Dear Families,

What a community! The flooding event along the Goulburn River has had varying impacts on our wider community. We have had families who have been flooded to varying degrees - some completely awash. The efforts from neighbours to help each other typified the resilience of our community, including students dealing with sandbags and levee banks. To those who have lost everything, we are thinking of you and will continue to offer support to ensure we get through this situation. To hear the stories from so many students over the weekend demonstrated that it will be an experience that they will remember for life.

We must thank everyone for their support over the weekend as the decision was made, like many others, to close the school. During this time our broader power and phone network was down so communicating was a challenge. A huge thank you to Filippa Kimmorley who was able to ensure that communication got through from the department to families. Bree Giles was also instrumental in getting our doors open by ensuring text messages and emails were sent out. Along with Filippa, we have a number of teachers who are still unable to commute across the Goulburn River to get to school. Thank you to Jayne, Gab, Tristan, Sarah and Filippa who have all made sure that learning tasks are available for the staff who can make it onsite. Due to having a large percentage of staff able to attend, we were fortunate enough to be one of the first schools in the region to reopen. Our staff and students jumped to the chance to get back to work typifying our great school culture.

Yesterday we were able to open the school with almost 100 students in attendance. Thank you to the families who were able to get their students to school. To those who are still unable to get here, we understand the situation and know that it may be some time until you can return. We've had some great additional support in ensuring we have enough staff. Today we had Pam Moran join the team as she is unable to make it to her school in Shepparton, a remarkable offer of assistance after the flood impact on the family property. It is offers like this that gave confidence that we could open and that we could safely cater for the needs of our students. Others who put up their hand to join our regular staff included Ryan Sarkady, Sharyn McCann and Carly Tuhan.

Tonight, was supposed to be our school concert, but due to recent events we have decided to postpone to a later date. We will communicate our new date with you once it is decided. We are hopeful that a suitable time on our busy calendar can be found.

We know that there is a long way to go and that many of you will require further support. I would like to thank everyone for doing what they needed to over the weekend and I look forward to understanding your situation further.

Have a great weekend,

Craig Thompson

From the Classroom

Foundation