Welcome Back!

Welcome Back to Term 3!

I hope you've all had a well-earned break over the holidays. The holidays have definitely flown by far too quickly. Our household was battling with winter illnesses, but we did manage to get away to the Mornington Peninsula for a couple of days at the start of the second week. We are also taking the kids to see the Wiggles in Concert this afternoon.

Eid Mubarak! Our Muslim community will have celebrated Eid al-Adha on Wednesday 28th June 2023 / Thursday 29th June 2023. Eid al-Adha is a significant annual Islamic observance for Muslim communities across Australia. It is also known as the Feast of Sacrifice or Festival of Sacrifice. As requested, our new staff wellbeing room will be completed soon which staff can also use for prayer during the school day. 

Thank you for your perseverance and flexibility to ensure we can continue to run our school during challenging circumstances. This term we have the depths of winter to contend with and a number of staff taking leave.

There was also much to celebrate in Semester 1. Classes and students are much more settled at the start of the term than they were in Term 1. This is due to the predictable routines and clear expectations you have established in your classrooms. Our end-of-semester assessments indicated that 93% of our students achieved good, very good, or excellent progress in their ILP Goals across all learning areas. The Attitudes to School Survey (ATOS) also showed very positive feedback from our students. A summary of these preliminary results can be viewed on the School Performance & Improvement page. This wouldn't be possible without the effort and attitude of our students, the commitment and dedication of our staff, and the support and partnership with our families and the wider community. Thank you!

Term 3 is often the most productive term for students' learning now that students have settled into their classes and before the rush of Term 4 begins. Please see the Jackson Termly Summary page for key dates for this term. Xuno remains our main whole school calendar for any ongoing changes to our Jackson Termly planning document.

Staffing & HR

On behalf of the community I would like to welcome Lisa Waters who begins with us as our new Mental Health Practitioner. Lisa is a Social Worker with a Graduate Certificate of Counselling (Mental Health) and has been working in private practice to support students who have additional needs with their mental health. Lisa has also worked for Brimbank Youth Services and Melbourne City Mission (Housing). Lisa will commence her induction over the next couple of weeks to learn about our school and the Department's Mental Health Reform. Lisa will be based in the new Allied Health office next to Prep/1 with the Speech Pathologists and Art Therapists. Lisa's work days are Monday-Thursday. We look forward to working with you.

I would congratulate Marg Keatley who will now be working with us as a Department employee and a Jackson School staff member. This means that Marg can no longer hold the office of Vice-President on School Council. Marg so now transfer from a community member to a staff member on School Council. Marg will continue to work as a Family Liaison Officer (Social Worker) across our community to support our most vulnerable and disengaged families and students. Marg will work closely with Alex next to the Transitions office. Marg's work days are Tuesday and Wednesday.

Officially welcome to Janet Hill who will now teach 7/8B with Bess. Janet comes to us having worked as a CRT at Jackson previously and has been working with students with additional and complex needs in Seymore. Congratulations Kat who will take on the role of 7/8 PLT Leader (Assistant Learning Specialist).

This term there are a large number of staff vacancies to fill as we have had a number of staff who have left at the end of last term or are leaving early this term due to personal reasons and planned leave.

Michael Linder has decided to pursue his acting career accepting a play in Term 3. Congratulations! Michael will return to us part-time after his play concludes. Colin and Cody will take 7/8C from the start of Term 3. Welcome back Cody!

Ian Phelan will continue in 10A whilst Kal remains on leave.  I'm looking forward to Ian getting into the new Jackson X-press kitchen this semester. Vu and Vlado will support to cover Kathy's planned long service leave this term. Thank you.

Gordana Bekavac also has planned long service leave in Term 3 and will return in Term 4. We are still recruiting for this position through recruitment agencies and media adverts. Pagan Newman will take 4-6C for the remainder of the year. Jacqui will continue to support the 4-6 team for the first few weeks of Term 3. Caleb is also on leave this term. Carli will replace Caleb until the end of the year.

Sue Milverton is currently on personal leave. We wish her well and look forward to seeing you soon. Laura Gianfriddo will support to cover 1/2B at the start of Term 3. Alisha has also commenced her leave and is due to return later in the year. 

Jacqui Kamenar and Laura Gianfriddo will take maternity leave from the end of the second week of Term 3. We wish you both all the very best at this exciting time for you and your families. You can click on the links below for their maternity collections. Thank you for taking on your roles of Assistant Learning Specialists (Numeracy / Inclusion) this year and the impact you have had on supporting staff over the last 6 months.

We are now recruiting for an additional Learning Specialist to join the leadership team and an Admin Manager to replace parts of Halina's role within the Admin team. These will be posted externally on Recruitment Online. Internal applicants are always welcome to apply.

We are now commencing our Workforce Planning for 2024. Other fixed-term and ongoing positions will be available this term. Can all staff please complete the 2024 Workforce Preferences Survey by the end of Week 2. Click or scanning the QR code below: https://forms.office.com/r/T3Et2iuz7k 

Buildings & Grounds

There has been a lot of activity onsite these holidays. Our Primary School and Allied Health Centre has now reached practical completion and a Certificate of Final Inspection has been granted by the building surveyor for us to occupy the new building. Some minor defects are still to occur over the next couple of weeks. We have a final walkthrough on Monday morning with the project team. I know many staff will be eager to have a tour and see through the new building, however, can I request that we allow the Prep/1 staff and Allied Health to set-up their new rooms on Monday in readiness for students returning on Tuesday. I hope the photos below give you a glimpse inside for now.

The fire service works have been completed through the playground to connect up to our new 5-8 Middle School building from the new fire service at the front of the school. The new Prep-Year 2 playground is due to be installed at the start of August.

Edgars Creek Primary School have sent photos and a letter to School Council to thank us for donating our old Prep playground to them. This is now installed and being enjoyed by their students. 

Rendine Modularity has now completed the delivery of our 5-8 Middle School modules at the start of the holidays. Work will continue to prepare these classrooms for handover towards the end of August. Landscaping is due to be completed by September/October. 

Works in our Library/Food Tech/Cafe and Performing Arts (including Radio and Film Studios) are now well underway. Now the walls are plastered you can truly get a sense of what these new learning spaces will be like. These are due for completion at the end of July. Furniture has been ordered and is now in production.

Thank you to Graeme for all the work you have done these holidays in preparation for our return to school on Monday. This has included: repairs to the skylights in the admin building; new OSHC and Specialist reverse cycle units; test and tagging of electrical equipment; new furniture deliveries and old equipment removal; and general grounds and maintenance. Cleaners were onsite on Friday - Saturday to ensure our classrooms are clean and presentable for our students returning to school on Tuesday. There will inevitably be some furniture that is required to be moved on Monday in preparation for Tuesday. Please be mindful that Graeme has a lot to finalise on Monday to ensure our new Prep/1 building is ready for our students. 

I have applied to the Department for a temporary enrolment cap during our construction works now that we have reached 289 enrolments. This is in review by the regional provision and planning team. I am hopeful this will be approved by the Regional Director considering the pressures we are under at the minute. Thank you for your understanding and perseverance at this time.

Time-in Lieu for Camps

The Fair Work Commission has issued a determination in relation to the application of time-in-lieu arrangements that apply to Victorian government school camps schools (clauses 24(8) and 24(9) of the Victorian Government Schools Agreement 2022). 

Time in lieu will apply to staff attendance at Victorian and interstate camps in the way that it applies to all other school activities where teachers and education support class employees are required to attend in addition to the 38 hours of duty per week. Where a teacher or education support class employee’s attendance is required by the Principal, time in lieu will be calculated on the basis of 100% time in lieu for the time the employee is performing duties, and 50% for the time the employee is on-call in addition to normal work hours up until 11 pm. For the overnight on-call period (11 pm to 7 am), teachers and education support class employees will receive an overnight payment equal to 4 hours pay (calculated as 8 hours on-call at 50%) for each night an employee attends a school camp. These arrangements will be backdated to 1 January 2023 for all teachers and education support staff who have attended Victorian and interstate camps and not already had accrued time in lieu acquitted.

On average at Jackson our camps run over two nights. This is equivalent to 26 hours time in lieu (TIL) for teachers and 27 hours for ESS. This totals an average of $2318.27 for a teacher and ES to attend camp under the Department's minimum ratio of 1 staff to 10 students. At Jackson School we typically have a higher ratio of staff to students due to the higher needs of our students (around 1:5). For every ten students this equates to $231.83 /student. The Government have funded for the 4 hours overnight, per day. This is equivalent to $453.20 for teachers and $250.48 for ESS. With this reduction in costs from the expected funding, this will reduce staffing camp costs to $161.46 per student. We understand there will be a change in ratio for special schools at a ratio of 1:3 but this has not yet been confirmed. As a school we will invest $22,000 per year to ensure that our students can continue to attend camp as a valuable learning and social opportunity. As discussed with the Consultative Committee, our preferences will be to pay out TIL for the time staff have accrued whilst on camp, where this is not individually approved by the staff memeber, this TIL acquittal in time will have to be uncovered due to the current staffing challenges. Outside of late finish excursions, camps and whole school organised events, please have a discussion with Anthony prior to lodging time-in-lieu on EduPay for approval. 

For more information on TIL for Camps, please visit the Operations Update page or visit: https://www.education.vic.gov.au/hrweb/Documents/Time-In-Lieu-Guidelines.pdf 

NAIDOC Week

National NAIDOC Week celebrations are held across Australia in the first week of July each year (Sunday to Sunday), to celebrate and recognise the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. NAIDOC Week is an opportunity for all Australians to learn about First Nations cultures and histories and participate in celebrations of the oldest, continuous living cultures on earth. I encourage you to highlight and complete activities with your students around NAIDOC this week, including an Acknowledgement of Country during the first week of school.

There will be no Whole School Assembly in Week 1. We will instead have a Whole School Assembly on Monday (Week 2) to conclude Jackson NAIDOC Week. This will under the Basketball Canopy (weather permitting). Helena has organised for a special visitor to join us at this assembly. Thank you. Robyn and I will be attending the Keilor-St Albans Network Conference at the start of next week.

To download NAIDOC Education Resources, please visit: https://www.naidoc.org.au/resources/educational

For weekly PLT assemblies, please find attached the updated Assembly powerpoint template. This includes the new National Anthem video, two Acknowledgement of Country videos, and generic slides of our school values.

Recess & Lunch Arrangements

Due to the construction and landscaping works we now have a reduced playground for our Primary students. To ensure the safety of our students we are making some alterations to recess and lunch arrangements until the construction works are completed. 

We are continuing to explore a split Primary/Secondary timetable. Due to the VCAA minimum instruction requirements, Victorian Government Schools Agreement 2022 and Fair Work conditions this is increasingly difficult to implement without running an adverse weather timetable for 20 mins of recess/lunch with 20 mins outside play. This was proposed to staff last year. We have also considered Primary and Secondary only being outside for a 30 minute break and inside for a 30 minute break. We have discussed these options with the Consultative Committee and will continue to discuss other options this term.

New oval fencing has been installed to create a Primary and Secondary zone and allow space for our Primary students (Years 3-6) to play/run on the oval. The cubbies and trampolines have been placed in the Primary side of the oval. The Secondary students will have access to the covered basketball shade sail/basketball court, footy goals, seating pods and tiered seating. To support our new guidelines about physical touch, our Secondary students will not be able to play a full contact game of AFL/Rugby during this time. This is to also reduce the amount of physical conflicts on the oval. Secondary students can also access the Secondary Common Zone (Tier 2 Supervision) in the courtyard. This remains a quiet space but will have mobile Xbox carts available for them to use. Priority will be given to PE lessons during lesson time whilst we work through these disruptions. Once our new library and performing arts spaces are handed over at the end of July / beginning of August we will review these arrangements and make changes as required. 

It is important that staff whilst on Active Supervision/Duty re-direct staff to be in the correct zone to reduce mixing between our Primary and Secondary students. Please see the Active Supervision timetable and map on the 2023 Timetables page.

Prep-2 students will now play outside their new classrooms and the hall in the short-term. Fencing will be modified in the coming weeks in this area. Students who are most vulnerable and climb fencing will be allocated to the Primary Common Room (Tier 2 Supervision).

Eating times will remain after recess and lunch at this time. 10 minutes is allocated within the timetable for this, however we are aware that many of our students take longer to eat than this. Please allow additional time in Periods 3 and 5 for these students as required. 

For the new Active Supervision Tips and guidelines on Physical Touch, please visit the Mental Health and Wellbeing page.

Professional Practice Day (Pupil Free Day)

Monday is a pupil free day. Teachers have one of their two professional practice days (PPD) this year as a common PPD. Teachers will also get a 1:1 PPD this semester. We will begin with a briefing in the hall at 9am to go through whole school operations for this term. Following this ES staff will remain in the hall for two professional learning sessions in the morning (including Mental Health Reform & PBIS). Teachers can use this time for collaborative planning in preparation for the term ahead. The remainder of the day is allocated to classroom time. An individual lunch pack has been purchased for staff.

In June, staff will have received an email from Helen Quiney (Executive Director, Employee Safety, Wellbeing and Inclusion Division). There are mandatory Department OHS modules staff are required to complete this term. Staff may use the PPD to complete these modules. For more information, please visit the COVID-19, Staff Wellbeing & OHS page.

On Tuesday after school, there will be a short whole school professional learning after school for all staff about the School Staff Survey (SSS). This will build upon our reflections at the Curriculum Day at the end of last year. Time will be allocated during this session to complete the SSS. Staff may receive an email on Monday to complete this. Please wait until Tuesday to complete this.

For more detailed information on other areas of School Operations please click on the pages for important updates ready to start the term. These include: 

• 2023 Timetables & Lists - including new zones during construction
• SSP, AIP & PDP Information - including 2022 Annual Report & 2024 Review
• Admin, HR, Finance & IT Update - including school-owned bus operations
• Staff Wellbeing & OHS - including Staff Wellbeing Plan
• COVID-19 Advice - removal of the requirement to report positive cases (RATs)
• Termly Dates - please continue to check Xuno as our whole school calendar

I hope you enjoy the remainder of your break and I look forward to seeing you all on Monday.

Anthony