Principal News

Dear parents, carers and students,

Welcome back to Term 3 2019. As always at Brookside, the students have picked up where they left off, slotting seamlessly back into life at school. It has been a very settled beginning to the term and I would like to thank all our staff for their hard work in ensuring this is the case.

In the wake of his departure, I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge what a great leader Simon Sherlock was for Brookside College. Under Simon’s leadership Brookside College continued to flourish, and his new school Gleneagles is certainly lucky to have him. We all wish Simon all the very best in his next endeavours.

Buildings and Grounds Update

Over the holidays the school had a major project completed. We have added a new kitchen space alongside the Food Technology room that will be used for our Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program. This kitchen will provide additional space so that expanded Food Tech program can be as engaging as possible for our students. In other building news we are currently in the process of obtaining quotes for a new Year 3-6 Playground. Jack, our facilities manager, some student leaders and I have been meeting with playground designers to design a new playground space. The students are obviously very excited and have shared some great ideas on how we can best use the space.

Camps

The Year 5 students had a blast at camp last week. I have heard so much positive feedback from teachers and students about the experience. A massive thank you to the Year 5 team for organising such a great time for our students.

This year we have expanded our Camps Program so that every year level from Year 3-9 will have a camp. More information regarding the camps in Year 4 and Year 8 will be shared soon. We are also in the process of finalising our 2020 camps and will be able to communicate with all families the 2020 outline soon.

5 Questions

Last term Simon shared with you all 5 questions that parents can ask of their children’s teachers. Many parents asked these questions to their classroom teacher at Parent Teacher Interviews. I wanted to follow this up by providing you with 5 questions you can ask your children at the end of the school day. If your children are like mine, this might help you get a better response than a simple ‘Good,’ when you ask ‘how was your day today?’

What did you learn today?

How did you do?

What did you do if you didn’t understand?

How can you improve on your learning?

What are you most proud of?

About You Survey

Next week our Year 7 and 8 students will be completing the ‘About You’ survey. ‘About You’ is a survey of Victoria’s young people, conducted by Colmar Brunton on behalf of the Department of Education and Training. The About You survey takes place in Victorian schools and collects essential information on the health, wellbeing, learning and safety of young people aged 12 to 17.

Government schools with students in year 7, 8, 10 and 11 are being invited to participate in the survey in 2019. The information collected will assist in the development of programs, resources and services aimed at meeting the needs of young Victorians.

Who will participate?

All students in year 7 and 8 will be invited to participate in the survey from our school.

Thanks,

Adam Bright