A big welcome back to Term 3.

I trust the holidays have provided you and your children with some much needed rest, relaxation and family time. I always appreciate the time during the holidays to have a change of routine and to re-connect with important people in my life, be it, family or friends, who I find it difficult to find time for, during the busy school term.

I have some exciting news to share, our Head of Year 7, Mr Berrell has been successful in obtaining a Head of Department position at our College for the remainder of the year. We are currently going through a recruitment process to finalise who the new Year 7 Head of Year will be. Once I have this information, I will share this with you. We are lucky however, that Mr Berrell, as the SWEL [Student Wellbeing Engagement and Learning] HoD will continue to work with our Year 7s, but in a somewhat different capacity. I would like to take the opportunity to congratulate him and to thank him for his outstanding work during Semester 1 as the Head of Year 7.

Our Year 7s have come back and jumped straight into learning. We were lucky to have been able to meet together for assembly on Monday morning. During this time together, we were able to provide some reminders about uniform, behaviour expectations, attendance and engagement in learning.

Our students have commenced new learning in every subject and will, most likley have rotated to an alternate Arts and Technologies subject or in a small number of cases, will have an opportunity to extend their knowledge and skills in last term's Arts and Technologies subjects.

As I mentioned at the end of last term, student timetable changes are to be expected in high school and this week some of our students have found it challenging to cope with change. This has caused some classes and students to be more unsettled than ususual. I trust, as we move into week two and beyond, that classrooms will become hives of activity, with high levels of student engagement.

We would appreciate your support in reminding your child of the importance of being in the right place, at the right time. Student lateness to school and to class means lost learning time. Our students are blessed, in that we have a break after every lesson which is a perfect opportunity to take a walk, get a drink and access the bathroom, thus making it easier for students to be able to remain in class for each 70 minute lesson.

We would also appreciate your support in ensuring that your child is ready to learn each day - bringing to school a fully charged iPad, books and pencil case as per the stationery list. Students do not access their iPad, all lesson, every lesson. Our teachers provide a range of learning experiences and at times, students will be required to write, draw or complete activities in hard copy, in their subject notebooks. It is therefore important that this equipment is brought to school each day.

Part of being ready to learn is also wearing the correct uniform, on the correct day. Students are required to wear their formal uniform, 4 days a week and their sport uniform one day per week. The exception to this rule, is students who are part of an Excellence Program. These students are permitted to to wear their sport uniform on their Healthy World Practical lesson day [as per whole cohort] and their Excellence shirt with their sports shorts on the Excellence, early morning lesson, day. At all times, students should be wearing all-black shoes - leather with the formal uniform and leather or fabric with sports uniform. Students are also required to have either a plain navy back pack - no branding visible or a Foxwell back pack. Non school branded jumpers are not permitted at school and students may be asked to removed these. Oir uniform shop has a plentiful supply of each of our three school jumpers/jackets.

As usual, if myself or Mr Berrell [for a short while only], can be of any assistance, please feel free to contact us.

Until next time, take care and be kind.

Zana Schroeder

Deputy Principal - Year 7