Principal's Message

                   Mrs Josie Crisara

Welcome Back to Term 3

I hope that families have enjoyed time together in the mid-year break with opportunities for rest, movies, trips and a different pace to daily activities. 

Parents and Friends Association

The Parents and Friends Association are busy organising a number of activities for this term including Trivia Night, Fathers Day Breakfast, Fathers Day Stall and supporting the Performing Arts activities with canteens for performances.  If you wish to volunteer some time to help the committee with any of these events, please contact them at pandf@aitkencollege.edu.au.  Elsewhere in this newsletter you will find out further information on their activities.

Solar Panels

You may have noticed that the College has installed a further set of solar panels on the Administration building roof. This is part of our endeavours to reduce our carbon footprint on the environment. We are able to collect data from the panels regarding generation of electricity and power usage for students to use in the classroom.

NAIDOC Week

NAIDOC Week celebrations are held across Australia each July to celebrate the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. NAIDOC originally stood for ‘National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee’. The acronym has become the name of the week.  

At Assemblies this week, I spoke to students about NAIDOC week.  The features of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags were explained and a map showing the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Language, Social or  Nation Groups  was presented showing the diversity in our first peoples.

The theme of the week this year was ‘Because Of Her We Can’ celebrating the contributions made by women. For many thousands of years Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women have made their culture and history strong. Mothers, elders, grandmothers, aunties, sisters and daughters. These women have worked hard to fight for their rights to country, for justice, access to education and employment and the celebration of language, music and art. Many have had an influence.

Further information can be found at: 

https://www.naidoc.org.au/about/naidoc-week

The Politics of School Funding

There have been reports of a possible change to the way funding will be determined for Independent Schools. The talk is to move from the current socio-economic status (SES) model which uses residential addresses as the basis of funding to using a model where parents' tax returns will ascertain their capacity to contribute to the school.  This latter model is yet untested in relation to any impact it might have on school funding and raises important questions regarding how this would be achieved in terms of privacy matters.

As parents of children in Independent Schools you should hope that all parents have the right to choose the school which best meets their children’s needs. Every child, regardless of school is entitled to a degree of government support. Independent schools provide choice for parents.