Aaron Cox

Principal

Welcome to this week’s newsletter. Despite the occasional covid case, our school is coping relatively well. I have been around to many classes and I am not only very happy with the learning going on but there is also a real sense of calmness within our grades. I must say I am really impressed with the mood of the school.

Building Community - Connected to Community

Building Community will be a central part of our work this year. The success or failure of a school is completely down to the culture that is built around connectedness to school from both students and families. We all play a role in the quality of our children’s school life. After 2 years of disruption, it is incumbent on all of us to give our fair share of effort to fill the void that has been left from the destruction of covid on our school culture. We are currently working on a couple of school events for this year, and are hoping to have whole school community activities in at least March and October. Further information about these events will follow when confirmed. I ask you to make every effort to be a part of rebuilding our community culture.

New Staffing Agreement - We are here for the students

I would like to draw your attention to a new Victorian Government Schools Agreement that is under consideration for approval by all government teachers and education support staff. In theory, I absolutely support the reduction of wage theft within our industry and agree those teachers should be paid for the work they do beyond a 38-hour week. Teachers are currently given 4 weeks per year to cover this work imbalance but even then, that falls well short of the true value. Currently, teachers work an average of just over 50 hours per week, excluding school-directed events. However, under the new agreement under consideration, all work deemed necessary by schools must be paid for in either money or Time In Lieu (TIL).

Simply, the impact will mean schools will not have the financial resources to pay for these additional hours of work. Examples where staff currently make themselves available outside of work hours as part of mandatory attendance include; camps, performance nights, parent/teacher interviews, information nights, open nights, breakfasts, dinners, weekend activities, graduation ceremonies, community events, movie nights and others not listed here. Simply, nearly all functions mentioned above would be required to be performed during official school hours.

Your school council is currently acting on your children’s behalf. A letter is currently being drafted to the Minister of Education James Merlino and our local member of state parliament to request adequate funding is provided so that these essential community events can continue after school hours in the future. As it stands today, these activities and more will cease unless conducted between 9.00am-4.00pm.

Most children when thinking back to their school days look back with fondness about their camping experiences. We will be doing a disservice to our children if these fabulous opportunities are withdrawn due to a lack of funding and personnel. I hope a long-lasting solution is developed very, very soon as we claim to be ‘the education state’.

The Age newspaper has an interesting article on this issue, and you can read it via this link https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/warning-teachers-win-on-time-in-lieu-will-endanger-school-camps-20220224-p59z7v.html#comments

Therapy Dog - We are here for the students

I have started the process of assessing whether a therapy dog will be beneficial addition to our staffing profile to better support our student’s wellbeing. I have been interested in this direction of support for some time but it has been put on the back burner over the past few years due to other priorities. I am passionate about students being supported with the right intervention and research into various schools across different demographics has consistently been positive when looking specifically at therapy dogs in school. There is plenty of work to do before this even gets off the ground and if we do proceed there will be ample community and student consultation.

School Policies

We have already updated a few policies for the beginning of 2022. These will be updated on the school website by the end of next week. These policies include;

Cash Handling

Electronic Banking

School Purchase Card

CCTV

Digital Learning

Duty of Care

Mobile Phone

Personal Property

Photographing, Filming and Recording Students

Stir Crazy Kids