Principal's Message

Dear Parents/Carers,                                                           

“Empowering students for learning and life”

Redeveloping the Principal Team

As Acting Principal I am re developing the Principal Team. With the interview process completed we will have two members new to the school and a current staff member stepping into one of the Acting Roles:

· Acting Assistant Principal for Year 8 and 9, 

Jo Keating who started on 9 August,

· Acting Assistant Principal overseeing Year 7, Lisa Williams, starting 23 August

· Business Manager Craig Kendall starting on 23 August.

Welcome to Jo and Craig and to Lisa joining the Principal Team.

There are two others continuing in the team:

· Assistant Principal shifting to a new role overseeing Senior School, Kelly Bendon and

· Adam Kruger continues as Assistant Principal for Teaching and Learning.

Scott Rumble will be leaving on 6 September to take up the Assistant Principal role at Clyde Secondary College. I thank Scott for his work and significant contribution leading the Senior School Team at Lyndhurst Secondary College.

Remote Learning

We returned to Remote Learning again on Friday 6 August. Once again we reverted to our processes and procedures. We are providing a balanced program with online lessons as well as work time for students, increasing to 2 lessons a week for this Remote session based on student feedback. It is vital that students log in to online classes to participate and to continue to be connected to school. Thank you to parents and carers as your part in this is greatly appreciated. It is a partnership between students, teachers, parents and carers and the school where we all work together to ensure a successful education for our students.

VCE/VCAL News

From Monday 30 August VCE students will be able to come on-site to complete assessments that cannot be done remotely. Where Exam prep cannot be done at home, this can be done on-site eg for performance exams. The Senor School Team will be in contact with students and parents/carers to provide a schedule for on-site assessments.

The dates and format of VCE Unit 3 and 4 Exams will remain as set, including performance exams. The GAT has now been rescheduled to Thursday 9 September, 10am until 1.15pm. 

This week the Senior School Team has met with Unit 3 and 4 students and VCAL students to encourage them to keep their learning focus and to continue with routine, completing set work and for VCE students continuing to complete revision and study. Support is available by contacting Ms Bendon, Mr Brannan and the Unit 3 and 4 teachers.

Teaching and Learning

We postponed our Professional Learning Day on 30 July to Term 4 as we had just returned from Remote Learning. We have another Professional Learning Day booked in on 30 August which will be online.

On this day Melissa Fries will lead a Literacy session and Adam Kruger and Nada El-Khalil will lead a session on the Teaching and Learning Model.

In the afternoon, Cathryn Stephens, who is the Professional Leaning Community Manager for South Eastern Victoria, will run a session to support our Professional Learning Teams.

Our Teaching and Learning Team led by Adam Kruger and Nada El-Khalil are reviewing our Assessment and Reporting process with a view to develop a Whole School Approach to provide greater consistency. This will be developed through collaboration with staff.

We have had a number of additional activities, such as celebrating Science Week and others that are student led, for instance, the VCAL Month of Challenge:

The Science Challenge, led by Science Leader Nim Maheswaran, involves students and staff competing in a Science Dress Up Competition. These photos will be shared in the eConnected newsletter later this week.

For the VCAL Challenge, in the first 2 weeks (week 6 and 7) there will be daily challenges. These will be set up for the students and staff, but we will run the challenges separately. The first challenge has been to share a joke which has been enjoyed by students and staff.

Our student winner Aliyah Bafto:

Joke: Knock Knock! Who’s there? A broken pencil. A broken pencil who? Never mind, it’s pointless.

For the second two weeks (weeks 8 and 9) there we will be 2 more activities. It will include filming and sharing an amazing sports trick shot and designing an art piece, complementing an inspirational quote that resonates with you.

It is wonderful to have these activities for school community connection at this time.

Finalist in 2021 VTIC Entrepreneurial Awards

Congratulations to VETDDS Hospitality and Tourism student from Lyndhurst Secondary College, Caitlyn Redenbach on entering the 2021 VTIC Entrepreneurial Awards and becoming a finalist. Students presented a tourism proposal to rebuild tourism and hospitality after COVID. Well done Caitlyn and best wishes for the finals.

Thank you to all in our community for your support. At this time, we send our support to our Afghan community and their families so that they know we are thinking of them and we are here for them. There is more information about supports available in this newsletter.

Kind regards Leanne Winfield

Acting Principal

Leanne Winfield

Acting Principal