Dear Parents/Carers,

“Empowering students for learning and life”

High Expectations

Welcome Back and Staffing Updates

As we start Term 2, I would like to welcome everybody back to school, refreshed and ready for learning. I trust that you had an enjoyable holiday with a chance to spend time with family and friends. I would like to extend a warm welcome to the students and families who are joining our College this term and look forward to working with you this year.

Joining us this term is Mr Allan Qi who has been with us in Term 1 covering our Technology classes. Mrs Indra Wailia De Leo who brings years of experience with her is joining our Maths/Science department. We welcome them both to our College community.

Open Night

On Tuesday March 30th, we welcomed prospective parents to our school and had the pleasure of showcasing the many wonderful programs and opportunities our College has to offer. We had in excess of 170 people in attendance, who participated on a school tour which focused on what made Lyndhurst different and why it should be their school of choice. The night was led by our wonderful students who proudly took families to visit a range of spaces such as our innovative science area, our state of the art automotive centre and our amazing digital technology space. Families saw our student playing music and singing, heard our student leaders speak and highlight the importance of our students’ voice in our College. These are just a few of the activities families experienced on the night. Feedback indicated that it was a huge success and the families were impressed by our wonderful students who conducted themselves professionally and to a very high standard. We will have an indication of proposed enrolments towards the beginning of August.

High Expectations for our Year 12 VCE and Year 12 VCAL students

During the last week of last term, Year 12 parents received another progress report, which summarises their student’s attendance, progress to date and timely submission of work. These reports form the basis of our discussion with our Year 12 VCE and VCAL students, focusing on how we can best assist them in achieving their goals and providing Wellbeing support if needed. Mr Scott Rumble, Mr Anthony Brannan, Ms Sue Carroll and I will be reviewing the VCE and VCAL reports. Over the course of the term, we will continue to meet with our Year 12 VCE and VCAL students and invite parents as required. This week’s parent/teacher interviews will provide parents the opportunity to discuss their students’ progress with their teachers.

Leadership Induction Ceremony

On Monday 22nd of March, we held our annual College induction ceremony of our student leaders. It was a formal ceremony where leaders of our College, such as SRC, Peer Support, House Leaders, Sports Leaders, Multipride, Sub School Leaders, Performing Arts, Visual Arts Leaders as well as our College Captains are presented with their leadership badges.

The School Captains led the ceremony and all speakers talked about the importance of leaders working and leading teams.

Unfortunately, due to COVID restrictions we could not invite a guest speaker and parents and community members were unable to attend. We did live stream it so parents could log in and see their students be inducted into their leadership roles.

Our school leaders will play an important role in working with us to make the school environment safe, inclusive and engaging. They will have the voice of the students and the opportunity to contribute to our continual journey of improvement.

I look forward to working closely with them throughout the year.

ANZAC Assembly

The legend of ANZAC was born on the 25th of April, 1915, recognising and celebrating what is now referred to as the ANZAC spirit – courage, endurance, initiative, discipline and mateship. Our soldiers were renowned for these values. On Monday 26th of April, our school honoured the memory of our soldiers who fought for our freedom and for the life, we enjoy today with a whole school assembly. Unfortunately, Mr Barry Rodgers from the Cranbourne/Dandenong RSL was unable to attend due to COVID restrictions. He has attended every year for the last few years and speaks to our students about the meaning of ANZAC and what it meant to be an Australian solider. We hope to have him back in 2022. Our school captains led the assembly, with other student leaders, reading poetry and laying wreaths in memory of our soldiers. Our whole school community observed a minute of silence.

Student Attitude to School Survey

At Lyndhurst Secondary College we want our students to tell us what they think.

Our school is conducting a survey to find out what your child thinks of our school. The Attitudes to School survey is an annual student survey offered by the Department of Education and Training. The survey assists schools in gaining an understanding of students' perceptions and experience of school.

Our school will use the survey results to plan programs and activities to improve your child's schooling experience.

This year the Attitudes to School survey will be conducted at our school between Monday 26th April to Friday 4th of June. The survey only takes 20-30 minutes to complete and occurs during your child's class time.

We value and listen to our students, run focus groups and where possible make changes, examples of which are the upgrade to the toilets, changes to our school uniform, and students wearing their uniform on PE/Sports and Academy days.

What our students have to say matters and we look forward to receiving more feedback from our students.

NAPLAN

This year, our College is again doing NAPLAN on line and which will over an 9 day period starting from Tuesday 11th of May to Friday 21st of May. This will involve all of our Year 7 and 9 students and is known as the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN). The NAPLAN testing assesses students’ knowledge and skills in Writing, Reading, Language Convention (spelling, grammar and punctuation) and Numeracy.

We encouraged all of our students to do their very best when sitting these tests as the results from these tests provide information for students, parents and teachers which can be used to improve our students learning growth.

Year 7 Camp

As explained in March newsletter our Year 7 camp had to be postponed due to the 5 day Lockdown. Ninety of our Year 7 students with their teachers and support staff head off to Kinglake for their three day camp on Monday 3rd of May until Wednesday 5th of May. We wish them a wonderful and safe time.

Lynbrook Art Competition

As mentioned in the March newsletter, Lyndhurst Secondary College is working once again with Lynbrook Village Shopping Centre to host an ART competition, where our students from years 7 – 12 submitted their art pieces at the end of last term to be on display at the shopping centre. We had over 30 submissions and twenty-eight pieces made it through to the final selection. The students created a piece of art with the theme “A touch of blue”

These pieces will be reproduced as large format corflute print and are on display in Lynbrook Village Shopping Centre for a 6-week period where the community can view the art pieces and vote for their favourite piece of art. We will advertise the date voting starts when it is confirmed by the centre.

1st, 2nd, 3rd place winners will be chosen and a People’s Choice voted for by the public. All winners will receive a prize. Winners will be announced, and prizes awarded later this term.

We are very proud of our talented young artists.

House Athletics

The College Athletics event will take place this Friday, May 28th, and I encourage all students to consent as soon as possible. This can be done through the events module in Compass. We encourage all of our students to dress in their house colours on the day and get involved in as many events as they can. We look forward to another great College sporting event.

Wellbeing Blog

Please take the time to visit our new page on our website which features “Parents Blog” developed by our Wellbeing team, and is now live. It's a new page on the website that will be updated with relevant info regularly. It will provide parents and carers with strategies and links on specific topics. This week’s topic focuses on managing screen time at home. Please visit this site which we hope you will find useful. https://www.lyndhurst.vic.edu.au/our-programs/wellbeing/parents-corner/

Yard Duty Supervision Reminder

Please be advised that schoolyard supervision occurs at the following times:

Before school, from 8:30am – 8:50am; for the duration of recess and lunchtime; and after school from 3:00pm – 3:20pm (bus supervision stops at 3:30pm). Note that on the last day of each term, due to a shortened day, after school supervision begins at 2:30pm (dismissal time) and ends at 3:00 pm.

School crossing guards commence duty at 2:30pm each school day of the year.

Konnie Prades

Principal

Announcements

Congratulations

Well done