Principal's Update

It has been wonderful to see the VOS (Voice of Students) students plan and develop our end of term celebration. This term they decided on trivia, a free BBQ at lunch, hot chocolate (raising money for Cerebral Palsy), and a Pyjama Day also to raise money for cerebral palsy. I cannot commend our student body enough for thinking of one of our students, Cooper Campbell and looking at ways they can raise awareness of Cerebral Palsy and help students to connect and spend time with the amazing Cooper!

Our Senior Students completed their exams well recently and I was incredibly proud of the VM and Challenge students who completed interviews this week. The preparation was fantastic by students both in VCE and in VCE/VM. The VM students also did a magnificent job during the market day and all groups made a profit. This was an excellent opportunity for students to learn entrepreneurial skills. We have our preliminary results of the Attitudes to School Survey, and we have already conducted two focus groups to collect more insight into how we can support students to feel more cared about. We have seen an increase in positive results in all categories of the survey which is marvellous see and endorses that we are moving in the right direction.

Of major concern remains our toilets. We have a small number of students who make this space unpleasant for other students by either vaping, vandalising, using their phones or ‘hanging out’ in these spaces. Since the start of 2023, we have regularly conducted with students a ‘toilet survey’. Moving forward, students who have been named multiple times across multiple surveys will now be asked to use separate toilets for the sake of the majority. As a school, we are committed to creating a safe and welcoming environment, we will continue to make changes and put pressure on this issue until such time as the issues are resolved. We will be unsympathetic to parents who want to excuse or deny that their child is engaged in this behaviour. Schools are not courts of law and are we are not required to provide irrefutable evidence. If our professional judgement and the surveys name your child regularly (and yes, we are able to spot the occasional false allegation), we will sanction your child – enough is enough!

To date, we have:

Increased supervision outside the toilets
Improved the cleanliness
Maintained and repaired quickly
Conducted surveys and spoken to those doing the wrong thing
Trialed and used various strategies such as locking the main toilets during class time, and not allowing students to go in groups
Over these holidays we will upgrade the boys’ toilets, at considerable expense, to improve privacy.

Vaping is a huge contributor to the unpleasantness of the toilets – it is sad and frustrating that the tobacco industry was left to run rampant for as long as they were before our government stepped in. There is no doubt that the tobacco industry has targeted young people which is shameful. We are now seeing young people who are acknowledging that they are now addicted (saying vapes were nicotine free has been proven to be untrue). With advice from VOS, we also have plans to further educate our entire student body but also support those students who now have a nicotine addiction. At home, parents, carers and guardians can support the young people in the home but sharing the facts that vaping is NOT less harmful than smoking and that the vast majority of vapes do have nicotine and it is an addictive drug. The facts can be found here: https://www.quit.org.au/articles/teenvaping

The cold weather and long term have us all very tired; I encourage everyone to have a restful break. Many in our community are now dealing with disruption to their homes as repairs begin. It has been a long haul since the ‘big blow’, and I am looking forward to summer as the target for ‘normality’! I hope that everyone in our community is travelling well and I would like to especially acknowledge those families who have had to move out of their homes whilst repairs take place.

One of my current concerns is that we are seeing an increase in students experiencing loneliness. With the addition of our Trade class, it has been fantastic to see students really enjoying one on one attention from an adult doing the things they want and love to do. It has made me ponder, with everyone’s busy lives, how much time do children get with adults doing things they enjoy, especially if they don’t play sport. More and more research is coming out about the detrimental effects of social media on children – it is clearly not a substitute for attention and time spent by adults with them. So, for these holidays especially, I hope everyone gets a chance to reconnect and spend time together.

Lastly, I would like to thank our amazing staff, teachers and education support staff for the work they do every day. We often only hear from parents, carers, and guardians when things go wrong, so long hours, increasing challenges and expectations often go unrecognised. Teaching staff are paid for 38 hours a week, but the Department calculate that teaching staff work an additional 6.8 hours a week completing correction, preparation, and other tasks. Our staff are generally here well before the official starting time of 8:30 am and much later than 3:30/4:30 on meeting nights. Over a ten-week term, we can say that teacher’s basically work an extra day a week, the Department of Education then acknowledges this with 10 days of holidays. Over the Christmas break we get the standard four weeks of annual leave with the additional ten days for time worked. I fear that if we do not appreciate our school staff more, we will have over time, less and less people looking to move into teaching as a career. On behalf of our community, thank you, thank you, thank you. I wish you all a restful break.

Vaya Dauphin

College Principal