From the Principal 

This newsletter comes at the midpoint of our Term, with school events and activities in full swing. We have had students participating in the production and debating competitions, a new issue of our student newspaper and of course many sporting teams, training and participating, both representing the school and organising social competitions at lunchtimes. It is great to see team success, but even more so, the the fairness that students exhibit while playing. Our Year 10 Volleyball team is running a sausage sizzle fundraiser this Sunday, to assist with expenses for their upcoming national competition on the Gold Coast. Look out for them if you are at Bunnings Fairfield!

This semester we have seen our Precious plastics restarted with a year 10 elective class learning about sustainable design. In our last newsletter there was a call-out for milk and juice bottle lids (Type 2 and 4) so our household has begun diligently collecting lids at home and I look forward to seeing them being transformed into something much more useful than ending up in landfill. The class is working on a project and you will soon see a sustainable table top featured in the general office foyer.

Our planning for Term 3 Parent Teacher Student Conferences continues and we can confirm that the interviews will be conducted by phone for both days. We were looking forward to returning to offering face-to-face interviews for our families however with cases in the local community still remaining high, we believe that phone interviews are the safer option for all participants. We will continue to plan for the option of face-to-face interviews next year, and will review as the dates approach to ensure that we are keeping all members of our community safe.

Our work on the new STEM building continues and in this issue we are able to share an article with the formal communication on the project, endorsed by the Victorian School Building Authority. We are looking forward to sharing images of the building with the community following the cost planning process that will confirm the scope of the works.

The COVIDSafe measures that are in place in our school will continue, including the expectation for students, visitors and families to wear masks while indoors. The Department of Health strongly recommends that everyone wears a mask and our school has the expectation that masks are worn.

Yarra Trams has written to us with a request to remind students that mask wearing is mandatory on public transport. The Yarra Trams Authorised Officers are tasked with the job of enforcing compliance across the network and have reported the issue with students not wearing masks when travelling. They have been reminding and educating students on this topic for some time with minimal impact. They have included the following graphic to raise awareness with our families. We encourage families to supply masks to students when they are using public transport to travel to and from school. Students attending excursions will be required to wear a mask while travelling on public transport except when a valid mask exemption applies.

I look forward to meeting you soon at an upcoming event.

Chris Jones

Principal