Newsletter, Term 3, Week 8, 3 September 2021

The love and kindness our community has shown so tangibly following the tragic news of Amelie Borella’s death has been both heartwarming and restorative. Our focus now is on supporting our students, teachers and families most affected by this terrible tragedy.

But, amidst the outpouring of grief, it also has been wonderful to hear stories about Amelie. How she was a funny girl with a very quick wit who could keep her fellow boarders in stitches of laughter. How she was a talented sportswoman who really enjoyed representing the school in football, and how she was a bright academic student even if you might not describe her as “studious”! These memories of Amelie and many more are being contributed to our collection of notes, messages and photographs which will be collated and forwarded to the family in the coming months. Anyone wanting to send messages or photos to add to the collection, can do so by emailing them to reception@scotsalbury.nsw.edu.au and we will ensure they are included.

We are navigating this period of grief and mourning with the wonderful help of experienced health professionals and, I have to say, their support has been terrific. They tell us that the way forward for the health and wellbeing of everyone in our school community revolves around keeping open the channels of communication and, as time progresses, reinstating routine and familiar structures.

So, academic classes will continue as timetabled and our teachers, Learning Mentors and academic staff will continue to provide additional academic support for those who need it. We know some students are finding it difficult to focus on their studies and we acknowledge it is even more difficult to feel connected while we are in lockdown.

All of us should seek help from others when we feel down or vulnerable and we encourage parents to encourage their child or children to do the same. We will keep communicating with you and we are available to provide support in a number of ways. Our health professionals continue to reinforce the importance of validating students’ feelings and directing them to support mechanisms.

Please encourage your child to reach out in the first instance to their Learning Mentor, Classroom Teacher, Section Leader or Head of the Senior School or Head of Junior School. Our team of Counsellors are available to help and have been joined by community Chaplains and Headspace professionals. We are additionally supported by the Youth Division of the police department. Please see a list of contacts below:

Headspace: 1800 650 890
Lifeline: 13 11 14
Police Youth Dept: Amy 0412 192 234 or Kylie 0419 161 464
Beyond Blue: 1300 22 4636
Kids Helpline: 1800 55 1800
School office: 6022 0000

The Scots community has welcomed two new staff members over the past fortnight; Jeremy Holt, who has joined us as Director of Boarding, and Nash Clark, who will teach PDHPE, Science and Mathematics.

Jeremy will shadow Neale Poole for the next couple of weeks before assuming the Director of Boarding role fully in Term 4. Please see a separate article on Jeremy, who brings a wealth of experience in residential care and learning to Scots.

In addition to Senior School Science and Mathematics, Nash will teach PDHPE in the upper Junior School and Senior School and will be the Learning Mentor for 8LMC. For the past two years, Nash has taught at the American International School in Vietnam, but returned home to Albury last month with his wife, 2001 Scots Alumna, Olivia Bailey and their three children.

While in Vietnam, Nash was PE Team Leader and Acting Director of Aquatics at the International School, a three-tier International Baccalaureate Continuum school of 1300 students. He was on a number of committees to develop learning principles and led the implementation of an IB Primary Years Programme PE curriculum and assessment framework.

Previously, he spent 10 years in Albury as a Junior School classroom teacher and Senior School Maths and Science teacher, which he interspersed with a 12 month exchange to the Estes Park Elementary School in the US midway through. He swims, runs and plays water polo and has held coaching positions throughout his career, for both school and community clubs. He holds Level Two water polo coaching and umpiring qualifications, was Head Coach of the Pool Pirates Water Polo Club and coached both swimming and cross country at his school in Vietnam.

And we say goodbye to English, Humanities and Drama teacher and current Year 11 Learning Mentor, Brie Sharp, who leaves us after three years in the Senior School. Brie was also an assistant in the Boarding House in her first year with us and has been involved for the past two years in Junior and Senior School productions and co-curricular Drama. I would like to thank Brie for all of her work at Scots and wish her well on the next phase of her educational journey. Brie will finish up at the end of Term 3.

Everything Jeremy Holt does in his new role as Director of Boarding will be underpinned by more than 18 years experience in residential colleges and supported by the knowledge he’s acquired from his research into boarding schools across the globe.

He has been Head of Boarding at an international school in China for four years, Director of Boarding at Assumption College and led boarding at Rockhampton Grammar School and St Gregory’s College in Campbelltown.

And yet, Jeremy never consciously decided to make a career in boarding.

“I started in 2002 when I moved from Southern Africa to St Gregory’s and they needed someone as Head of House. I discovered I had an easy rapport with young people in that environment and though I wasn’t looking for a career in boarding at the time, I found it was a good fit for me,” Jeremy said.

Eighteen years later, Jeremy not only still loves the boarding environment, but he has almost finished a Masters in Residential Education through the University of Buckingham in the UK.

His research has put him in touch with Heads of Boarding across the world. He’s conducted many interviews with boarding students, leaders and administrators from every continent and he has delivered a paper titled Beyond Positive Education: In Search of Inspiration.

All that writing might seem daunting to most: but not to Jeremy. In fact, it’s his favourite pastime along with swimming and rugby; and he is now making the final edits to his first fiction novel inspired by a true historical event.

A scheduled passenger flight was shot down by the Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) on 3 September 1978, during the Rhodesian Bush War. Of the 52 passengers and four crew, 38 died in the crash. Insurgents rounded up the 10 survivors they could find and massacred them. By sheer good fortune and luck, eight passengers survived.

In his novel, Jeremy winds his story around this true event. He has his youngest son Sean to thank for the plotline and the encouragement of his family has been unswerving - both for his writing and his passion for boarding.

All four of his children have been involved in some way with Boarding Schools and education. His eldest daughter Frances, who has three children, is an educator herself, Veronica is now a barrister in Melbourne, Dominic has just finished an engineering degree and Sean is a Year 11 student at Wallan Secondary College. They have all lived in the boarding environment and the three older children have worked in boarding, supervising or tutoring.

Jeremy’s wife, Anne, is the Assistant Head of Theatre at Kilmore Hospital and the couple will juggle their full time roles with the commute between the two regions as they both pursue their passions. But as they have for the past 18 years, Jeremy’s family will be very much a part of his boarding community. Expect to see all of them at various stages once regional lockdown restrictions are eased.

Covid has thwarted some of Jeremy’s other plans, too. He is eager to meet Scots boarding families but, so far, he is yet to meet any in person. He has, however, already come to appreciate the strong culture of care fostered by Neale, Elsa and Tom; and he hopes to build on the momentum of that positivity.

He will join the Boarder Parent Community for a virtual meeting next week and facilitate opportunities for one-on-one discussions either by phone or online. And he can’t wait until boarders return from their Covid-enforced hiatus so he can meet each one face to face.

Support for Families through The Resilience Project

While we face the prospect of prolonged periods of lock-down and remote learning, it is often hard to find resources to support the wellbeing of our youngest students. In the first instance, they look to their immediate family for support, routine and guidance. But, while we as parents have the best intentions, it is often very hard to carry this heavy burden along with life’s daily challenges.

Our friends at The Resilience Project have a wealth of experience and advice in this area. Their simple message for daily practice in G.E.M. (Gratitude, Empathy and Mindfulness) regularly helps our students at school develop resilience and understanding, and so too will this at home. Please use the link below to access resources specific to households who are searching for new and interesting ways to support the wellbeing of not just children, but parents too.

https://theresilienceproject.com.au/at-home/

Impact of Restrictions on Primary School Settings

Recent announcements by the NSW Government have indicated a road map for students to return to schools in the coming months, and while the impact of these announcements on the border region is still unclear, we do know that these restrictions will mean many events in Term 4 will not be able to go ahead as planned. This includes the Year 5-6 Camp to Canberra planned for the first week back. We are bitterly disappointed about this and will endeavour to reimagine new experiences for this cohort within the new limitations.

Other activities that are not permitted or on hold for Term 4:

Music groups
Co-curricular sport
Camps/excursions
Assemblies and/or large group gatherings

As always, we thank our teachers for their ingenuity and families for their patience as we adapt to the ever changing educational landscape during these unprecedented times.

Life@Scots - New Inclusive Education Team

We are very fortunate to have such a passionate and dedicated staff working within our newly labelled ‘Inclusive Education Team’. Led by Trish Thomas, Nikki Masters and Erin Baxter, this team of five learning assistants, school counsellor, nurse and psychologist all work tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure the wellbeing and academic success of all our students. We are very proud to continue these during Scots@Home learning and want to highlight some of the main individual and small group programs below:

Scots@Home Inclusive Education priorities:

EMU maths - Year 1 to 6
MiniLit - Year 1 and 2
MacLit - Year 5
Understanding Words - Kindergarten to Year 6
EAL - Kindergarten to Year 6
Extension - Kindergarten to Year 6

We are aware that facilitating these activities at home can be difficult and encourage all parents to speak to classroom teachers with regards to which programs to prioritise throughout the day.

September School Holiday Program

We are pleased to announce that TheirCare will be offering a holiday program this September. Please find details below regarding the wonderful activities on offer.

It’s heartening to see and hear so many creative and performance activities happening in Scots students' homes around the region. Despite live entertainment clearly at a standstill, Scots students have continued to entertain themselves, and staff, with their attendance and practise at online music and dance lessons, as well as submissions for the Scots@Home Co-Curricular Challenge.

Online music lessons

Scots students who would normally have private instrumental lessons during school hours each week are encouraged to participate in online lessons with their tutors for the remainder of the lockdown. I know many students have already commenced this method of learning, but for those of you who haven't, I encourage you to start online lessons as soon as possible.

Our fantastic tutors are all willing and able to offer this service to existing students, so please contact your tutor directly if you haven't already done so to continue developing your skills - and for a wonderful activity to work on from the comfort of your own home.

Online dance lessons

Students participating in the Scots Dance after-school classes are currently being sent weekly instructional videos from their fantastic tutors from MT Dance Creative, Meegan Strauss and Taylor Faulkner. All Junior School online dance videos will be accessible every Monday afternoon on Seesaw. If your child is currently enrolled in the Scots Dance program, please advise them that they will find the practise links in their Seesaw accounts. These will be updated weekly on a Monday until we return to face-to-face lessons again.

Senior School students will continue to receive Google Drive links via email every Monday too. We wish our Scots Dance students all the very best and look forward to seeing the fruits of their efforts live later in the year.

Debating News with Christie Ward

Over the past two weeks, students from Years 7-9 have been representing the School in the AIS online debating competition. Despite being in lockdown, students have connected to online debates against schools from across Australia. Overall, the results have been positive with students winning all but one of their debates. Topics have ranged from ‘All forms of smoking should be banned in the media’ and ‘Professionals should be required to work pro bono’ to ‘The sale of human organs should be allowed.’

Year 7 and 8 debating involves students meeting beforehand on teams to plan their arguments. On the day, they work together to state their case and rebut the other team’s arguments.

Year 9 debating is a step up as it involves students working together within an hour to plan their arguments and they have to think on the spot to come up with arguments to defend their case against the other team. Our Year 9 Debating team consists of two members who have never debated before and are learning very quickly from the feedback they have been given and the experience of other team members. It is wonderful to see the students persevering, adapting and succeeding despite challenging conditions.

There will be a few more debates happening in the group stage in the coming weeks. Depending on points, students will be able to move on to the knock out stage of the competition by the end of the term. Our next debate is for Year 9 today. We wish them all the best.

Year 7 debating team
Lilly Baranyay
Phoebe Darnley-Naylor
Lizbeth Donald
Lacey Smith
Amara Steele
Georgia Perkins

Year 8 debating team
Mia Sheather
Oliver Baitch
Poppy Millgate-Kimball
Jericho Ellao

Year 9 debating team
Maddie Hayes
Claudia Alessi
Hamish Whiteside
Harvey Correll

Scots@Home Co-Curricular challenge

We have been receiving so many videos of our creative and talented students from their home. Here are a couple of my favourites:

Madeline Merritt (Y7) Lip Sync Challenge: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zVdcRDzWWOVTAJF-KIfF1kxOyAsvwqW9/view?usp=sharing

Sam Mack (Y3) Singing Challenge https://drive.google.com/file/d/1q-5lCLWUgrQZQbvnb8Sc7ANVjOXeELJU/view?usp=sharing

Annabel Cavagna (Y6) Film Making Challenge: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jKGIhlvOeAYpb5YMAAApE4MKp8jsSsdV/view?usp=sharing

We hope that watching these brave and wonderful students many more of you will be encouraged and inspired to come up with your own creative videos from home.

Hope you are all happy and well and to see you all face-to-face again soon!