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

On Thursday June 2, Dylan Hocking (Year 12) represented Damascus College in the BAS Badminton Singles Championships – The Brehaut Family Trophy. Dylan won all of his preliminary matches which meant he finished on top of his pool. He then went on to play the semi final and came away with a win in 3 sets. As expected, the grandfinal match was his toughest for the day, where he was defeated by his SPC opponent. This is still a great achievement for Dylan given he hasn’t played much badminton in the past few years. Well done Dylan!

Preliminary results:

DC 14, 15, 15 defeated BCC 15, 12, 12

DC 15, 15 defeated SPC 11, 8

DC 15, 15 defeated BG 11, 13

Semi final:

DC 21, 15, 21 defeated SPC 19, 21, 6

Grandfinal:

DC 11, 15 lost to SPC 21, 21

As part of Reconciliation Week Damascus College is establishing a Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) which is a formal statement of commitment to reconciliation underpinned by key themes of Relationships, Respect and Opportunities.

A RAP will assist Damascus College to foster an enabling environment that promotes Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ empowerment. By making this commitment Damascus will be guided by a vision where our community truly values, and shows deep respect for and understanding of, the First Peoples of Australia.

On Friday 3 June, as a symbol of our College’s brave and committed effort to make change, we invited all students and staff to gather around the Aboriginal flag and face inward towards it. We asked that we hold our hands in the direction of the flag above our heads. This is symbolic of our central commitment as individuals, families and community on our pathway to Reconciliation, being a central focus and mission for the Damascus community moving forward.

Social and Emotional Learning can help children learn the competencies and skills they need to build and effectively manage their emotions, behaviour and relationships with others.

SEL is made up of the knowledge, attitudes and skills we need to develop a healthy identity, meet goals, feel, demonstrate empathy, foster strong relationships and more.

Please take the time to work through each attachment below outlining the SEL competencies of Confidence, Resilience and Perseverance and how we can all assist in the development for our young people.

SEL CONFIDENCE

SEL RESILIENCE

SEL PERSEVERANCE

Year 9 students s are currently learning about Politics and last week, they presented their election campaign speeches in front of their peers, teachers and head of Humanities Gerard Macklin.

There were some big issues tackled and presented very convincingly. They also learned how to collect a ballot paper and how to vote for their preferred candidates to place in the class ballot box. Votes are now being counted for the class' preferred political party.

Each presenter was well researched and presented extremely well, congratulations to those involved.

Please see following a digital information pack along with information around the Connect and Communicate Webinar that are being offered from Headspace.

Digital Information Pack

Connect and Communicate Webinar

Below are the criteria used to determine a student’s eligibility for the Camps, Sports and Excursions Fund (CSEF).

Criteria 1 – General eligibility

To be eligible for the fund, a parent or carer of a student attending a registered Government or non-government Victorian primary or secondary school must:

• on the first day of Term one
• on the first day of Term two

For the list of eligible financially-means tested cards refer to the CSEF Policy:

https://www2.education.vic.gov.au/pal/camps-sports-and-excursions-fund/policy

Parents who receive a Carer Allowance on behalf of a child, or any other benefit or allowance not income tested by Centrelink, are not eligible for the CSEF unless they also comply with the above.

Criteria 2 - Be of school age and attend school in Victoria

For the purposes of CSEF, students may be eligible for assistance if they attend a Victorian registered primary or secondary school. CSEF is not payable to students attending pre-scho ol, kindergarten, home schooled, or TAFE.

Special Consideration

A special consideration category exists for

• Families on a bridging visa, temporary protection visa, in community detention or are asylum seeker families
• Student’s in temporary out of home care arrangements, including statutory kinship care

For more information, see https://www2.education.vic.gov.au/pal/camps-sports-and-excursions-fund/guidance/eligibility

Eligibility Date

For concession card holders CSEF eligibility will be subject to the parent/carer concession card being validated successfully with Centrelink on the first day of either term one (31 January 2022) or term two (26 April 2022).

PAYMENT AMOUNTS

CSEF payment amount

The CSEF is an annual payment to the school to be used towards camps, sports and/or excursion expenses for the ben efit of the eligible stud ent.

• Primary school student rate: $125 per year.
• Secondary school student rate: $225 per year.

The CSEF is paid directly to your child’s school and will be allocated by the school towards camps, sports and/or excursion costs for your child.

For ungraded students, the rate payable is determined by the student’s date of birth. For more information, see: www.education.vic.gov.au/about/programs/Pages/csef.aspx

HOW TO COMPLETE THE APPLICATION FORM

NOTE: ALL SECTIONS MUST BE COMPLETED BY PARENT/LEGAL GUARDIAN

1. Complete the PARENT/CARER DETAILS section.

Make sure that the Surname, First Name, and Customer Reference Number (CRN) details match those on your concession card. You will also need to provide your concession card to the school.

If you are claiming as a temporary Foster Parent or a Veteran Affairs Pensioner, you will need to provide a copy of documentation confirming your status as a temporary Foster Parent or provide your Veterans Affairs Pensioner Gold card to the school.

If you are seeking special consideration, mark this in the form and provide a copy of the relevant documentation.

1. Complete the STUDENT/S DETAILS section for students at this school.
2. 3. Sign and date the form and return it to the school office as soon as possible. The CSEF program for 2022 closes on the 24 June 2022. Please submit your application prior to 3.00pm on the 24 June.

Forms are available through the front office or online Camps, Sports and Excursions Fund (CSEF) application form (education.vic.gov.au)

This year’s annual performing arts production is Clue on stage, which is a hilarious farce-meets-murder mystery, on 20-23 July in the Valda Ward Auditorium.

Murder and blackmail are on the menu when six mysterious guests assemble at Boddy Manor for a night they’ll never forget. When their host turns up dead, they all become suspects. It is the classic Who did it, WHERE, and with WHAT!

Tickets are available at: https://www.trybooking.com/BZHFR

And now, we wish to introduce our community to these six mysterious guests…the first of these being Mr Green, played by Year 10 student Zac Cripps.

“I got involved in the production because I’ve always loved acting and got a rush from presenting my hard work on stage, so I thought that this opportunity would be perfect.

Although rehearsals are hard work, they’re great fun as well. My absolute favourite memory from the rehearsal period is probably when Andrew Seeary was teaching me and another cast member how to fall properly, and in order to do this, he physically went through the motions, facial expressions and all, and just started lying on the ground, motionless. Lots of laughs were shared that day.

This production is a difficult one, especially when you must play such a larger-than-life character. In the performance, we must accurately hit our lines in a quick fashion, which can be extremely hard sometimes. As well as that, playing a character like Mr Green, an introverted, timid character, it can sometimes be difficult to find how he would react to those ques.

This experience has given me so many new skills that I can take into the next production, and I’m so grateful for that. I’ve learnt how to play a new type of character, as Mr. Green isn’t someone I would normally audition for, and I am so happy that I learnt how to play someone so quirky.

Damascus Performing Arts has been a great experience, the friendships I’ve made with the other cast members have been great and they have all done a great job on this performance.”