Newsletter- Term 2 Week 6 2024

It is that time of year where the weather is cooler, days shorter and sickness is more prevalent than perhaps otherwise. We appreciate that sickness is something no-one wishes upon others, however it does occur to all of us. If the experiences of recent times have taught us nothing else, proper hygiene practices and staying home if unwell are crucial factors in keeping us healthy and preventing the spread of sickness. It is well understood that any absence from school does impact the learning outcomes of students, however when co-existing in a school community, it is important to consider the health of one another first and foremost. The following may act as a guide to school attendance considerations in such situations:

Year 7 Camp

It seems that every week that I write this piece for the Newsletter, there are so many highlights to reflect upon or upcoming events and activities to be excited about. This week, our Year 7 students will have their opportunity to experience the 3-day camp in Anglesea, starting Wednesday. The Year 7 camp is always a highly anticipated camp and a highlight experience for students on many levels- I know I still remember my Year 7 camp experience all those years ago and assume you can also. I would like to wish our Year 7 students all the very best- I know you will have a great time. I very much look forward to visiting the camp later in the week and sharing in all the fun!

Feedback week reflections

I do hope that you and your student took a moment to reflect upon the feedback provided by staff on Friday via Compass in the form of our Positive Learning Qualities (PLQ’s). This feedback provides a snapshot to the progress of students against our college values- Learning, Respect and Working Together. We continue to encourage parents and carers to use the regular feedback opportunity to open a discussion or have a check-in with your student to determine how they are tracking, what supports they may need to thrive and set appropriate goals and targets to achieve success. Supporting the learning of students requires a team of supports, parents and carers, teachers, wellbeing staff, learning mentors, family members, and peers, just to name a few. We are always here to assist in our role with and for all students- a role we take seriously and consider a privilege.

Have a great week!

Regards,

Scott McLeod

Principal

Newcomb Secondary College

81-85 Bellarine Highway | Newcomb 3219

T: (03) 5248 1400 | F: (03) 5248352

Creating Positive Futures

Dear parents and caregivers,

Welcome back to Term 2! 

In Term 1 of 2024, across all year levels, 64% of absences remain unexplained – something that we hope our college community can assist us with by accessing Compass and attending to your student’s absence reason.

Of the absences provided with a reason, 20% are due to Medical, 10% listed as Parent Choice (unapproved) and a combined 6% noted as Truancy, Refusal or Family Holiday.

At Newcomb Secondary College, we strive for high attendance to support your child’s learning, and social, emotional and mental wellbeing. We endeavour to work with and support all families in our community; we all want and need to do better for our students.

We can provide the best supports for students and families when absences are explained. Protecting the safety and well-being of students through the reporting and monitoring of absenteeism is the responsibility of both parents/carers and Newcomb Secondary College.

Communication is a critical component in ensuring all students can maximise their learning and engagement. If your student is struggling with attendance due to anxiety, health, truancy, refusal or another barrier, please let us know so we can work together to support your student. We understand that there are barriers preventing attendance and prioritise support for those families. There are a range of resources available to support you with helping students to re-engage and improve school attendance.

• 95% attendance rate is the equivalent of missing 10 days per year.
• 90% = 1 day per fortnight or 20 days per year.
• 85% = 30 days per year (chronically absent)
• 80% = one day per week or 40 days per year.

Research has shown that consistent student attendance at school is directly linked to better health, social and employment outcomes.

We have 30 students with perfect attendance of 100% and 130 students above 95%; a huge congratulations and thank you to these students and their families.

A few friendly reminders:

• If your student has any outstanding unexplained absences for Term 1, please access the Compass portal to view and enter reasons for these absences.
• If your student must be absent, please contact the office as soon as possible on the same day.
• Please avoid booking family holidays during the school term.
• Please aim to only keep students home if they are too unwell to attend.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding your student’s attendance, or if you or your student requires any support with school refusal, please contact the school on (03) 5248 1400 or the school’s attendance officer.

The Attitudes to Schools Survey is a voluntary annual student survey offered by the Department of Education to assist schools and the department to gain an understanding of students' perceptions and experiences of school. We value student voice as a means to improving student engagement, wellbeing and quality instruction and will be asking your child about their thoughts and feelings in relation to their school, their learning, peer relationships, resilience, bullying, health and wellbeing, physical activity, and life in general.

This year, the survey will be conducted at Newcomb Secondary on June 12 and 13.

If families do not wish for their child to participate, please decline this event. Participation in this survey is voluntary. Please confirm your intention to decline by June 10.

If families do wish for their child to participate, you do not need to action anything. If we do not receive a refusal of consent by June 10th, this will be taken as your consent for your child to participate in the 2024 Attitude to School Survey. However, as noted above the survey is voluntary and even with your consent, your child can choose to withdraw or not respond to questions at any time.

Parent information and consent letter Attitudes to Schools Survey 2024

Mr Joshua Grabowski

Assistant Principal

Newcomb Secondary College

Newcomb Secondary College is fortunate enough to have a Doctors in Schools Program running 2 days a week.

We have both a GP, and Mental Health Nurse that attend onsite to run a clinic on a Tuesday and Wednesday. This clinic is for any student in Years 7-12. The appointments are bulk billed, meaning that there is no cost to families.

Appointments can be made by either contacting the schools Wellbeing Team or calling Bellarine Community Health on 5253 0400.

Students may access this service to address any of the following:

• Physical pain or issues
• Health lifestyle (sleep, diet, nutrition, exercise)
• Mental health
• Sexual health and contraception
• Sexuality and gender identity
• Body image
• Scripts

If you would like to know more, please contact Jane Osborne in our Wellbeing Team.

Jane can either be reached by contacting the school office, or via email at jane.osborne@education.vic.gov.au

Jane Osborne

Newcomb Secondary College

Student Wellbeing & Engagement

Ph: 5248 1400 | 

E: Jane.Osborne@education.vic.gov.au

Welcome!

This health content is brought to you by Doctors in Secondary School.

Please find the selected resources from your healthcare team below. These resources offer a trusted source of relevant health information. We hope you find them helpful and informative.

This week's focus is on providing tips for starting a new job - for young people.

Everybody knows first impressions count, and when you begin work you have an excellent – but also vital - window of opportunity. It's a chance to start off on the right foot and build from there.

To learn more, visit the webpage by, clicking here.

Please click on the link below or scan the QR code to access the information sheets.

COGG 2024 Term 2 Regional Parenting Calendar

The After School Homework Club is in Room B2 every day except Thursdays. Students are welcome to attend to catch up on classwork, complete homework, receive individual tutoring or to work with classmates on a group project. They may attend for 15 minutes to sort out just one problem or they may attend right up to 5pm to accomplish a greater amount of learning. Those who attend will be awarded a positive learning chronicle (with reward token) and will be offered food. 

Mr Curnick

On the 14th of May the 2024 Intermediate Concert Band which is made up of Year 8 students went on a trip to the Belmont Community Health Center for our first out of school performance. I’m very proud of how well the band represented Newcomb Secondary College. The band performed very well and left the audience asking when we will be coming back! The songs we played were Woodpecker Convention, Squonk Blues, Curious Cobbler, Moonlight Bliss, The Fire's Fury, Star Wars (in honour of Star Wars Day on May the 4th), Blue Sky Rock, Blizzard Blues and Cango Caves. Afterwards the lovely people at Barwon Health served us some really good food and lollies to thank us for our performance. On behalf of the band thank you to Mr Crowther, Ms Baker-Goldsmith and Mrs Bourke for organising this great performance opportunity for the band, we had a lot of fun.

Brodie Cardigan 73 ( Intermediate Concert Band Captain) 

It may have rained on the day but there were plenty of rainbows and smiles on the faces of our students who came to celebrate IDAHOBIT Day with lunchtime activities in the Learning Resource Centre. Internationally celebrated on May 17th every year, IDAHOBIT Day aims to raise awareness of inclusion and standing out against LGBTQIA+ discrimination. Students made their own badges using the Newcomb Secondary College badge maker with Ms Rusiniak and Ms Dewar or used the big badgemaking equipment with Ms Naomi Ford from Newcomb Library who made a special visit! Other students made bookmarks with Ms Allinson, Ms Davis and Miss Marshall and enjoyed the festival feeling. Students heartily enjoyed the colourful fairy bread and bowls of rainbow lollies too! We are a welcoming school and celebrate diversity in our midst every day! 

We’re excited to let you know that entries for the 2024 Insight Creative Writing Competition are OPEN. If we have any budding writers from Years 7–12 at our school, please enter! We’d love to see your work.

Here is a quick reminder of the guidelines Insight have made to help students get even more creative with their entries.

• All year levels have an upper limit of 1400 words. There is no minimum word limit.
• We accept other creative writing forms in addition to short stories, including poems, scripts and more.
• This year’s theme (Beauty in the unknown) is optional, giving entrants the freedom to write about anything that inspires them.

To download the submission form and view all conditions of entry, please click below.

DOWNLOAD CONDITIONS OF ENTRY AND SUBMISSION FORM

COMPETITION KEY DATES

Entries open: 18 March 2024
Entries close: 1 September 2024
Longlist announcement: 18 October 2024
Shortlist announcement: 1 November 2024
Awards ceremony: TBA

We’re looking forward to hearing about your stories soon! Good Luck!

Here are some more contact details for the Insight Team

INSIGHT PUBLICATIONS

3/350 Charman Road, Cheltenham 3192 VIC AUSTRALIA

p. +61 3 8571 4950 | m. 0413 131 842 | w. www.insightpublications.com.au

We know access to high-speed broadband is a necessity in the 21^st Century. Yet sadly many families and school students are still unable to access the internet at home and that this can place students at a significant disadvantage.

The Albanese Government is providing up to 30,000 families with free broadband for one year, as part of their plan for a better National Broadband Network (NBN). Already, 1,000 families now have home internet thanks to the School Student Broadband Initiative.

This helps ensure that students can reach their full potential, by helping them to stay connected at home so they don’t fall behind.

To check your eligibility please refer to the contact details below:

We are very fortunate to have strong links with our neighbouring Geelong Regional Library Corporation branch at Newcomb. The Children's and Youth Services Librarian, Ms Laura Farrington, joins us fortnightly to run engaging and interactive sessions promoting genres and doing related craft activities! Laura has a merry band of students who regularly come to her sessions and we invite other students to join us in the school library at 1 p.m. on the dates below! Special activities happen at Easter, Halloween and Christmas with the odd Literature Trivia game throughout the year to spice things up. We also have Ms Naomi Ford from Newcomb Library to run the Lunchtime sessions as well this term, the students are really adoring the opportunity to discuss their favourite Manga reads and to vote on some new Manga titles for the school library!

This term we have a focus on Manga and Anime.

Manga VS Anime theme:  4 sessions this term

05/06 – Chibi Paper Craft

19/06 – Manga Trivia: Manga VS Anime

This year Newcomb Secondary College students are participating in the Children's Book Council of Australia's Shadow Judging program with 2 groups casting their votes on the best Australian books published in 2023. We are focussing on 2 categories 'Older Readers fiction' and 'Picture books' which are picture books for older readers. Our Year 7 students, students in Ms Wray's Year 9/10 Creative Writing elective unit and some keen Senior Year 10 and 11 students will experience the 6 shortlisted books in the 2 categories, consider the official judging criteria and cast their votes for which books they believe should win. 

Each group will record their thoughts on each book in special booklets, make creative responses based on their favourite shortlisted books (poems, sculptures, fanfiction for example) and we will have celebrations on the day that the votes come out from the CBCA (Term 3). We are looking forward to exhibiting the creative responses at school. Our Australian authors and illustrators are greatly supported by these annual competitions and the Students Choice awards are very important. For further information check out the Children's Book Council of Australia's Website about Shadow Judging. Students will share their creative responses and feedback about the books as they go (on this library page of the Newcomb Secondary College newsletter)!

CBCA Sun Project: Shadow Judging – Young voices welcome here