Newsletter- Term 2 Week 3 2024

ANZAC Day Commemorative Ceremony

Can I start this Newsletter piece by acknowledging the manner for which students participated in the college ANZAC Day commemorative ceremony assembly last Wednesday. Run by our wonderful school captain and vice-captain, Phoebe Cobb, and Wren Collins, it was very pleasing to see the respect shown for those who served our country by students throughout the entire ceremony.

Outdoor Education Camp

This week our Year 9 & 10 Outdoor Education students embark on a three-day bushwalk adventure. The adventure will see students cover the 30km+ by foot of The Great Ocean Road Trail. Students will stop at various lookouts and camp sites between Johanna and Cape Otway’s and will carry all their clothing, food and camping supplies via a supplied hiking pack- self-sufficient participants! What an amazing opportunity. Enjoy, and we look forward to hearing all about it when you return on Friday.

Congratulations Sue Mac!

For many in our community, whenever Newcomb Secondary College is raised in conversation, I am often asked about one teacher, and one teacher only. That being Sue McArthur. Last week Sue reached an amazing milestone in her professional career. Sue celebrated thirty-five years in education. A fantastic achievement. Such a duration in education, one that commenced at Newcomb Secondary in 1989, highlights the commitment Sue has for supporting students and supporting this community. As you could imagine, many stories emanate from Sue's experiences throughout her professional journey and feature not only this current generation of student, but equally generations past- that being our current students’ parents and carers for whom Sue also taught back in the day. To try and put her impact on many thousands of students into words just does not do her contribution justice, but what is not lost on me, nor Sue is the privilege we hold as educators just being part of the journey and lives of so many within our community. Life-long contributions, life-long connections.

Congratulations Sue on all that you have achieved over the thirty-five years in education, and a big thank you for all that you have done for, and contributed to, Newcomb Secondary College and to our wonderful community.

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! I hope that you had a great Easter break.

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.

Welcome to Ms Noor Al-Assafi who has shared a little about herself for our Newcomb Secondary College Community!

I am a social worker and have just finished my grad year with Barwon Health, where I was a social worker at the Swanston Centre. I have been in the mental health field for a few years now and worked in out of home care in a residential home for two years whilst I completed my degree. Throughout my time in residential care and the Swanston Centre, I developed a love for therapeutic group facilitation and using creative ways to address peoples' diverse mental health needs. I was even able to pioneer a therapeutic group program that introduced patients to henna art as an alternative to self-harm, and have conducted formal clinical research on this.

I like to keep my practice casual and fun, and love working with young people!

When I'm not working, you'll find me getting messy in my pottery studio making some ceramic pieces, practicing my henna art skills, reading a good book while YouTube '12 hour fireplace sounds' plays in the background, working on some activism actions close to my heart, or playing with my 2 cats- Amira and Fattoush.

I am very excited to be the new social worker on the wellbeing team at Newcomb Secondary College, I hope to meet and work alongside as many staff and students as possible during my time here 🙂.

Noor Al-Assafi

Social Worker

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 | M: 0409 960 129

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.

For further discussions about this topic, please contact the DiSS GP and Nurse at your school.

Please remember that the information provided is not a substitute for diagnosis, treatment or medical advice by your health care professional. If you have any concerns about your health, visit your health professional or, in an emergency, call 000 (Australian residents).

This week's topic is: Depression in adolescence and young people.

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

https://goshare.realtimehealth...

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

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. 

This term we have a focus on Manga and Anime.

Manga VS Anime theme:  4 sessions this term

24/04 – Manga Chat, Rank your Favourite Manga,

08/05 – Manga Drawing

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 7s and students in Ms Wray's Creative Writing elective unit will experience the 6 shortlisted books in the 2 categories, consider the official judging criteria and cast their votes for which books they feel should win. Each group will make creative responses to 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