Our building works are still on track despite the best efforts of the weather to derail the program. The three buildings are on track to reach practical completion in December, which should give us enough time to move in and prepare for them to be open in January for classes in the new year. While there have been a large number of delays due to supply chain issues, worker shortages and the weather, we are still within the expected completion dates for the project.
The recent heavy rain has delayed a lot of landscaping and concrete works around the buildings, but I would expect this to be complete by December.
The grass on the oval is finally beginning to take root effectively and will need a top dressing before being handed over to us potentially later in term 4 (depending on the weather).
It is very exciting to see this project take shape around us begin to see the impact that this great facility will have on our community.
AugustOctober
Rescheduled Year 8 Camp
Year 8 families will be excited to hear that our camp has been rescheduled after its cancellation at the end of last term. Mr Devlin has secured a new date and location – with a broader range of activities for students to complete.
Students will depart for Camp Rumbug on Monday the 28th November at 9.15am and return at 3pm on Wednesday the 30th November. I’d encourage all Year 8 families to log into Compass and secure their place for this free camp.
We have welcomed a number of new staff this term and have also hired a range of staff for 2023
.
This term we Welcomed, Sandra Kilpatrick – Administration and Finance, Michelle Veljanovski – Administration and Human Resources and Colin Daisley as our Facilities Manager. Last term we also welcomed Melissa Harrison – Enrolments and First Aide Officer and Kulwinder Kaur to our Classroom Aide staff.
We also welcomed Callum McIlfatrick to our teaching staff who joins us as part of the Nexus program, as well as Noelle Wielowieyski and Reagan Smith.
For 2023 we have appointed the following teaching staff so far:
Applied Computing
Ken Sinderberry
Physics Science Teacher
Peter Jurasek
English Humanities
Sarah Stone
Mathematics Science
Jessica Beach
Mathematics Science
Alison Eslake
Mathematics Science
Samuel Haberman
Chinese Humanities
Carissa Tan
Design Tech Visual Comm
Noah Johnstone
Science Chemistry
Isabella Ganino
VCE Music
Helen Jensen
Senior English Literature
Alex Connor
Leading Teacher – Multi Tiered
Natalie Conboy
I’m sure you’ll join me in welcoming them all to our community.
Events This Term
All of our year levels have a number of events, excursions and incursions happening this term. I would encourage all families to regularly check their Compass feed to grant permission, so that their child doesn’t miss out on these activities.
If you have any questions regarding the use of Compass, please contact our office for support.
Polling Booth
The Victorian State Election will be held on Saturday 26 November. Once again our school will be used as a polling booth to assist community members to vote.
Noone – Uniform Shop opening in Craigieburn
You may have heard that Noone – our exclusive uniform supplier – has now opened a Craigieburn store, in addition to their Niddrie store and online services. This is great news for our local community.
The dental crew from Smile Squad have been seeing students since the start of term and the treatment van has now been parked at the school. The team have been seeing many of our students who signed up for the free dental service.
Absences From School
Just a reminder that all student absences need to be informed either through Compass or with Ms Kylie Dempster in the coordinators office.
Don’t forget that you can check your child’s attendance at any time on Compass. One of the most useful tables is the following. The class % column is the most important to see how much attendance your child has successfully completed.
Anything less than 90% is not ideal, and less than 85% is considered worrying. Given that students may be away from school at any time through illness or something else out of their control, it is crucial that they are at school, in class, every single minute possible throughout each and every school day.
Lateness
Thank you to parents, guardians and students that have been making an extra effort over the past few weeks, especially with roadworks going on to ensure that students are on time to school, with enough time to get to their locker, check their subjects, get their books and line up at their classroom at 8:45, ready for an 8:50 start to Mentor Group.
During the day we have already noticed a change in student responsiveness to the bell, with students taking a lot less time to get to class. If this continues, we’ll be able to extend recess and lunchtime by an extra 2 minutes each, giving students more time outside.
Students that haven’t been able to improve their lateness have spent time after school. We would prefer students just get to class on time.
For regular updates and information on the ongoing roadworks and road closures in Craigieburn please click on the following link: https://bigbuild.vic.gov.au/
Spring Preparedness
Just a reminder as we head into a very wet season that families should be doing in regards to their homes. With significant rainfall and the upcoming summer season homes should be preparing by cleaning gutters and debris from around homes and have a plan in case of fires. A wet season means that there is more growth!
Some areas around Craigieburn are considered grassfire areas and every household should have a known plan in case of emergencies. Victoria has also announced a new fire danger rating system that everyone should be aware of. For more information visit https://www.ses.vic.gov.au/ and https://www.cfa.vic.gov.au/
All students are given a Student Identity Card at the beginning of each year. These cards allow students to sign on and out of the school, borrow library books, photocopy, access the student toilets and are a form of student identification for Myki cards etc.
It is extremely important that students carry these cards on them when they attend school and are responsible for them. If your child misplaces their card or damages it, a replacement card must be purchased. Parents can purchase a new card via their Compass for $10.
Please see attached instruction sheet as to how to order a new card on Compass.
Elevation Secondary College has secured a new free camp for all year 8 students as part of the government’s Positive start response to COVID. The Camp at the end of Term 3 had to be cancelled due to staff shortages at the camp.
As this is a different camp with a different date, the camp is open to all year 8 students and consent will need to be provided again to attend. This camp will provide students with opportunities to participate in a range of different activities to develop personally and socially in a setting outside of school as they have had limited opportunities in the past few years. Students will participate in activities such as low ropes course, leadership activities, giant swing and much more.
Please see the event on Compass for further details.
On Wednesday October 26th our Year 8students travelled to the Docklands to participate in two activities which are based on Health/Physical Education and Humanities.
In Health and Physical Education students learnt about the great outdoors and participated in ice skating for the activity.
In Humanities students learnt about urbanisation. As part of the excursion students explored the Docklands area and completed a fieldwork task.
Digital Thumbprint 7-9
Year 7 and 8 students have participated in a cyberbullying and respectful relationships information session run by Optus. Students explored the importance of respectful relationships online through compelling scenarios, and were asked to consider their impact when interacting online.
Students enjoyed the hands on tasks and made them consider how safe their own usage was. Our students really took in the information and maybe they have spoken to you about how safe your passwords are and what information to be careful about sharing online!
Year 9 students will have their Digital Thumbprint Session coming up on the 2nd November.
Elevation is Getting School Houses for 2023!
All students are getting opportunities to select what Elevations house names will be for the school in 2023. All year groups are currently taking part in personal development sessions to give their input on a future school house system by nominating ideas on what or who our house could be named in 2023.
The house names that the students put forward and select will be a long lasting feature and legacy the current students will forever have on Elevation Secondary College.
Aspire Shop Entry Tickets
he Aspire shop is a way to reward students that have been demonstrating exceptional behaviors in relation to our school values of Aim High, Work Hard and Be Good.
There are now two ways students can earn a Aspire Shop Entry Ticket to spend their Aspire Points!
How it works:
Students earn Aspire points for their hard work
All Aspire points go into the Mentor Group Aspire Raffle drawn every fortnight
Winner is randomly selected and receive an Aspire Shop Entry Ticket
A second ticket is also drawn – A Mentor Group Teacher Ticket. This is awarded to the student that has achieved the best Aspire entry for the fortnight, to recognise amazing efforts that students are showing.
Students that receive an Aspire Shop Entry Ticket can then access the Aspire Shop and spend the Aspire Points that have earned through the year to purchase items.
Congratulations to students that have already received an Aspire Shop Entry Ticket and to the students that have already made their first purchases!
For everyone else, the more Aspire Points that you earn the more likely you are to get drawn and the more Aspire Points you have to spend at the Aspire Shop!
City School
Year 9 students will have the opportunity to take part in a number of excursions in the CBD and nearby areas from the 13th-15th December, in Week 11. Excursions will include the Eureka Skydeck, Hard Rock Climbing and Ice Skating, as well as various other activities. Students will need to ensure they have a fully loaded Myki card for the three days they take part, as they will be getting into the city and to their excursions using public transport.
On the first day, students will travel into the city with their mentor group teacher (or another classes mentor group teacher) and need to travel to their excursions with their teacher – on this day, it is recommended that they bring a packed lunch. They will travel back to Craigieburn station with their teacher. On the second day, they will have some opportunities to move more independently. .On the third day, they will take part in an afternoon activity that involves navigating the CBD in small groups and will be dismissed from a station in the central grid.This will build their confidence and independence throughout the week.
If you would like your child to attend, please respond on Compass and pay the $75 to cover the excursions by 30/11/2022.
Cyber Safety
Elevation Secondary College is committed to ensuring our students are having safe experiences learning and socialising online. Part of being safe online is knowing how to notice unsafe or potentially risky behaviour, and report any concerns. The Internet can be a fun place to learn and socialise but risks do exist, and most problems online can be prevented through education and conversation with your children at home and at school.
We encourage parents to have open and ongoing discussions with their children about their Internet use. When students commence enrolment at Elevation Secondary College, All students and their parent or carer sign an agreement stating that they will abide by Internet safety laws and school rules when using their device for school purposes. We encourage families to be aware of the information and resources available to parents and young people which support safe internet use.
Reporting unsafe internet use is an important part of keeping our young people safe online. E-safety Commissioner have a function for reporting abuse or concerning material and can be accessed here; https://www.esafety.gov.au/report
National Nutrition Week
Elevation’s first Breakfast Club took place on Friday, week 3 of term and was a big success with staff and students supporting this wonderful initiative. The School Breakfast Club program is supported by Foodbank Australia, and will run one morning a week on Fridays. All students are welcome to drop by from 8.20am to enjoy a nourishing breakfast to start the school day well.
At Elevation we recognise that nutrition plays an important role in a student’s ability to learn and grow to their potential. We encourage students to eat breakfast and drink water daily, and bring water and snacks to school each day, as these steps are especially important in helping students feel ready to learn and able to manage the demands of the school day.
Our school’s first breakfast club has coincided with National Nutrition Week, 16-23 October, supported by https://nutritionaustralia.org/ and this year’s theme is “Try for 5” which encourages Australians to eat their 5 serves of Veggies daily!
Please take some time to talk with your children about the importance of eating well and fueling their body with a variety of food groups. This link from Nutrition Australia could be a great visual guide to support the conversation around encouraging young people to eat a variety of food groups, every day. Teenagers and adults are recommended to eat at least 2 serves of fruit, and 5 serves of vegetables daily. Nutrition Australia also have some breakfast ideas that you and your child can make at home to encourage them to eat a nourishing breakfast which can help them fuel their bodies for a big day ahead;
We would also like to thank all the students who participated in the In League In Harmony program that ran in Term 3. Ten of our year 9 students participated in this personal development program delivered by the NRL’s Community Harmony and Inclusion team.
The program involved 6 weekly lessons and one morning of Rugby games, all focusing on learning how respect, teamwork, inclusion and leadership can empower our students to build their skills to promote harmony within their school community. Students and staff involved all reported back that this was a valuable and meaningful experience, and we all had fun picking up some NRL ball skills!
In Year 9 Science, students have been learning about the Central Nervous System and its major components, the Brain and Spinal Cord. This included explicit teaching of the structures present in the human brain and their associated functions. Throughout week 3 of this term, students worked in small groups to identify the hemispheres, brain stem, cerebellum and four lobes of a sheep’s brain.
The Year 9 students further explored the brain by conducting a dissection. This experience allowed our students to further develop their understanding of the different structures and functions of the brain. Studies suggest using a combination of strategies including multiple exposures to content and linking theoretical knowledge to hands-on activities aids students in solidifying their learning.
The Year 9 English classes in term 3 saw students writing well structured, analytical essays about Randa Abdel-Fattah’s novel ‘When Michael Met Mina’. We have built the foundation of these important writing skills throughout Year 7 and 8 English and have been excited to see all of those components brought together for our Year 9 students.
As a result, the English students in year 9 have produced outstanding work – setting them up for senior high school. The results on average were significantly improved and the skills demonstrated were comprehensive.
Aim High, Work Hard, Be Good
This year, Elevation Secondary College teachers are recording learning behaviours every fortnight. These measures are available under the REPORTING tab on compass.
Each subject is listed and each bar graph represents a different learning behaviour. Orange is for Aim High, blue is Work Hard, Grey is Be Good.
At the bottom of this page is a graph that charts the overall level of the students’ learning behaviour, across all subjects, and across all three behaviours.
Combined – this forms a powerful tool for students, carers and teachers to have conversations about a student’s progress, effort and behaviour in the classroom.
AMC
At the beginning of August, 39 students represented our school in the Australian Mathematics Competition (AMC). The AMC is an engaging 30-problem competition that challenges students’ mathematical and problem-solving skills. The questions are designed each year by Australia’s leading educators and academics. Students in the Logic Extension class built their problem-solving resilience, confidence, and creative thinking during Semester One.
Thank you to Ms Bhatt, Ms Farley and Ms Hu for their efforts in preparing our students for the competition. Students are encouraged to keep an eye out for the Lunchtime Club and Problem of the Week next year to keep Aiming High and developing their mathematics skills!
Aarav Dhingra (8G) and Akshiv Mittal (7E) for receiving a Distinction certificate. Special mentions to students who received a Credit: Dominic Solaka (8A), Morientes Toma (8B), Nadeen Antwan (8E), Orion Peterson (7C), Zyon David (7C), Sathuya Varatharajah (7C), Elaf Al Ali (7E), Noah Bottas (7E), Harroop Kaur (7E), Anika Thangaokar (7E) and Agampreet Kaur (7F).
Library News
On Monday the 24th, the latest upgrade to the library was installed. Our new non-fiction shelving will provide students with curriculum-based books of interest and more. However, as with the fiction section, we will be doing things a little differently. We are keen to increase the discoverability and relevance of our non-fiction collection, and to do this we are adapting from what is known as ‘the bookstore model’. The bookstore model sees the outdated Dewey Decimal System of organisation altered to one where the collection is organised by topics – much like in your local bookstore.
New Library Shelving
So much of the information we consume now is gathered via the internet. Whether it is YouTube, Wikipedia, news websites or encyclopedias, general and specific information is now packaged on the web in aesthetically-pleasing, easily accessible and regularly updated formats. General overviews are often better explored through these digital, web-based platforms, as once a general understanding is obtained, topics can be further understood on a detailed level by clicking through links and accessing recommended sites for further reading. General overviews in the physical form of books are often surface deep and are static sources with information which, while relevant to the time it was published, may quickly become outdated in form or content. In this paradigm, librarians may find their physical non-fiction collections growing irrelevant or dusty with under-use.
The bookstore model offers an answer to both these problems. By changing the purpose of the non-fiction collection, to be more specific and relevant, and arranged by topic, students will have access to high-quality, well-produced books that will enhance their understanding of the curriculum and the world at large. Our new collection will include more specific topic areas such as Anti-Racism, but also broader topic areas such as Philosophy & Politics within which we will collect books of high quality that provide more comprehensive information with deeper analysis and commentary. Within the topic areas, the books will still be organised by Dewey Decimal, so that students can become familiar with it because however problematic it may be, Dewey Decimal continues to be the system of choice for most Australian libraries, including university libraries.
Reminders
Click here for a reminder of how to access the library website, in order to search the catalogue and explore the LibPaths.
Board Games Club is on Mondays and Wednesdays in the library. If you have any suggestions of board games we should get for next year, please email ellen.stephens@elevationsc.vic.edu.au
Finally, if you borrowed before the holidays and have not renewed your loan, your book is overdue! Please drop it in the return chute outside the library on you way into school.
Check your emails for overdue notices and reservation reminders.
Bookmark Competition
Congratulations to Lithusha Siriwardana (8G), the winner of the inaugural Book Week Bookmark Design Competition. Students were ask to create a design that responded to the prompt ‘Dreaming with Eyes Open’. Arts and Technology Domain Leader Mr Dean James judged our final winners, and of Lithusha’s design, he said:
“Lithusha created an artwork that clearly articulated the theme of ‘Dreaming with Eyes Open’. A clever and colourful showcase that shows one tiger’s eye, enclosed within the wild with leaves and trees, while the moon is fully exposed. A mixture of dominant and leading colours including purples, greens and yellows, that provide a clear focus on the one eye being open while leaving questions about the other eye. Whether it is sleeping or not?”
The runners up were Avi Kale (7E) and Shannon Kaur (9A):
From left to right: Lithusha Siriwardana, Shannon Kaur and Avi Kale
Avi Kale (7E): “Well Done to Avi as a runner up on their representation of a variety of well-known computer arcade games. This student was able to include various drawings from the likes of Super Mario Bros, Pacman and Pokemon. These associated meanings could possibly mean about the over-stimulation of how games could have an effect on being in a dream-like world, full of make-believe.”
Shannon Kaur (9A): “Well Done to Shannon as a runner up on her representation of having one eye open surrounded by how easy it is to dream of a world, based on literature. This drawing featured wonderful ways in which everyday audiences could immerse themselves into books they read that allow their eyes to drift into a world full of knowledge and to simply, float away, while reading amazing stories.”
Congratulations again to all our winners, and thanks to all participants and Mr James. Professionally printed bookmarks featuring the three winning designs will be available from the library in the coming weeks.
As you are aware Noone, our uniform provider, have been operating a small shop from the College every Thursday to provide a convenient service for our families.
The uniform will no longer operate at the College as Noone have leased a new store right here in Craigieburn Junction shopping precinct and have offically opened their door to for business.
The new store is located at: Shop A2-E 420-440 Craigieburn Rd, Craigieburn 3064 Store located on Crn Craigieburn Rd and Aitken Blvd next to Carpet Call in the Shopping Precinct.
All students are welcome to drop by from 8.20am to enjoy a nourishing breakfast to start the school day well.
Bake Sale
In recognition of RUOK Day, our SRC students organised a bake sale on September 8th to raise money for Headspace. The students did a great job organising the bake sale and even sold out after 15 minutes raising over $300.
Fantasic effort. Well done!
Sustainable School Shop
Any Parents/Guardians who are looking to buy or sell their second-hand uniforms or text books please visit the Sustainable Schools website to list or purchase items: http://www.sustainableschoolshop.com.au
So far the results have been very good and we encourage families to take advantage of this method of buying and selling second-hand items.
