing and sneezing with a tissue, or coughing into your elbow
- Disposing of the tissue into a bin and then washing your hands afterwards
- Washing your hands regularly, after using the toilet, and before eating.
We are actively supporting any students and families who may be affected by these new requirements. Of course, for any students who are unable to attend school for 14 days, we will provide learning tasks and materials that can be completed at home.
If you think you or your child are showing relevant symptoms, please call the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to discuss further actions on 1300 651 160.
Thank you for your support as well all work to ensure the health and wellbeing of our students, staff and community.
Our thoughts are with the citizens of Wuhan and we very much hope that the spread of this virus outbreak in China is contained as quickly as possible and that travel to and from mainland China resumes in the near future.
Mobile Phone Ban
The state-wide Mobile Phone Ban in schools commenced from day one this year. We strongly recommend that students avoid bringing a phone to school at all—however, if they do need to do so, phones must be switched off and locked in the student's locker from before period 1 to after period 5, including during break times.
Please note the following key points:
- All students have been allocated a lockable locker.
- Students must use lock their lockers (back-up locks can be purchased from the main office if needed).
- If mobile phones are brought to school, they must be turned off and locked in lockers before period 1 and remain there until the end of the school day. Phones are not to be accessed at recess and lunch.
- Any student found to be using their phone during the day will have the phone confiscated and kept in locked storage until the end of the day. Parental involvement will be required for collection after any repeat occurrences.
In deciding on the mobile phone ban, the state government has referenced the following links to key research around some of the significant negative effects of mobile phones on young people:
• Distraction and negative impact on learning
• Poorer performance due to multitasking
• Diminished ability to think, remember, pay attention and regulate emotion
• Increases in depression, anxiety and reduced happiness
• Mobile phone related addiction/dependency
• Unauthorised photography/recording
Privacy information for parents, carers and students
During the course of each student's enrolment and attendance at school, the school is required to collect some personal and health information when necessary, in order to support the learning needs of students and their social and emotional wellbeing and health. Such information will also be collected when required to fulfil a legal obligation, including our duty of care and occupational health and safety laws. If that information is not collected, the school may be unable to completely fulfil those legal obligations.
Health information, for instance, may be collected through our student wellbeing counsellors, school nurse, and student support leaders. If your child is referred to a specific health service at school, such as a Student Support Service Officer (SSSO) or one of our school-engaged psychologists, then the required parental consent will always be sought before proceeding.
Our school uses Compass to efficiently collect and manage information about students for curriculum, teaching and learning purposes, for parent communication and engagement, and for student administration and attendance purposes. When our school uses this online portal, we take the required steps to ensure that each student's information is secure.
When any of our students transfer to another Victorian government school, their personal and health information has to be transferred to that next school. Transferring this information is in the best interests of students and assists that next school to provide continuity of education and seamless support.
In some limited circumstances, information may be disclosed outside of the school (and outside of the Department of Education and Training) but the school will always seek the consent of parents for any such disclosures, unless the disclosure is mandated by law.
Our school values the privacy of every person. When collecting and managing personal and health information, all school staff must comply with Victorian privacy law.
For more information about privacy including about how to access personal and health information held by the school about you or your child, please refer to the Department of Education's Privacy Policy:
https://www.education.vic.gov.au/Pages/schoolsprivacypolicy.aspx
If you have any questions about the DET Privacy Policy, please don't hesitate to contact me.
Student Accident Insurance
Parents are reminded that the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development does not provide personal accident insurance for students. Likewise the school does not have a whole-school policy for personal accident insurance for students. To clarify, parents and guardians are responsible for paying the cost of medical treatment for injured students, including transport costs. Reasonably low cost accident insurance policies are available from some commercial insurers. These cover a range of medical expenses not covered by Medicare or private health insurance. Parents may wish to purchase such a policy for individual students.
Drop Off Zone and No Entry to the Staff Car Park
Student safety is the prime consideration at all
times at Coburg High School. This includes the busy drop-off and pick-up times at the start and end of the day. While the majority of parents are using the entrance roundabout appropriately to drop off and pick up their child, there have been a number of issues with cars driving through into the main staff car park which is strictly out of bounds (except for students with disabilities or injuries who have a special exemption or for families who have an appointment at the school) and in a few cases there have even been cars speeding through the car park when there are students walking, cycling or scooting into the school along the driveway or entering from nearby paths. This is clearly dangerous and is absolutely unacceptable.
To be clear, we expect everyone to abide by traffic safety laws and this means no entry to the main car park, no double parking along the driveway, no blocking of drive-through traffic and it means sticking to the lower speed limits around the school, particularly now that students are using the zebra crossing at the northern section of the driveway to cross over to the new portable classroom vicinity.
Thank you for observing these expectations and for your support as we continue to provide a safe environment for the young people in our care.
To promote a happy and healthy lifestyle, we encourage Active Travel at Coburg High School and we are proud of the fact that so many students and staff actively walk, cycle, scoot or skate to and from school.
Stewart Milner
Principal
Coburg High School