SCHOOL LEADERSHIP MESSAGE

PRINCIPAL'S REPORT

Unfortunately due to the severe weather today, the school was without power. Several of the buses weren’t able to collect students and/or travel safely on the roads. About 10 staff weren’t able to get through to school on the roads from their homes, and as the town is without power, at the time of writing this newsletter article, we were also busily contacting VCE students who were to sit the Further Maths exam in the afternoon.

As always, we are hugely grateful for the support our community gives us when things like this happen. As you can imagine, it is not until early morning that we become aware of things like power outages, the conditions of the roads etc. Generally we will always communicate via Compass and Facebook in these circumstances, but thank you to everyone who tagged friends or gave them a call to see if they were aware of what was happening. It is never our preference to be closed, but like everything in life, at times there are circumstances beyond all our control.

Curriculum and Pupil Free Day, 1st November, 2021

This Monday, 1st November, 2021 is a Curriculum and Pupil Free Day. Teaching staff will be undertaking sessions on Differentiation in the morning, followed by deepening our skills at being an effective Mentor, exploring further the Respectful Relationships curriculum, and in the afternoon preparing classes for Headstart. Education Support Staff and Integration Aides have individual learning plans for the day. Because there are still restrictions on face to face meetings and density ratios, this day will be held over Teams and staff have been requested to work from home. The school office will not be open. To all our families and students, enjoy the long weekend.

Exam period Monday 15th November – Friday 18th November

This year, to give our students an opportunity to improve their exam techniques, we initiated exams across the school from Year 8. What we know is that the best students are ones who have had the opportunity to study for and sit exams repeatedly throughout their schooling. These students generally do better in VCE. But we also know that students who are used to sitting exams, also find things like their driver’s test, and post-secondary assessments (think sitting tests for the police force and TAFE assessments for example), much easier.

This term students from Year 8 will again sit exams, although not all year levels will be sitting an exam for every subject. The main way you can help your child/ren to undertake these exams is to:

• · Encourage them to study
• · Remind them it is practice, it is an opportunity to learn and get better
• · Support them to get plenty of rest the night before

Given the disruptions this year, it may also help to remind students that the teacher will be assessing them solely on the course material that was covered.

COVID update

As mentioned previously, this space is evolving rapidly, with some prediction that in 2022, primary close contacts will no longer be required to isolate if fully vaccinated. In the meantime, and with Melbourne opening up, we need to be aware that vigilance continues to be our best defence. Currently, it is still mandated that students and staff wear masks. I can only go on the evidence I have seen at KSC, which is that this strategy seems to be reducing the spread of illnesses in general across the college. That being said, we are still finding that our students often need to be reminded to put on their masks and to wear them correctly; your support at home in encouraging mask wearing is very much appreciated.

This term we have also been maintaining ‘bubbles’ for each year level in the yard. For the happiness and wellbeing of students, we would like to remove the yard ‘bubbles’ at the start of Week 6. This will mean that students will have access to a full range of activities at recesses and lunchtimes and be able to mix with their friends who are in other year levels. Moving forward this year and especially into next year, my advice would be to get your children vaccinated. At some point, we will all come in contact with COVID, there is probably nothing we can do about this, but being vaccinated is something we can do to protect ourselves and our community.

Information attached -

• If a positive Covid 19 case is reported to school

VCE Exams

To our Year 12s VCE students who started their exams this Wednesday, all the very best of luck. We are with you every step of the way in this next journey. If our community haven’t seen our Facebook page, it is definitely worth a look. We have been blown away by the number of our students who have already had university offers, well before their exams. A testament to their hard work over the past two years. Well done Year 12s and again, congratulations on the completion of your secondary studies.

Principal - Vaya Dauphin

Assistant Principal  -  John Wilson