Dear Parents/Carers,

Welcome to the 2019 school year. I trust that you had an enjoyable holiday with a chance to spend time with family and friends. I extend a warm welcome to the many new families beginning their time at Lyndhurst, our incoming Year 7 families, but also those who have joined our College across Years 8 to 12.

Our 2019 school year is going to be an exciting one for our College, and I encourage all of our students to take advantage of the many opportunities offered through sport, performing art and academic challenges that will be available for uptake throughout the year. In addition, there are many and varied leadership positions that will be advertised to the student body and students need to start thinking now about which position they would be interested in applying for. Our Student Voice Leader, Ms Lauren Shaw will work closely with myself and our student leaders and our whole student body to enhance student voice and work with our students to continually improve our school and make Lyndhurst Secondary College the school of choice. In addition, our students will be involved in our school review, that is occurring during Term 1, and will continue to have a role in our employment process of new staff. This was initiated in Term 4 last year and our student’s input was extremely valuable when considering who would be the most appropriate candidates and fit for our school.

I welcome our 2019 Year 12 School Captains: Natasha Krzywinski, William Just, Bonn Sithick Soth and Danielle Blucher. I commend them on obtaining these very important leadership positions for 2019 and I look forward to working with them to maintain a caring and lively school environment.

A reminder, our vision and values are as follows:

High Expectations:

As I have mentioned over the last couple of years, High Expectations of all members of our school community is paramount to improving our students learning outcomes and helping them achieve the best possible pathway for their future. The more we expect of each other and of ourselves, the greater our accomplishments. In 2019, we will continue to raise our whole school community’s expectations and continue to improve our student learning, take care of our student’s health and wellbeing and create a supportive and caring school environment and culture. We believe all our students can learn and achieve great things. Once again our students’ have achieved significant learning growth in Literacy (Reading, Spelling and Punctuation and Grammar) and Numeracy as indicated by NAPLAN (Year 7 and 9) and PAT Testing (Years 7 – 10); our VCAL students achieved their Senior VCAL certificates and many are now engaged in further study or employment; many of our VCE students have achieved greater than predicted results and have received offers of tertiary studies. VCAA provides us with reports on how our students perform based on their predicated GAT results; in over 9 subjects our students achieved significantly better than predicted – a credit to their hard work, our staff’s high expectations and belief in our students and the continued focus we are having in supporting them to achieve their very best. Our median study score was raised by 2 points which is a great achievement going from 25 in 2017 to 27 in 2019. In addition to this, our students are more engaged in their learning, are arriving at school on time and in full school uniform, they are expecting more of themselves and more of their teachers – we are very proud of the positive change in our school culture and in the achievements of our students. In 2019 Lyndhurst, Secondary College will continue to expect more of our students and of ourselves, working together as a community to support us all in achieving great things. Expecting students to arrive to school and class on time, ready for learning is key to ensure success. We expect our students to be in full school uniform, and our staff to dress professionally; a student dress code not only engenders pride in personal appearance, but instils recognition of students as an integral part of the Lyndhurst Secondary College community; it creates a sense of belonging. The College will continue to have high expectations of our students, not only in these areas but also with regards to attendance, work ethic, conduct and upholding our values of commitment, excellence, integrity and respect for self, others and the environment.

Our staff will be asked to challenge and expect more from each student in their class, helping them not only achieve their personal best, but to continue to strive for more.

As a school community, parents, carers, staff and students, we will work together to continue to raise expectations and improve our students’ outcomes in both their learning and wellbeing.

School Review

In February and March this year, our school will be undergoing its four year review and will be overseen by Barry Soraghan, who is an independent reviewer appointed by the department. Our school council president, Rachelle Rochecouste, will be part of the review panel, as will Anne Martin (DET representative), myself, Kelly Bendon (AP), Daniel Rogers (AP) and two challenge partners – Mr Rob Duncan (Principal, NWS P-12) and Mr Nick Hamer-Smith (AP, Glen Eira College). Members of our leadership team will also be involved as will staff, students and we will be inviting parents to participate as well. The dates for the field work component of the review will be held on the 25th and 27th of March. We will be sending out information inviting parents to be participate

2019

We have had a great start to the 2019 school year. The staggered start supported our incoming Year 7 students to have a smooth transition to secondary school life, enjoying a barbecue on their first day as a welcome. They had the opportunity to explore the school, find their way around and make new friends, with only Year 12 students present.

Our Year 12 engaged in a Wellbeing day supporting their physical and mental wellbeing, preparing them for the year ahead. The rest of the school community joined the Year 7 and 12s on the Friday, starting with a welcome assembly and then heading straight to classes, meeting their teachers, getting ready for a great year.

Our students met our expectations by arriving to school and to class on time, wearing their uniform with pride. We will continue to raise expectations of all our students with a particular focus on your VCE and VCAL students, challenging them to work harder, focus on their studies and work towards achieving their very best. We will work with parents, providing them with regular progress reports on their students and together we will support our young people in raising their expectations of themselves and supporting them in achieving their goals.

This year we have divided our Sub Schools into three groups:

Senior School – Year 11 & 12 led by Mr. Brannan
Middle School – Year 9 & 10 led by Mr. Potter
Junior School – Year 7 & 8 led by Ms. Sampson

We will continue to raise expectations of our students in Middle and Junior School by focussing on the quality and quantity of student work, including the amount of homework and study that students do. To support our students, our teaching staff are continuing the next stage of their journey on our teaching and learning model, a copy of which is displayed in each classroom. For the next couple of years there will be a focus on improving our students’ literacy skills as research clearly shows that this will have a positive impact on all areas of students learning outcomes and prepare them work life and life outside of school. We are now in the second year of this journey. This will form the major professional development for our teaching staff throughout this year and on our curriculum days, outlined below. Our teachers will continue to meet weekly, collaborating and planning/discussing strategies, providing students with feedback to support the learning of all our students.

Staffing Updates

During the last week of term, Mr Carl Simonsen who has been at the college as our Technology teacher for over 13 years, has gained a Leadership position at Alkira College. We wish him the very best in his future endeavours. We are currently in the process of employing a new teacher.

I would like to extend a warm welcome to four new staff who will be joining us this year, and we are very excited to have them be part of the Lyndhurst team.

The new staff are as follows:

Aruna Malhotra - Hindi/Maths
Tegan Kite - PE/Health; Digital Technology/VCAL
Rebecca Carrie - PE/Health; Maths
Hiba Vodehra - Maths/Science; IT

Professional Development/Curriculum Days (Student Free Days) for 2019

Tuesday 29th and Wednesday 30th January 2019 (First two days of the school year)

Tuesday 11th June

Friday 16th August

Presentations & Awards – 2018

Congratulations to all our 2018 major award recipients (see below). Thanks go to each of the organisations that provide sponsorship for the respective awards. We are still in the process of attaining information

about the destinations

Announcements

2019 Art Competition is back!