Administration News

Community Visits

The Principal, Mr Mathew Irving has set up a calendar of events to visit our boarding community far and wide in what he calls his Roadshow. Mat attended the Wagin Woolorama recently with Head of Boarding, Ashley Keatch and Julia Bairstow, Community Relations Manager. Following this event he held a Meet & Greet in Katanning to meet GSG families past, present and future. Yesterday Mat boarded flights to Broome to travel as a Supervisor for our Yalari scholars to return home for the holidays and meet with their families. He is staying in the Kimberley for two nights and is on the road again today on his way to Derby to meet our most Northern GSG family.

In Term Two, Mat, Ashley and Nyree Mackenzie will be travelling to Lake King for another Meet & Greet with families in the region. This event will be held at the Lake King Golf Club on Friday 19 April between 5.00pm and 7.00pm. All families in the region are welcome to attend, an invitation will be coming out soon and this event will also be advertised in the local newsletters of the region.

Going forward Mat also has plans to visit:

Mount Barker on Friday 10 May
Denmark on Friday 26 July
Newdegate Field Day in September
Esperance Show in October
Albany Show in November

We encourage all families to attend these events if you can and help us spread the word to friends and family in these regions.

School Photos

For those who would like to purchase school photos, your last opportunity to do so is Tuesday 2 April. Visit the Fotoworks website here and follow these steps:

Click Order Online
Choose Photo Day
Enter your child's access key
Add your selection to the cart then proceed to the checkout

For families who have not managed to obtain their child's access key for ordering purposes, the boarding list has been uploaded to MyGSG here.

A little tip for those who are ordering for more than one child. To avoid having to put in a separate order for each child, follow these steps:

Click 'Order Online'
Choose 'Photo Day'
Enter your child's access key
Add your selection to the cart
Click the back button in your browser until you get back to the access key page
Enter your next child's access key, and so on
When complete, proceed to the checkout for payment

We hope this information is helpful.

Staff Leaving

We have two staff leaving us in boarding this term:

Sam Forward
David Elliott

Eclipse has given Sam a lovely farewell in their newsletter article.

Due to personal circumstances, David Elliott, our ever-reliable Saturday bus driver, has tendered his resignation from bus driving at Great Southern Grammar.

David started back in 2007 and has been part of the Great Southern Grammar Boarding journey. He has seen quite a few changes over his time here. He noted that when he started there were only two houses and half of the current dining room. He has worked with numerous Heads of Boarding and four different Principals. He has worked alongside many wonderful boarding staff and kitchen staff members over these years and he wanted to thank everyone at all levels, for their awesome support and friendships along the way.

I have been fortunate to have worked alongside David, as we all strive to provide the best and most efficient transport service to the boarding community, including seeking to simplify the bookings and route maps.

David wishes to thank the GSG school for the great support given to him over the past eight years as his family dealt with their parents' captivity overseas and subsequent release and return to Australia.

David noted it has been a pleasure to be of service these past 17 years and he wishes the boarding community and the school all the very best moving forward.

David on behalf of the Great Southern Boarding community, thank you for your service and kindness shown to your role in supporting our boarding system.

Visit to Scotch College

Recently I had the privilege of visiting Mrs Jan Usher, Boarding Administration Officer at Scotch College. Jan kindly shared some knowledge of her experience of working in boarding for the past 12 years, approximately the same amount of time that I have been with boarding.

We discussed REACH, National Boarding Week events, orientation, staffing, value-adding programmes, communication through newsletters, transport, health appointments, the Yalari programme, regional shows and the boarding calendar for staff, parents and students. Although there were some obvious differences between our schools, much of how boarding runs at Great Southern Grammar was very much the same. I learnt some new tricks in REACH, (well actually it was more of an "ah-ha moment") of something I already knew how to use (user-defined fields), but didn't think to use for more than one purpose. User-defined fields allow us to put a small icon on the record of a student, we mainly use this to show which students have permission to drive on campus. I really liked their school planner and Jan thought our Boarding Newsletter was great.

I feel that the visit to Scotch was very worthwhile, and I appreciate the school for sending me.

Allowances

The 2024 Student Allowances Guidelines is now available. Please click here for more information.

Please see information for 2024 Boarding Away from Home Allowance here.

Please see information for ABSTUDY Fare Allowance here.

Farm Household Allowance is a payment for farming families in financial hardship.

To get this you must:

be a farmer or partner of a farmer
meet the income and assets test limits
meet mutual obligation requirements

A farmer must contribute significant labour and capital to a farm.

Read the full conditions under who can get it here.

Farm Household Allowance fact sheets are also available below.

We hope this information is helpful and as always, if you have any queries, please don't hesitate to us.

Mrs Dianne Franzinelli | Boarding Administration Officer