I was delighted to see so many families at school for our Advisory dinner earlier this term. This is the first of many events during the school year where we invite parents and carers to meet with staff and to talk about your child’s learning. By now students should have completed their learning plan for Semester one, which is signed off by the student, the Advisory teacher and a parent or carer. The learning plan is central to each child’s work as it describes the work they will do, how they will meet their goals and what they expect to show at their end of term exhibition. If you have any questions or concerns about the learning plan or any other aspects of schooling, please contact your child’s Advisory teacher. We look forward to seeing you many more times throughout the year.

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Welcome back to a new year! I would like to welcome all students, staff and volunteers as well as our new chaplain, Heather Ham, who is going to run bushranger cadets and assist me with the student council this year, Mr Chesterfield returning to us from four years in Fitzroy Valley and two newbies Mr Mean, Advisory teacher and Mrs Scata, our manager corporate services. Welcome to you and a big welcome to Wanda Bryant, our canteen manager, who has taken on the challenge of her own business to provide us with food. Please support her great products and prices (today I had an amazing fresh roast lamb and gravy roll and the chicken, cheese and salad sandwiches are huge!) and please remember to dispose of your litter thoughtfully. I’ve included a menu and a few photos from our canteen – it is so good to have food on tap (and coffees). Feel free to come in and order a coffee (adults only!) on your way to work or home or the shops. They are only $4 if you bring your own cup. Ask your student to share our twice daily mindfulness sessions with the family, we are all enjoying them very much! I am often asked by families what they can do to protect their kids from online predators and other potentially harmful situations such as cyberbullying, as well as monitoring what their kids are accessing and reading or watching. Attached are a couple of documents from the government’s iparent section of their cybersafety website. The first one is some statistics on what parents think kids get out of using the internet and also what they perceive their needs to be to keep kids safe while online. The second is seven ways parents and carers can manage their students’ devices. http://www.esafety.gov.au/ Please take the time to explore all of the free resources available to parents in the iparent section https://www.esafety.gov.au/iparent
Stay safe and have an amazing year!

Sports for Schools

We are collecting Coles vouchers for sports for schools. Please bring your vouchers in to the front office. The more vouchers we get the more sport equipment we can purchase!

As the first term draws to a close it is great to see that the vast majority of our students have settled well into the school year. Walking around the school it is terrific to see the buzz of activity in classes, sports grounds, swimming pools, and feedback from teachers and students indicates that many of our Year 9 and 10 students are actively engaging in their specialist classes and their internship program.

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The national assessment Program – literacy and numeracy (NAPLAN) is the annual assessment for all students in Years 7 and 9. NAPLAN tests are done in reading, writing, conventions of language (spelling, grammar and punctuation) and numeracy. This year all tests will be completed during Term 2 between Tuesday 9th May and Friday 19 May.

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