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.

Please find below important information sent to families last week in relation to Year 10 and 11 Unit 2 Exams.

Please click on the relevant link:-

2020 Unit 2 Exams year 10 Letter to parents

2020 Unit 2 Exam year 11 Letter to parents

#DamascusCollege #DamascusPride #BeMyBest

We have some amazing people who make up our Damascus Community, Tina Munro, the Executive Assistant to our Principal is one of them.

She started working at Damascus in 2011 so is celebrating her 10th year at the College. Tina started the year her eldest daughter Tayla started at Damascus in Year 7.

As the Executive Assistant (EA) Tina supports the Principal, Leadership Team and the College Board with whatever needs to be achieved on any given day. It means that no two days are ever the same, and that there is always something new coming up that needs to be researched. Tina thrives on this as she loves to find the answers.

Often when in a supporting role you are unable to stick to a plan, you need to be flexible and adapt to what is thrown at you. As the EA at Damascus Tina can attest that every day is a juggle. She deals with lots of moving pieces, and sometimes those pieces don't fit together easily or smoothly. And in the midst of all the new things, the juggling, the researching there is knowing that you have to get the day to day tasks accomplished as well.

2020 has been a year like no other for Tina in her role. She struggled with not being around others. Not being able to have the same direct contact, hallway chats and keeping her ear to the ground added to her challenging role.

The surprise benefit of this was her ability to adapt. To learn some fantastic new skills and to stretch out of her comfort zone. To cope with the imposed distance she took part in an enormous amount of meetings over technology, and found that she did lots and lots of emails and phone calls to try and keep in touch.

Tina has a massive amount of diversity in her day, and it is important to her that whoever comes through her door, whether it be families, staff or students they feel supported. Everyone is welcome.

#InThisTogether

At the Year 12’s final day last Friday, the Year 11 students and staff formed a socially distanced guard of honour to clap the students out one last time, which culminated in the throwing of the graduation caps - a fitting end to their six years at Damascus.

To our Year 12 students - good luck with life after high school and remember - you made it through a pandemic in your final year of school – that’s amazing – it well and truly holds you in good stead for handling all of life’s ups and downs, once you step beyond our Damascus doors. Good luck!

Congratulations to the following students who have been awarded various accolades for 2020.

Notre Dame Science Prize

Grace Young-Harvey

For academic excellence in Year 12 science, in Psychology and Biology

ADF Long Tan Youth Leadership and Teamwork Award

Year 10 – Isla Casey

Year 12 – Cara Hack

Australian Science Innovations – Science Olympiad Exam Results 2020

Some of our Year 10 and 11 Science students were nominated to complete the Australian Science Olympiads qualifying exams in Biology, Chemistry and Physics. Congratulations to the following certificate winners:

2020 Australian Science Olympiad Exam - Biology

Certificate of Distinction - Mia Lepair

Certificate of Credit - Maya Tolliday

2020 Australian Science Olympiad Exam - Chemistry

Certificate of Credit - Xavier Clonan (Year 10)

Certificate of Participation - Tristan Clonan (Year 10), Mia Lepair, Patrick O’Beirne, Maya Tolliday

2020 Australian Science Olympiad Exam - Physics

Certificate of Credit - Aimee Gunn, Patrick O’Beirne

_________________________________________

National Youth Science Forum (NYSF) 2021 Year 12 Program

Congratulations to Year 11 student, Thomas McKay, who has gained a place in the National Youth Science Forum (NYSF) 2021 Year 12 Program that will be conducted both online and at the University of Melbourne. He will meet a range of engineers, scientists and researchers, do experiments as well as debate the hottest topics in science and engineering, experience university life and get to know other students from around Australia. In order to gain a place, Tom was required to complete an interview process and submit references from his House Leader, TA and Science LAL. We look forward to hearing about Tom’s experiences at the National Youth Science forum.

Congratulations to McAuley House for taking out the 2020 Ron Matthews Shield. This award was established to give students the incentive to strive to do their best in various areas of school life, in the spirit of friendly competition.

2020 placings were:

1^st– McAuley

2^nd– St Martin

3^rd- Rice

4^th– Xavier

Congratulations to all students.

Due to the building works nearing completion the Uniform shop has had to close. They will re open in their new site within the DEC in the near future. The staff and shop can still be contacted via phone for orders.