I hope that members of the Damascus community got to enjoy some sunshine over the past few days. It has been lovely to have families engaging with our Teacher Advisors and taking the time to continue to extend the partnerships between our College and each student’s home. Never has this partnership been more important than in 2020, when our young people need school and home to be collaborating strongly on their best interests. Teacher Advisor interviews continue tonight and tomorrow, and if for some reason, you have not made an appointment if you contact the office, Alecia Gason will facilitate a conversation with your TA.

We had an awesome day with our 2020 graduates last Friday as they completed their last day of classes. The willingness of these senior students to work with their school community reflected the “growing up” that they have had to do in 2020. I extend my appreciation to the families of our Year 12 students for your support to help them celebrate appropriately and respectfully with our community. Those students undertaking exams commence next Tuesday, 10th November with the English exam in the Damascus Events Centre and we keep these students in our prayers as they prepare. Our VCAL and non- scored VCE students are busy following up employment and further training opportunities for the future, and we pray for them too.

With such a short week underway, our Year 9 students are preparing for their camp to take place next week. Students in Core groups 1-4 will head off to Anglesea from Monday to Wednesday, and then Core groups 5–8 will head off from Wednesday to Friday. I thank Camps Coordinator, Tamzin Perkins and Assistant Principal of Student Wellbeing, Andrew Robertson, for their preparation for this exciting opportunity. If families have any queries or concerns regarding the camp, please direct them to Tamzin.

Year 10 students will go out to Camp Adekate at Creswick next Monday or Tuesday for an introduction to the Christian Personal Development Award (CPDA) through their retreat day. Core groups 2, 3, 4 & 8 will go out on Monday and Core groups 1, 5, 6 & 7 will go out Tuesday.

Families of Year 11 VCE students should have received correspondence pertaining to the Year 11 exam schedule which begins from next Wednesday 11th November. The correspondence outlines the exam schedule and onsite study supervision available. Year 11 VCAL students will continue classes as normal.

Our rowers compete at their first regatta this Saturday on Lake Wendouree. In normal times I would be encouraging our community to come along to support, but under the existing guidelines for junior sport only the necessary adults to conduct the event safely can attend. We wish our rowers well this weekend, particularly those for whom it will be their first race experience. The event will be live-streamed to support families’ engagement.

There have been a number of recognitions for students of Science this week. I congratulate Mia Lepair on her Certificate of Distinction within the 2020 Australian Science Olympiad BiologyExam. I also congratulate Thomas McKay on achieving a place in the 2021 National Youth Science Forum. Grace Young Harvey was also awarded the Year 12 Notre Dame University Science Prize at the final assembly on Friday. I congratulate all students who engaged with these opportunities, a fuller list of other Australian Science Olympiad award winners can be found here.

It is lovely to be able to talk about camps, retreats, subject achievements, junior sport, … some things that are much more normal in the newsletter in 2020!!

The College Board, with the support of the Finance, Facilities & Risk subcommittee and the Leadership Team have determined that there will be zero percent growth to school fees in 2021 to recognise the ongoing pressure that the pandemic places on families. Families will still experience the natural increase in costs as a result of young people moving up through the year levels, but there is no indexing of the fees for 2021. The Damascus College Board, Leadership team and staff are acutely aware of the pressure families are under and encourage those who are finding it difficult to please talk with us. While zero percent fee growth does have implications for the College, we are in a fortunate position of growing enrolments, and we believe we can appropriately balance our costs to provide continued support to families in their time of need.

In our prayers this week we remember Fr Adrian McInerney, founding Governor of Damascus College, who lost his loved brother Tony and Jesse Carroll (Year 7) and his family on the loss of their beloved father and grandfather. In the Catholic tradition, Sunday marked the Feast of All Souls and Monday the Feast day of All Saints, and we pray for holy souls with the intercession of the saints for all those who grieve, particularly Fr Adrian and his family and Jesse and his family at this time.

We also send out a prayer of joy to staff member Catherine Newman and her partner Vinnie on the safe arrival of daughter Maya on Monday.

Until next week.