Sydenham Campus Principal Message
Sydenham Campus-Principal’s Report September, 2021.
As we approach the end of Term 3 we have the uncertainty as to what Term 4 will look like for our staff, and students and their families. It is becoming clear that students will not commence on site for the start of Term 4. We would like to acknowledge the work staff have undertaken to support their colleagues and our students and their families. This ‘lockdown’ has been a particularly challenging one. Their efforts in ensuring we all ‘stay connected’ has been very much appreciated. Mary and I have been personally contacting our teachers to ‘check-in’ on their wellbeing and to offer support in this area and where needed (for example, technical support).
We had two staff members organise a Trivia Night two Wednesday’s ago. It was a great success with over 30 staff members attending. We also have a Friday afternoon ‘drop-in’ session for staff. We even had a teacher attend the WebEx session whilst shopping at Coles!
Our Sydenham Leadership Team, including Team Leaders, produced with the assistance of Elliot from KP, a video for our school community focussing on staying connected; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sa2WhQ4-xgM
Student Wellbeing Activities
Our teachers have been delivering a Student Wellbeing Activity each week during class time. The Activities have been well received. Topics covered to date include Identifying Emotion, Coping Strategies, and Positive Self-Talk. The Activity this week focusses on Gratitude.
Our Student Wellbeing Team has also been running games club sessions on line.
Mental Health Practitioners
We appointed three Mental Health Practitioners last week. Sydenham will have a psychologist in the position at Sydenham (0.7 position). This is a DET initiative that is DET funded. Jasmine will commence from Term 4.
We are also proud of our students and their levels of engagement and we have included examples, at the end of this report, of the work they have produced.
The Student Led Presentations were an overwhelming success at the Sydenham Campus. Most students were able to reflect on their learnings over the year to date, to align this with their goals for the year and to discuss their aspirations and goals for their future education and career paths.
We had a 96% appointment rate for our Campus for SLPs. This would not have been possible without the support of homegroup and teachers in general. They devoted a significant amount of class time in assisting students in their preparations for SLPs and made many calls home to support the booking process.
Lots of our student leadership programs have had to move online and we continue to have some Year 10 students participating in the Aspirations Leadership Program through our partnership with ABCN.
The Pasifika Leadership program has now also moved to an online format.
Our 2021 NAPLAN results arrived last week. A number of our Year 9 students were awarded Certificates of achievement for excellence in Numeracy and Reading. Many students also received a certificate acknowledging their outstanding learning growth. Year 7 and 9 students had their results and certificates mailed out last week. The College has a planning meeting this Wednesday.
The lockdown has provided the opportunity to commence the development of a Gym Weight Room at Sydenham. The PE staff are very excited as will the students be when they return on site.
Since our last report to Council we have also submitted multiple scholarship applications on behalf of our students for Western Chances. We have had our Year 8-9 Art/Tech Expo to assist students with their selection of their 2022 Art and Tech electives.
We look forward to continuing to have a Champion year on the Sydenham Campus
Ms Mary Chiodo and Mr Michael Gruis
Campus Principals
