Dear Viewbank College Community,

I write this after hearing the news about another lock down and return to remote learning.

We hope that this is short-lived, and that we can get back to our new normal.

There is no doubt that maybe as a society, we have become a little complacent.

As a College community, we will certainly need to once again prioritise good hygiene, mask wearing (whilst mandated), density requirements and cleanliness of surfaces.

I will update the community on these requirements soon.

A reminder to parents and students while we are in remote learning, please make sure that you use the online platform appropriately. A set of expectations about on-line learning will be sent out to students. Could parents please ensure that you are monitoring your students use of our Teams platform, but also social media. These platforms can be an unsafe place and the negative use of these platforms is a concern for the health of our young people. We have planned to address these behaviours through workshops and presentations on return and throughout the year, but we need your support.

Before this recent setback, our school year was in full swing, with great experiences on camp for our Year 7 & 8 students. The College has achieved lots of success in our senior sporting round robin and our Year 8 round robins and other teams making regional and state finals. Our instrumental music students have been attending workshops in preparation for our music performances.

Unfortunately, a number of our performance events, the Winter Nights Concert and the Winter Brunch will have to be postponed. We are confident that these wonderful community events can be rescheduled so that our music students can demonstrate their amazing progress and prowess!

Online Communication with Teaching Staff - Expectations

With regards to communicating with teachers, you should expect that a teacher will get back to you regarding an email or voicemail message within 48 hours. In some cases the teacher may need more time to follow up incidents and they will get back to you to let you know if they need more time.
Students in Years 10 -12 can use Microsoft Teams chat, whilst Years 7 - 9 can use the General channel on their class page in Microsoft Teams. Students should expect a response from the staff member during school hours within the next school day.

Signature Paver Update

After a number of hold ups on this project we are ready to go ahead with paving work as part of the Signature Paving fundraiser.

We will be using the signature pavers interspersed with plain pavers to create a much needed path from the carpark to the entrance of the school.

Hoping this work can be completed very soon.

Viewbank College Market Day

The student leaders are working on planning a Market Day to be held in early August at the College.

We will be inviting market staff holders to register their interest very soon so if you are interested in hosting a stall watch this space!

In the meantime, our student leaders are seeking assistance with donations for raffles and hampers.

We are seeking donations in order to make up hampers for raffles.

If you are able to donate items, we would be most appreciative.

The money raised from this raffle will go towards student led improvements within the College as well as to a charity of the students’ choice.

Donations can be left at the General Office and the closing date will be Wednesday 16th June, 2021.

Thank you, from the Student Leaders

Year 7 Camp

I absolutely loved the camp activities.

They ranged from the giant swing to archery.

My personal favourite daytime activities were high ropes, canoeing and the flying fox. I was a little bit nervous about jumping off the platform for the flying fox but I persevered and had a blast.

The camp did not only have daytime activities, it also had night time activities.

On the first night, we went to see the penguin parade. My friends and I counted 130 penguins.

As it started getting late, we went back to camp and watched a hilarious movie called "The Mighty Ducks".

For our final night at camp we had a disco. There was even a DJ!

Everyone had dressed up and were dancing to the music that had been requested.

In conclusion, I had a splendid time at camp and was even a bit sad to leave.

Milena 7B

Sorry Day Ceremony - Banyule City Council

On National Sorry Day, May 26th, five Year 10 students accompanied Ms Pinney-Brown to the Banyule Council Sorry Day ceremony. We stood outside the town hall in Ivanhoe, and listened to Uncle Ringo Terrick, a Wurundjeri and Gunnai Kurnai Elder, and Aunty Karen Lovett, a Gunditjmara woman, as they told us about their personal experience as part of the Stolen Generation, and their journey to reclaiming their culture. They spoke, not like speeches that politicians give, but in a way that made it clear that they were telling a story - their story. Their stories were compelling and, at times, distressing, as they described how colonial Australia had stolen their heritage from them, and how the ramifications of settlement still continued to this day. After they spoke, Uncle Ringo performed the smoking ceremony, and encouraged us all to participate by placing some gum leaves on the fire.

Siobhan Yr 10

GRIP Leadership

Recently, on the 26th of May, Middle School House Leaders participated in the GRIP leadership conference. We travelled into the CBD by train, with our masks on making sure to be Covid safe.

We were all pleasantly surprised by how education and entertainment were combined to help everyone stay motivated and attentive throughout the day. Two of the biggest positives were the crowd participation and everyone’s contagious positivity. Throughout the day we wrote about all the lessons in the booklet they provided filling in gaps and taking notes as the session progressed. There were several elective courses during the day where you could choose to go into a neighbouring room and learn about a different leadership topic, some people chose to listen to an optional speech about time management and another example was when we moved rooms to hear about “innovations for your school that aren’t events”. This really helped us to learn how to be a great leader and know all the skills that might come in handy at times. For some activities we were able to talk to some of the students from other schools. This opened our minds to get inspiration in ways to make our school better and help our socialising skills. The program itself was well planned out and it was extremely enlightening and fun! We are inspired to take everything we were taught back to our school and help put what we learnt into action the best we can. We all had a great time, thank you to Ms Cottone who organised it.

Sedra (Year 9)

Neha (Year 9)

Januki (Year 9)

Alexandra D (Year 9)

Take care, see everyone back onsite soon.

Principal Class Team

Sharon Grimes, Principal

Emma Ford, Assistant Principal

Rachael Smith, Assistant Principal

Darren Murray, Acting Assistant Principal

LOTE News