Welcome back to Term 4. As always, it will be a busy term.

The students will be doing lots of learning and then be assessed for the end of year reports. 2023 classes will be developed and the students will meet their new classes and teachers at the end of the year. We have events and activities all throughout the term. The leadership team is currently doing workforce and forward planning for 2023.

Busy, busy!

Prep and Year 7 Information Night

We had such a good turn out last week for our Prep and Year 7 information night. The teachers spoke with passion about their work and the Year 7 students spoke articulately and with pride about the programs and the school. I was extremely proud of all of them. I wanted to thank the families who took the time to attend; it shows such commitment to your children’s education and to us as a school. This way we all get to be prepared to support the students through these important transitions to primary and secondary school. A big thank you to Ketki from Bread Staple, who is one of our parents. She supplied us with discounted bread for our sausage sizzle and we are very grateful.

Prep Transition

This week we held our first transition sessions for the 2023 Prep students. The students will be attending 3 sessions before the end of the year to become familiar with the school, our routines and to meet our Prep students. The parents are also staying during this time for some simple sessions around school communication and preparing their child for starting school. I had the pleasure of working with one group this week and look forward to meeting with all families during the second transition session.

Day for Daniel

We will be holding a Day for Daniel on October 28th. The Daniel Morcombe Foundation’s vision is Today we build a future where children are free from harm and abuse. We would like to see a future where all children and young people are provided with education, protection and support to be safe from abuse and risk of harm.

This year’s theme is around brave conversations, particularly around online safety and grooming. The school will hosting age appropriate activities around child safety on the day and we ask that you all wear red and donate to the cause by bringing a gold coin.

Classes for 2023

You will have noticed that I sent out a Compass post last week, explaining that we will be changing how our classes are constructed in 2023. Teachers will be compiling the classes as a team. They will utilise their professional knowledge to ensure there is balance across all classes. They will take into consideration a number of factors:- who works well with each other- friendship groups- having a balance of gender, abilities, behaviour and personalities across each classChildren will not be asked to provide a list of friends. This becomes problematic as the school grows because catering for friendship groups can affect the other factors that ensure a balanced class. We ask that you support and trust the school by encouraging your child to be excited about the idea of new people in their class for 2023; reminding them that wide and varied friendship groups are important at this age; letting them know that if their friends are not in their class that they can still play with them during the breaks and not speaking negatively about the process.We know that for some of you this may be challenging to understand but trust that we have the best interests of all children at heart and know that leaving teachers to make these professional decisions makes for more balanced and equitable classrooms.

New buildings

You will have seen that work has begun on building 2 new two story relocatables at the end of the oval. We are hoping that these classrooms will be ready for the beginning of the year. There will be 8 new classrooms housed in these buildings. We are hoping to name this space Marram meaning kangaroo in bunurong language. We are currently trying to negotiate with DET around more buildings as our growth in 2023 is quite extensive and will let you know more when we do..

Pediatric Clinic at DCC

We have a very exciting initiative which has begun here at DCC. We are very lucky to be piloting a program with the Werribee Mercy Hospital and Community Hubs Australia. We will be holding a paediatric clinic on site here at DCC one day a week. The school will be able to refer students who fit the criteria to the paediatric clinic for assessment and follow up. The clinic works just like any other medical clinic in that it maintains confidentiality and works to provide exemplary medical care. If the school would like to refer your child, we will be in contact, get your written consent and then you would be required to attend the appointment with your child. No child will be seen without a parent and parental consent. We are very excited to be working with this initiative and know that it will only enhance the care we can provide here at school for your children.

Lost Connections

I have been reading a great book called Lost Connections by Johan Hari. It was because I had read his other book Stolen Focus, which talked about the cognitive load that technological devices have taken up in our head, that I felt compelled to read this one. Stolen Focus is an amazing read with some wonderful strategies about removing ourselves from technology at different points and how it improves our focus, productivity and our knowledge base.

Lost Connections is about mental health, loneliness, resiliency and staying connected with people. I wanted to mention it because the biggest takeaway was about the importance of having ‘real’ person to person interactions as much as possible. Eating dinner together and truly talking about your day; playing a board game together; visiting friends and family; talking together in the car. Some of the loneliest people are around people or connected through text and social media but not actually connecting. It also made reference to children losing the ability to connect meaningfully.

So I wanted to make a call for action for all of us. We will continue to work on developing these skills at school and use our yarning circles and campfires to hold meaningful conversations and we ask that you do as well. Let’s support our children to grow into healthy, social beings who have the confidence to mix well with others, ask for help and stay resilient when things get tough.

Cookie Dough Drive

A huge thank you to all those families who bought cookie dough to help with our fundraising for the cover over our multi-courts (giraffe shed). We raised $1996. Every bit counts. Enjoy!

Respectful Relationships Parent Evening

We had an informative parent information night on Tuesday night covering the Respectful Relationships curriculum from P-9. We talked about the purpose of the curriculum and its importance for children’s mental health and safety. All staff attended to show their support for the program and our commitment to being an inclusive school. We did record the session and will be posting it for all families soon. We really appreciated those families who took the time to attend personally and connect with all of us. As mentioned previously, making those connections is so important.

We hope that you all have a safe and successful term. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or issues that we can support you with. Together we work much more effectively for the safety and education of our children.