NUMURKAH

SECONDARY COLLEGE Email: numurkah.sc@edumail.vic.gov.au www.numurkahsc.vic.edu.au

Phone: 58621088 Facebook: Numurkah Secondary College

Not for one—but for all

August, 23 2019

Issue 2019—12

In this issue: Principal’s Report

From the AP’s Desk

Dates to Remember

Intermediate VCAL

Careers

Family History Club

Literacy Hub News—Book Week

Importance of Reading

Community Notices

Principal’s Report Dear Parents and Friends of the College,

Last week our Leading Teacher of Wellbeing, Cassie Willis, shared a powerful professional learning session with

our staff team, based on caring for our student’s emotional and psychological wellbeing.

The mental health of today’s young people is at an all-time low. Depression, anxiety and self-harm are sadly

on the rise. Unfortunately, there are more risk factors than protective factors facing young people growing

up. It is simply not enough to avoid the obvious dangers like abuse, neglect and overindulgence. We need to

work together and arm ourselves with practical skills, knowledge and strategies when it comes to supporting

our kids

Research tells us that the most well adjusted kids are supported by both parents and teachers who find a way

to combine warmth and sensitivity with clear behavioural expectations.

“There is no such thing as a perfect support for teenage mental health. However, research shows that one of

the most important protective factors in the lives of young people is a close relationship with a supportive

adult.” Dr Michael Carr-Gregg

At school, we are working hard to ensure that rather than focusing on kids’ weaknesses and deficits we

emphasize and shine attention on building students’ strengths and resilience. As parents, we play a vital role

in supporting our kid’s mental health and wellbeing. As a mum of teenagers, I loved the following ideas from

Marilyn Price-Mitchell.

Five Easy Ways to Help Kids Believe in Themselves

All teenagers have an internal compass that, when nurtured through positivity, enables them to believe in

themselves and become successful in school and in life. Even small, everyday interactions between adults

and teens have the potential to make this happen. We help kids believe in themselves when we:

• Help them focus on solutions rather than rescuing them from problems. Solving problems for teens makes

them dependent, not self-confident. Listen, encourage, and support them as they consider their own

solutions.

• Praise teens for their efforts instead of their intelligence. Notice the small things they do, like showing

courage, honesty, or caring for others, and then let them know how you appreciate those qualities about

them.

• Help them learn from mistakes. Research shows that learning is enhanced when teens make errors.

Acknowledge that you do not expect your teens to be perfect and let them know your love is

unconditional, regardless of their mistakes. Help them see their mistakes as learning opportunities rather

than defeats.

• When teens blame others, whine, or complain, turn it into an opportunity to find out what they care about!

Uncover hidden convictions that can foster your teenager’s initiative and action in the world.

• Encourage teens to get back on their feet after setbacks – because you believe in them. Be a helpful guide

as your teens identify their challenges, reflect on their choices, arrive at decisions, adjust their strategies,

and plan next steps. When you do this, you will be fostering your teenager’s resiliency.

Have a great week.

Kind regards, Claire

Claire Kelly Principal

At Numurkah Secondary College, we recognise our role, in partnership with parents and the community, in assisting our

young men and women to develop the College core values of Respect, Excellence, Aspirations and Pride – and to REAP

the rewards of quality education!

THUMBS UP! Thanks to all the fabulous participants in the NSC Athletics Day—wonderful team work. Special

thanks to Peter Smyth for all his hard work setting up and running the day.

Committee Members

Roger Jones (President), Damien Hipwell (Vice President), Craig Burdon (Executive Officer), Jacqui Martin, Peter Smyth, Christine Sigley, Kathleen Newby, David Cook, Andrea Holmes, Rebecca Newbery and Kate Kelly.

Next Meeting 16th September 2019

SCHOOL COUNCIL DATES TO REMEMBER

September

2&3 Units 2 & 4 Outdoor Ed Ski Trip

4 VCE/VCAL Information Night

5 VCE/VCAL Information Day

18 Parent/Teacher Interviews 4-7pm

October

23 Numurkah Show—Staff PD—no students

December

16 Presentation Evening

NSC Facebook Follow the Numurkah

Secondary College Facebook page for action shots of our students attending excursions, updates, and sometimes the fun activities your child is having at school!

From the Assistant Principal’s Desk L to Ps We are very excited that once again the L2P driver education

program in conjunction with Berry Street is running. This is an

outstanding program that affords our students the opportunity to

develop their skills as drivers whilst also providing valuable logbook

hours.

If you missed it, WIN News Shepparton ran an item about the

program last week. Our students are featured in the item and

represented our school with dignity and pride. If you would like to

see the item, the link is below:

https://www.facebook.com/WINNewsShepparton/videos/505256406904099/

Hulk is Here! A number of our students are engaged in various programs across the

school and Josh has demonstrated a penchant for electronics and sound.

Over the last few weeks, Josh has gone about exercises in budgeting,

designing, purchasing, negotiating prices, and then building a portable

public announcement system for the school.

Nicknamed “Hulk”, the new system had it’s first test at the Athletics carnival

today.

A great job by Josh for his work, and to Kohl, who gave Josh a hand over

the last couple of weeks.

Welcome to Carla Cornu! Our newest exchange student is Carla Cornu who comes all the way from

Vendenheim in France. Carla’s host family during her stay is the Kelly family. We

trust the school community will make Carla very welcome and feel a part of

our community.

Craig Burdon

Assistant Principal

INTERMEDIATE VCAL BACK OF HOUSE PROGRAM -Centrelink Info Session As part of the Back Of House program run by Lance

from Uniting Care, the Intermediate VCAL students

had a guest speaker from Centrelink who answered

all the questions posed by the class including:

What is Centrelink and how does it work?

How do you apply?

Who does it help?

Who do you contact?

At what age can you get Centrelink?

Who gets Centrelink—the student or parent/caregiver?

If you have a tax file number do you automatically have a MyGov account?

The discussions were centred around these questions and the students came away from the presentation

much better informed, and with a good knowledge of what Centrelink does, who it helps and how to apply if

necessary

—Budgeting Session Bill from Primary Care Connect ran a session on budgeting.

Some of the questions the students had prepared were;

How do you save money to buy stuff?

How do you control earnings?

Can under 18’s set up accounts without parents?

Bill answered these questions and covered topics including:

Attitudes to money

Knowledge is power

Needs v wants

Prioritisation

SMART goal setting

Pay yourself first

Spending leaks

Spending diary

Annual budget

Minimum wages for different ages

Students learnt how to save money on shopping and how to bring down their expenses.

Once again thanks to Lance from Uniting Care for organising these sessions and thank you Bill for presenting

the budgeting program.

Keith Ward,

VCAL Co-Ordinator

NSC SENIOR FORMAL

Brodie Little and Trent Baker are displaying their skills as they

work on a mannequin as part of their Vet course.

Thanks to Moira Health and the whole team for giving Trent and

Brodie this amazing opportunity and for supporting Numurkah

Secondary College.

Well done to Brodie and Trent you look amazing!

Jayden Hollands flexes his muscles as he helps move

some furniture for the team at Numurkah Home

Timber and Hardware as Danny Buzza supervises.

Jayden has learnt new skills and got outside his

comfort zone. He is very appreciative of the

opportunity to the team at Numurkah Home Timber

and Hardware.

Numurkah Secondary College would like to thank

Jeff, Gayle, Danny and all the team for their support

of our students.

Will Smith is hard at work for Universal Engineering Services. Will is

showing initiative and becoming work ready.

Will is thoroughly enjoying his time working with Ian and the team and is

grateful for this opportunity.

Numurkah Secondary College would like to thank Universal Engineering

for their continued support of our students.

David Kelly,

Careers Advisor

Careers News

NSC SENIOR FORMAL

Family History Club August is 'Family History Month' in Australia. To celebrate

we have interviewed Imogen Jeanes in Year 7 who has

been regularly attending the NSC Family History Club.

How long have you been coming to Family History Club

and why did you join?

I’ve been coming since Term 1, and I joined because I

wanted to learn more about my background and what

my family did.

What do you do in Family History Club?

We go to different sites to try and find different people in

the family tree. Then we add the information to our own

family tree.

What is the most interesting thing you have found?

Well when we went onto the site trove we found old

newspaper articles about our family and more

information about where they lived. We also found old photographs of my great great great great

grandfather John Campbell Shankly

What sources of information have you used?

Trove, Australian Births Deaths and Marriages and Ancestry.com.

What do you need to do to join family history club?

Go see Mr Dealy on a Thursday lunchtime in D1.

Pictured is Imogen with her cousin Paige Sobey, holding a picture of Imogen's 4xGreat Grandfather. Check

out his moustache!

Scott Dealy,

NSC Family History Club Leader

Let’s face it…parents (and kids) are busy! It is difficult to “fit in” all that needs to be

done in a day. We are often faced with having to make choices about what stays and

what goes in our schedules. So, why is it so critical to include 20 minutes of reading in

your child’s daily schedule? There is a wealth of research supporting daily reading with

your child. You could read to them or have them read to you. Now if you cannot

imaging reading with your 15 or 16 year old, you can easily support their daily reading

talking to them about what they are reading. Here are a few of the ways reading for 20

(or more) minutes a day benefits us all.

Reading is “brain food” Our brains develop as we “feed” them with experiences. The experience of reading (whether you’re the

reader or the one being read to) activates and “exercises” many of the areas of the brain. The visual cortex

works as your eyes track the words on the page and look at the illustrations. Your memory makes connections

between what you already know about the topic of the story and its content. You integrate new information

learned through reading further strengthening and growing your network of knowledge. Reading provides

one of the most enriching and complex brain activities available in life.

Reading improves listening skills What parent doesn’t want their child to be a good listener? The experience of being read to helps children

develop good listening skills by keying them into the components of language. Through reading they learn to

recognize phonemes (the sound building blocks of language), learn new words to add to their oral

vocabularies and connect written words to their real world applications.

Reading builds early literacy skills Before a child can read independently she must have phonemic awareness and a basic understanding of

phonics. Phonemic awareness or the understanding that words are made up of distinct sounds that affect

their meaning is the precursor to reading. Reading aloud to your child is one of the main ways to help him

develop phonemic awareness. Beyond this, in order to read, a person must understand that there is a

connection between letters and sounds. Without this knowledge letters are just squiggles on a page! When

you read with your child she learns that print is a representation of the words you say aloud. Repeated

experiences with reading allow this understanding to grow. The single greatest factor in a child’s ability to read

is early experiences being read aloud to.

Practice makes perfect Generally, the more time you are exposed to something and the more time you spend practicing it, the better

you’ll become at performing it. This is absolutely true for reading. Research shows that children who have

repeatedly been exposed to books from birth generally exhibit strong reading abilities.

Reading improves academic performance There is a strong correlation between a child’s ability to read and her academic performance. Because so

much of our schooling relies on our abilities to read, children need to have strong reading skills to succeed

and thrive in school. And it is never too late to make a start by introducing and supporting reading at home!

Reading just makes “cents” For every year that a person spends reading (either independently or being read aloud to), his/her lifetime

earning potential goes up considerably. For a time investment of approximately 87 hours a year (20 minutes a

day for 5 days a week), you can increase your child’s ability to support him or herself in the future

considerably.

Reading improves relationships Because we are busy it is difficult to have “quality” one-on-one time

with our children without distractions. Building 20 minutes into each

day for reading together provides this important bonding time. There is

nothing more wonderful than snuggling a young child on your lap

while reading a few storybooks aloud. Even if your child is beyond the

“snuggling” stage, spending 20 minutes reading independently

provides you with quiet, uninterrupted time together engaged in the

same activity.

Rae Wood, Learning Specialist Literacy

Literacy Hub News Book Week Celebrations

Each year schools and public libraries across Australia spend a week celebrating books, Australian authors

and illustrators. Teachers and librarians conduct activities relating to a theme to highlight the importance of

reading. The theme of Book Week this year is “Reading is my Secret Power” and it ran from 17th to 23rd August

2019. The costume day here at Numurkah Secondary College was a great success with many students

dressing as a book character…..someone who has a secret power!

There can only be three winners and this year they

were Zindel Tipper (Year 11), Cooper Hampton

Archer (Year 7) and Zara Jones (Year 8).

Congratulations!

It has been a fantastic experience being the

Teacher Librarian at NSC with many rewarding

moments. This is my last newsletter as I am moving

on to further my primary school teaching

aspirations. May you all continue to find the magic

in books!

Miss Melanie Schols

Teacher Librarian

@numurkah_sclh

Community Notices