Yesterday and today have felt much more as Damascus College should, with the majority of students back onsite except our Year 10’s, and we look forward to welcoming them tomorrow. It has been fantastic to see our young people and have them engage in regular school life. I have also enjoyed the opportunity to work with our Year 12’s as they creatively plan for their final days here at school.

The presence of face masks and social distancing are stark reminders of the time in which we live, but the resilience of the Damascus community members in their positivity at being back together has been heart warning. I thank families for your enormous efforts throughout this current period of remote learning and for having students appropriately attired and supported to return to school this week. I congratulate our amazing students and staff on the spirit with which they have embraced the return to onsite learning.

As families, it is important that we continue to remember the vulnerability that may come with returning to school again this year. Coming back, and concentrating on personal relationships and learning, requires the building up again of our social/emotional stamina. Be prepared for young people to display different expressions of fatigue as they readjust to life back at school, particularly those year levels which will come and go over the next fortnight. As parents, it is very easy for us to respond to the presenting behaviour of adolescents but try to dig deeper (I am much better at giving this advice than practising it!). If we can display calm and reinforce our love and affection as a constant to counter the other changes taking place in their lives, we will provide valuable support in another time of change. Remember also that the Damascus staff team are here to help, and if your young person is finding the return to school difficult, please talk to us, and we will see if we can make this current change easier.

Our amazing Year 12 cohort now enter a very important time in their final year of school and in their lives. This is a time of significant pressure for them in a challenging year. Their teachers have worked tirelessly to ensure constant support, and students have responded to this well.

In their final month as students attending our College, let us all keep them in our daily prayer. I pray that they find the calmness and confidence to focus on completing their VCE exam preparation and VCAL concluding requirements and that their resilience and strength will support them to achieve that which they are capable of. I pray that their Year 12 experience will be the pathway to their desired future and that it will continue to help them grow, achieve and serve. I pray that each of them will impact our society for the better, and they find a genuine vocation within it.

The Year 12 students have been working hard on their final assembly, which will be conducted remotely next Wednesday afternoon, 20^th October. Families of Year 12’s will receive communication, including details of this remote event over the coming days.

With staff, our Leadership Team has been revising our calendar for the rest of the year, and I will communicate some of those changes next week.

For those families seeking a 2023 enrolment at Damascus College, the second and final of our information evenings will take place next Tuesday, 19th October, from 6:30pm. More information can be found here.

Alongside our prayers for our final year students, we also pray for all those impacted by the illness and social isolation caused by COVID-19 across our nation and world.

It is great to be welcoming students back onsite! Until next week…

MATT