Tuesday was another tough day for our community as we farewelled our much-loved friend, colleague and teacher, Mr Jeff Simpson (Simmo). Sr Marie Davey did a beautiful job facilitating the funeral, as did Gerard Macklin speaking on behalf of Simmo's Tech colleagues and David Boadle reading a prayer and poem. I sincerely thank families for their support in accompanying their young person to the funeral. It was a lovely sign of support from both Damascus students and staff.
There has been an outpouring of support from families, past students, and other Colleges in our region for Jeff, and we truly appreciate and acknowledge this. Plans are in place to support the Systems Engineering classes moving forward.
We welcome a number of new staff to coincide with the new semester. Ashleigh Brown, Isabelle Miller and Tamzin Perkins all return from Parental Leave. We also welcome Liam Grunwaldt, who will be starting with us in the ICT Services department today as ICT Specialist Systems Administrator. Liam was a former student of Damascus College.
Next Tuesday, 14th June, is a student-free day to support staff in their preparation for the new semester. The College office will be open on Tuesday.
We anticipate that the timetable for the new semester will be on SIMON for students from Friday afternoon. Please encourage your student/s to log into SIMON and check that their PE days have not changed. Pathways and elective subjects will change over Monday, and it will be important for students to note these changes. Students changing electives or Year 7 students changing their pathways subjects are encouraged to bring along the resources for those subjects. For example, if your student has textiles in the second half of the year and they have kept their textiles kit at home early in the year, now would be the right time to send it along. VCE and VCAL students will make the transition into Unit 2/4 on Monday. I acknowledge the enormous amount of work that goes into our timetabling by Melissa McLachlan, supported by Ashwin Pillai, Alysoun Smalley, the Human Resources team and the Learning Area Leaders.
It is an exciting time for Year 10 students next week as they move into specific pathways to support their movement into VCE or VCAL. This is a new initiative in its second year for the College, and we hope it will enable students a more thorough preparation for their final years.
Can I continue to implore families that if your young person is not well, please keep your student/students home until they are symptom-free – COVID or the flu - for everyone's safety. Also, to assist with curbing infection, we encourage our students to wear a mask, and we would welcome the assistance from families in supporting this. Whilst it is not a requirement, it certainly is an encouragement to keep our community safe
This week we have opened tickets to the College production of Clue. Clue is a hilarious farce-meets-murder mystery; based on the iconic 1985 Paramount movie, which was inspired by the classic board game Cluedo. It is sure to be a fantastic production showcasing the skills and talents of our Performing Arts students and runs from the 20th to 23rd of July.
Tickets are available at: https://www.trybooking.com/BZHFR
We keep Min (Staff) and Michael (Past Board Chair) Myers in our thoughts and prayers on the passing of Michael's Sister, Mary Anne Maylor. Mary Anne attended Sacred Heart College and was in the first year of students at St. Martins in the Pines. May she rest in peace.
We remember Brendan and Ann Bawden (staff) and their family in our thoughts and prayers on the passing of Brendan’s Mum last week and we also remember Brooke Sheedy (Year 11) and their family on the passing her mum this week. May they rest in peace.
Until next week…
Chris