SCHOOL LEADERSHIP MESSAGE

PRINCIPAL'S REPORT

Welcome back everyone. It has been wonderful to see all our students this week and hear them laughing and chatting. Up until the start of this term, we had spent as much time in remote as we had face to face. This year has been challenging, but John and I are pleased to see that the students have returned to school determined to make the most of this final term. We would like to commend our Year 12s who have had the most challenging year and their teachers who have worked hard to absorb and adapt to the ever changing face of the VCE and VCAL qualification. Thank you to the Year 12 teachers and Senior School staff for your ongoing adaptability, determination, perseverance, and grit! Well done to the Year 12 students on your dedication and approach to the General Achievement Test (GAT) and towards your practice exams. We are very proud of you.

At this stage, the guidelines for schools, which come in the form of the School Operations Guide, prevents a number of things, such as graduations and transition days. It is sad to think that we may have to end our year without celebrating in the normal way, however, we are busy behind the scenes looking at alternate ways to celebrate. Watch this space!

Parent Opinion Survey

Each year the Department of Education puts out a survey to parents seeking feedback on the school. Your input is incredibly valuable to us. If you only did one survey a year, it should be this one, as we use your feedback to improve what we do at school. This helps us change things for your child’s/children’s benefit and for yours. All parents should have received a link for this survey, but if you have not, please contact us at the General Office on 5655 1566 or feel free to email us on the parent email address: 7960-parent-support@schools.vic.edu.au

End of Year Arrangements

We know we have only just got back to school, however, we are already planning for the remainder of the year and into 2021. The Department of Education has released three priority areas for this term and 2021:

Learning
Wellbeing
Transitions

We are yet to know details on what this week’s announcement regarding tutors for 2021 looks like on the ground, but no doubt, this will be another fabulous resource for our students in 2021.

We will be running our traditional ‘Headstart’ program to finish 2020. This means that all 2020 classes will conclude on Friday 20th November. This is just five weeks away, and all students should make the most of every class between now and then to ensure they complete all work for all classes by this date. From Monday 23rd November, we will start our 2021 timetable. This will give all students the opportunity to join the classes and start the subjects that they will be completing in 2021. This is a valuable opportunity for all students to meet their new classmates and teachers, and complete a unit of work for each subject. Current Year 10 and 11 students will complete two weeks of Headstart classes, concluding on Friday 4th December. Year 10 students will then complete a week of Work Experience. Current Year 7 – 9 students will complete three weeks of Headstart, concluding on Friday 11th December. The final week of the year, finishing on Friday 18th December, will be an Activity Week – we will provide more details on this shortly.

For term 4, it is important that students ONLY miss school if they are unwell, and that they stay at school until the last day that they are required at school. Staff are working to differentiate learning for all students, from those who thrived during remote learning to those who completed very little work. Our focus is on reengaging everyone back at school, monitoring wellbeing and supporting students to feel good about themselves, to picking up from where they were last at in their learning and ‘catching them up’ on key skills. Every day matters this term!

A tough week for our community

It was with great sadness and a heavy heart that we acknowledge the tragic passing of Erin and Bane Wilson, and James Stylianou. Our thoughts and sympathies are with their families and those that knew and loved them. The passing of those we care about is never easy, but when those that we care about are taken too soon, we feel their loss even more sharply.

With the anniversary of Oliver Cronin’s passing also approaching, we thought we would share one of our favourite pieces of writing about grief with our community.

As for grief, you’ll find it comes in waves. When the ship is first wrecked, you’re drowning, with wreckage all around you. Everything floating around you reminds you of the beauty and the magnificence of the ship that was, and is no more. And all you can do is float. You find some piece of the wreckage and you hang on for a while. Maybe it’s some physical thing. Maybe it’s a happy memory or a photograph. Maybe it’s a person who is also floating. For a while, all you can do is float. Stay alive.

In the beginning, the waves are 100 feet tall and crash over you without mercy. They come 10 seconds apart and don’t even give you time to catch your breath. All you can do is hang on and float. After a while, maybe weeks, maybe months, you’ll find the waves are still 100 feet tall, but they come further apart. When they come, they still crash all over you and wipe you out. But in between, you can breathe, you can function. You never know what’s going to trigger the grief. It might be a song, a picture, a street intersection, the smell of a cup of coffee. It can be just about anything…and the wave comes crashing. But in between waves, there is life.

Somewhere down the line, and it’s different for everybody, you find that the waves are only 80 feet tall. Or 50 feet tall. And while they still come, they come further apart. You can see them coming. An anniversary, a birthday, or Christmas, or landing at O’Hare. You can see it coming, for the most part, and prepare yourself. And when it washes over you, you know that somehow you will, again, come out the other side. Soaking wet, sputtering, still hanging on to some tiny piece of the wreckage, but you’ll come out.

Take it from an old guy. The waves never stop coming, and somehow you don’t really want them to. But you learn that you’ll survive them. And other waves will come. And you’ll survive them too. If you’re lucky, you’ll have lots of scars from lots of loves. And lots of shipwrecks.

https://thelossfoundation.org/grief-comes-in-waves/

Principals

Principal - Vaya Dauphin

Assistant Principal - John Wilson