From the Principal 

Dear Parents and Carers,

It has been a massive two weeks now that our students are back to school. It was wonderful to see so many of our students bringing in baked good and pictures they had drawn as part of the Teacher Appreciation Day. This day was organised by one of our School Captains and led by our Student Leaders. They did an amazing job and thank you to all of the students and families who helped with cooking and craft activities.  Seeing our students all in pink today was lovely to see, we look forward to presenting our donation to the Football Club. All of our students have created their own eagles with pink in the picture for the Somerville Football Club Pink Day in August, these will line the club room walls. 

We have had a number of projects finished off over the last 2 weeks including the new fencing; works will be continuing over the holidays to motorise the vehicle gates. Thank you to all parents and students who have adjusted their normal routine for the last 2 weeks. We have had our Solar system installed and connected, we are now running a 29.7kw solar system with 66 450 watt panels. We are sure this will significantly reduce our carbon footprint and over summer we will be producing power to go back into the grid. We will be adding a communications module to the inverter so that we can track our usage and how much power is produced. This will be published in the newsletter and on our website. 

As we move to the holiday period; it can be challenging to manage changing routines. Supporting the mental health and wellbeing of our students during times of uncertainty is a priority this year. In previous newsletters we have provided resources to support the mental health and wellbeing of our students and their families. We encourage everyone in our community to have a look at the links below. It may be that you and your family are managing well at this time however, it’s always worthwhile to see what is available in case you need support down the track. Knowledge is power.

• Parentline - a phone service for parents and carers of children from birth to 18 years old. Offers confidential and anonymous counselling and support for parenting issues.
• A Quick Guide to Student Mental Health and Wellbeing
• Raising Children’s Network: parent mental health – offers advice and support on looking after yourself, healthy relationships, conflict management, dealing with stress and anxiety, anger management and helping children adjust to family breakdown.
• Better Health Channel’s Self-Care – provides self-care strategies, connecting with others, being kind to yourself, relationship support, seeking mental health support.
• Lifeline – a national organisation providing all Australian's experiencing a personal crisis with access to 24-hour crisis support and suicide prevention strategies.
• Beyond Blue – offers confidential one-on-one calls and chats with a trained mental health professional and tools and resources to look after your mental health.
• Black Dog Institute - provides self-tools and apps, advice on when and where to seek help, information on mental health conditions and support groups.

Every year, the Department of Education and Training advises all schools to undertake four Curriculum Days. We have scheduled one at the beginning of the year, we did have one in June that we have had to postpone to bring our students back from Remote Learning. We have a Pupil Free Day on the 20th of August, which is focused on improving student engagement in all subject areas. This will be run in conjunction with our Professional Learning Community Schools – Moorooduc, Pearcedale and Kingsley Park. Camp Australia will be running a day care/supervision program. 

As all parents were advised last week via Sentral, Semester One Student Reports will be available from 4pm today. We encourage you to download and retain a copy for your future reference.  I wish everyone a very safe, restful and enjoyable break. Make sure you keep reading and look out for any Maths you can use as part of day to day life. We look forward to seeing everyone back Term 3 for another exciting term. 

Don’t forget it’s a 2:30pm finish tomorrow, have a great holiday.

Kind Regards,

David Tapp

Acting Principal