Photo above: Year 9 General Visual Art class.

Dear Parents and Families,

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your ongoing support during this difficult time, it has been greatly appreciated by all staff. We are currently at the stage where parents and students have the choice to be physically on our campus for schooling and I would like to assure you we are doing our best to provide education services of the highest standard. We are also working hard to prepare for online learning which will be available from Monday 30 March. Our goal will be to provide the choice of completing classes either on campus or externally off campus. We pray that everyone stays healthy and safe through these challenging times and look forward to continuing to provide great opportunities for all students. Please click here for Novel Coronavirus – COVID-19 Updates.
 

Year 11 / 7 Mentor Program

Normally at this time of year, I would be honoring our Year 11 students who participated in the 11/7 mentor program with certificate presentations at our Assembly. As this is not possible, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all of our Year 11 mentors who worked wonderfully to support our Year 7 students with their transition program. Thank you to all these students for their great service to our community. They will be presented with their certificates of appreciation in due course.
 

Mr Mark Ashby
Principal

Hi College community. What a hectic season we are all going through. There is so much information, so many things to read, so many ideas. With all that is going on, I have been pondering how a short Chaplain’s message could give any help at this time.

I have found myself thinking a lot about the lessons I learnt in my past working life as a nurse, working at Royal Perth Hospital for 12 years, I often journeyed with people going through many personal difficulties. A common character response I often encountered was people making deep personal discoveries. Many times, I had patients say “to be honest, this illness has been the best thing that ever happened to me”. I heard it many times from people with a wide variety of family situations, professional backgrounds, faiths and beliefs. When I asked about the story behind why they would say that, I would hear a common reply. “This crisis in my life” they would say “has caused me to change what I thought was valuable, I have made things important that I didn't make important before, and I now I want to use my time to do things that matter.”

As a nurse, I felt like a spectator in my patient's personal moments, I found myself challenged to not miss the life lesson that they were ‘teaching’ me. Since those nursing days there have been many times in my life where I have been faced with difficulty, and right now, I am challenged, as I navigate the changes and pressures that are very forceful at this time. I hope it might help you as much as it has been helping me to have my patients' discovery ringing in my ear “make sure you value the things that are valuable.”

Who would have thought how much the world could change in such a short period of time. It seems like a year since my last article and I have heard the phrase “COVID time” a lot. I wish all our families the best of health and you are in my thoughts and prayers, and I am sure all our staff will echo that sentiment.

I would like to acknowledge the significant amount of work that all staff are completing in our preparations for online learning. The staff remain alert, calm and committed. Teachers and support staff are consolidating the information they have been learning about effective online delivery of the curriculum. As teachers, there is always plenty to learn about improving the way we teach (both in the classroom and online) and I am impressed with their commitment to excellence for our community. Thank you to those in the community for your messages of support.

The Curriculum team will continue to provide more updates and information concerning how to manage an online learning environment. Please read all communications from the College and engage with your child to find out about how they are being prepared.

I know that there will be many questions that Year 12 students and parents have around WACE achievement and University Entrance. My summary of the communications I have received from both the School Curriculum and Standards Authority and the TISC (who process University entrance applications) is that they are aware of the situation. Currently no procedures need to change, however, they are constantly reviewing the situation and will inform schools of any changes. TAFE has a similar message, in that all requirements to achieve a Certificate remain, including any Workplace requirements. Be assured that any communication I receive relevant to students will be shared with all parties.

Thank you for your continued support of the staff and College.

In response to the current climate, the Pastoral Care team has met regularly to plan and discuss the best strategies to support student wellbeing. We have directed the students with immediate self-care messages of daily hygiene, social distancing and physical care. We have also re-organised our Extended Form program to respond to the situation. The Heads of Year have devised activities to create a positive offset, with a focus on positive education, physical fun, and personal strength. Various year groups are undergoing a survey to define their character strengths and thus build on them during this time.

The idea of focusing on and building on strengths, has been researched more widely in academic circles especially by Psychology Professor Lea Waters at the University of Melbourne and executive board member of the International Positive Psychology Association. Her work focuses on the strength switch i.e. the shift from fixing weaknesses to instead celebrating and furthering current strengths.

Online Learning Support

The College Pastoral Care team also has plans to support students whenthere is a shift to off campus online learning. This will involve ongoing high levels of engagement and communication to students from our Heads of Year, Form Teachers, College Chaplain, College Counsellors and House Coordinators to ensure that we maintain our sense of connected community. Through this we will continue to care for and provide pastoral care services our students. 

Psychological and Mental Health

Information has been released by various support groups to assist people in dealing with the associated psychological and mental health effects of the virus on society. I recommend reading the Beyond Blue article here. 

Finally, it has been good to see so many acts of kindness around the globe in response to the crisis. We have also seen this at College too through our P&F Association, the Students Councils Gratitude Week and other students themselves acting as part of the #kindness pandemic.

On Wednesday morning, our lovely P&F Association came together to present the College with a gift of appreciation for all the hard work and effort staff have provided to support our students and families during this challenging time. It is the P&F Association’s vision that they continue to keep the community spirit going, especially in this tough time. We appreciate their thoughtfulness and support! 

We understand that parents and students are unsure of what the future holds and we know that COVID-19 is having a massive impact on the lives of everyone in the College. In essence, we hope that as a community, we can continue to work together through this crisis. We would like to say thank you to our parents, who have shared their well wishes and kind words through emails and messages and want to reassure parents that we will continue to provide the best education service possible. We are here to help and support our community, and together we can conquer tomorrow! 

Ms Linda Ang
Public Relations Officer

Our kids at Centre 32, The Kennedy Centre, are doing really well, especially under the leadership of Panha – one of our senior and most capable managers. Highlights in their year are visits from Kennedy students and sponsors.

Over the past few weeks we’ve been moving quickly to manage the impact of the Covid-19 virus. Two weeks ago the Cambodian government closed our Centres to kids, but our staff remain working. They are working hard in training, preparation and connections – ready for when this storm passes.

As of a week ago gatherings of people have been limited to 5 people, so staff are working in their Centres. Fortunately we are able to keep connection via online apps. No-one anticipated this storm, and there is undoubtedly a way to go, but nothing takes God by surprise. His purposes and our part in that have not changed – it’s just that we need to be more creative. For example we are running;

• Operation Lighthouse: Our team is preparing hot meals for 3500 people and distributing them to the most needy around our Centres. They deliver not just food but also love and encouragement.
• Operation Kids: We are doing everything we can to keep connecting and encouraging our kids. We are strategically meeting with small groups of kids, and connecting over the net. So far so good.

We are using the non-contact time to build our capacity and leadership so that we can hit the ground running when the storm passes.
Our team is doing an extraordinary job adapting to new challenges and creatively finding ways to serve.

Rachel Gregory
General Manager at Transform Cambodia

Week 6 saw the return of the annual March Memory Madness, where students are encouraged to stretch themselves in a series of diverse, fun memory challenges.

From Monday to Thursday, students came into the Research and Study Centre before school to see if they could memorise ten items on the “Tray of the Day” – they then returned at Recess to list them accurately for a tasty reward and House Point. Please click here to read more...

On Friday 13 March, 124 students participated in the National Ride2School house event. It was great to see staff members and parents also coming along for the ride. Ride2School Day is a nationwide program run by Bicycling Network and the purpose of this event is to promote a healthy, active lifestyle. Students arrived at the starting point, proudly wearing their house colours. It was great to see so many students representing their house. On the day, the house that had the most participants was Eyre (38), closely followed by Forrest with 37. Stirling had 28 riders and King had 21.

Once the students arrived back at school, they were treated to a free breakfast at Beedawong Café. Year 8 Stirling student Aysha Hinton said, “it was a really fun event. It was exciting and I enjoyed riding to school with everyone who participated.”

Highschool Musical Highlights with Eloise Kurelic

High School Musical is an absolute blast. It is full of fun, nerves and excitement. We were well on the way to putting on a great show in Term 2 but unfortunately it had to be postponed untill next year. There was much disappointment amongst all the cast members but we all chose to stay positive... Please click here to read more. 

Fees - Secondary Assistance Scheme

The State Government, through the Department of Education, provides financial support to eligible parents through the Secondary Assistance Scheme. The scheme aims to assist low-income families with secondary school costs. Applications close on Thursday 9 April 2020. Please click here to read more.