Issue: 8 Date: Thursday 19th March 2020P.O. Box 81 Tallangatta Phone: (02) 6071 5000 Fax: (02) 6071 2445

Email: tallangatta.sc@edumail.vic.gov.au Website: www.tallangatta-sc.vic.edu.au

Principal’s Report

Newsletter

Big Enough To Deliver, Small Enough To Care.

Coming Events

Tallangatta Secondary College

Tallangatta Secondary College is committed to empowering all to become resilient and confident lifelong learners with a strong sense of self and community.

Fri 20th Mar Pupil Free Day Fri 27th Mar Last Day of Term 1Fri 27th Mar GPA Cycle 2 published

Tues 13th Apirl Term 2 commencesWed 29th April Yr 7 2021 Open Evening

Before and after School SuperviSionStaff supervision for students arriving before school is between 8.35am and 9.00am and for students after school between 3.20pm and 3.45pm.

At Tallangatta Secondary College, students are encouraged not to bring a mobile phone to school unless there is a compelling reason to do so. Students who choose to bring a mobile phone to school must have

them switched off and securely stored during school hours.

Important Information about CoronavirusAs a school community, we are committed to keeping our students and staff safe. Our school remains open until further notice, however all camps scheduled to commence from and including Tuesday 17th March are postponed, rescheduled or cancelled. All excursions outside the school planned from and including Tuesday 17th March are also postponed or cancelled. If the event is cancelled, all money paid will be fully refunded.If your child is unwell we urge you to keep them at home. Students can continue their learning through Compass. If your child has a confirmed case of COVID-19 or has been in close contact of a confirmed case of COVID-19 in the past 14 days, please contact the school immediately. ‘Close contact’ is defined by DHHS as someone who has had at least 15 minutes of face-to-face contact with a confirmed case, or shared a closed space with someone for more than two hours with a confirmed case.Everyone arriving into Australia from overseas from midnight 15th March will be required to self-isolate for 14 days. This obviously includes students and staff. Importantly, it also includes parents and carers and any other relatives or friends of students who are returning from overseas travel. As they are required to self-isolate, they must not visit the school to pick up children or for any other reason. I have included a statement on school closures in Victoria from DHHS with this newsletter. We do have a contingency plan if we close and this will be communicated with the school community on closure.

Please feel free to contact the College if you have any questions. We appreciate your support during this time.Pupil free day Friday 20th MarchTomorrow all staff will be involved in a professional learning session facilitated by Tracey Ezard. Tracey’s background is in education and she is a member of the Australian Council of Educational Leaders. The focus of the day will be on developing a thriving and collaborative learning culture. SLT Bush Fire Relief Day

Congratulations to the SLT on a very successful day held yesterday on raising awareness and funds for CFA Victoria. Thank you to Leah O’Neil and Ash Sutherland for supporting the SLT with this day.Richelle MoylePrincipal

Tallangatta Secondary College is committed to the safety and wellbeing of all children and young people. This is the primary focus of our care and decision making. Tallangatta Secondary College has zero tolerance for child abuse.

Later Years News

Health tips from Leah School Nurse

Breakfast at Tallangatta Secondary College Come one, come all and join in for a free breakfast.

Come meet and greet your peers and teachers

WHERE: Room 14 WHEN: Monday 8:30am

WHO: Everyone!

WHERE: Room 14TERM 2 WEEK 2 - NEW DAYWHEN: THURSDAY 8:30am

WHO: Everyou!

Happy families- Making the most of time togetherWith the current concerns of the spread of COVID-19 it is definitely creating concern and worry for the majority. We need to keep calm and act responsibly. The situation is changing rapidly. Stay up to date with the latest information about the spread of COVID-19 and the steps being taken to slow the spread.https://www.health.gov.au/news/health-alerts/novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov-health-alertThere is at least a positive if you happen to be required

to self-quarantine, more Family time!Make the most of time together and consider going back to the basicsFamilies benefit from open two-way communication that is loving, understanding and patient. Suggestions include: • Being honest with each other • Listening to each other with full attention• Staying in contact with each other• Reassuring each other of your love with words, cuddles and making time for each other•Sharing thoughts and feelings without censuring or criticising each other• Encouraging positive behaviour• Allowing the expression of negative emotions as well as positive ones• Working together to solve problems and conflicts• Laughing together.Plan activities around home that you can enjoy together:• Board games• Spring clean• Plant a winter garden• Go on a family “google” virtual holiday researching a country, culture and food to share with each other• Create some interesting meals together you wouldn’t normally have the time to make• Take on family yoga• Read and share a story with each other• Have a movie marathon day ie: Star wars or The Lord of the Rings• Let the artistic flare come out in you and have an art day• Pull out the photo albums and share some stories from the pastHappy families share a feeling of togetherness. If we are to self-isolate make the extra effort to put this into action whilst we are at home! h t tp s : / /www.be t t e rhea l th . v i c .gov.au /hea l th /HealthyLiving/happy-families

Year 10Work experience has been revised and changes have been made due to having to adhere to the corona virus lock down protocol. Our projected work placement dates for Term 2 - 11th - 15th of May has been postponed. We are hoping to reschedule for Term 3 - 10th -14th of August. So we are encouraging students to still actively seek a placement for Term 3. And we would like those students who already have a confirmed work placement to make their host employer aware of the date changes. Any questions please contact Jaclyn Giltrap at the school via phone or email.Year 11 & 12As a school we are working to ensure that VCE classes will still be accessible should there be a school closure. Compass lesson plans will contain necessary instructions to keep learning rolling and all students will be instructed by their classroom teachers on how to access Microsoft Teams. As a contingency I have asked that students take their laptops, chargers and textbooks home with them as they will be unable to access the school in the case of a closure. Our Assessment schedule is flexible and adaptive so students that are forced to isolate or self-isolate will have the opportunity to complete assessments upon their return. Callum Turner

Colour Sensit ivi tyOfficially called Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome (SSS), and commonly called Irlen Syndrome, this condition distorts images which causes visual stress for people, especially when trying to read or write. Visual stress is something al-most everyone suffers when they look at something exceptionally bright or highly contrasting, such as the image below, which creates stress on the eyes because of high contrast and competing lines of black and white. Print text cre-ates this type of visual stress for readers with SSS, making it difficult for them to read. Their brain tries to deal with this stress by altering the messages the eyes are sending it, creating distortions in the print in front of them.

Because SSS is caused by a fault in the way our brain reads the messages the eyes send it, rather than a vision problem, an eye test will not identify SSS.

Typically, people experiencing visual stress exhibit the following behaviour:

• Squirming, wriggling in seat, shifting position a lot• Moving book or computer under table, onto lap etc..• Shading book or computer• Barricading the sides of books or computer with hands• Squinting, rubbing eyes• Fatiguing very quickly

The Washout

The white back-ground can over-take the black print-ing, making letters of similar shape be-come indiscernible. Eg. Lowercase letters such as a,s,e,o,c all begin to look the same.

Rivers:The white spaces between words be-come more prom-inent, creating riv-ers of white which demand more at-tention than the words.

can create feelings of nausea. Read-ers experience ver-tigo-like symptoms as their text swirls like a vortex.

Doubling or Halo For some

readers the words or letters move out of themselves, cre-ating a shadow or double print effect. Sometimes they move back into them selves, some-times not.

Some of the effects of SSS can be seen below.Alternatively, you can view these perceptual distortions on this Youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FARizLljRkc

The See-Saw letters

move up and down like a see-saw, running into other lines, mak-ing it really difficult to follow the line you are trying to read.

How we are supporting students with SSSAs a school, we are not able to officially diagnose Scotopic Sensitivity Syn-drome (or Irlen Syndrome). What we are doing is screening students who pres-ent symptoms of SSS to see if using a coloured filter makes reading easier for them. Students, for whom a coloured filter does make a significant difference, are provided with a coloured reading ruler, coloured page overlay, and software to make reading on their computer easier. For students who find writing on coloured paper easier, we provide coloured paper workbooks. Further supplies of these are available for purchase from the school office.

The use of these filters is called the Irlen method (named after the leading re-searcher in this syndrome, Helen Irlen). It is simply the use of colour filters to help alleviate the symptoms of visual stress caused by extreme contrasts.

You can see from the images of brain function below why a student suffering visual stress becomes tired very quickly – their brains are working 20 times harder than their peers’. By providing coloured filters we are trying to alleviate this fatigue and stress and assist them to become better readers.

If you would like any more information please contact Sue Carey at the school 6071 5000

STATEMENT ON SCHOOL CLOSURES IN VICTORIA Dr Brett Sutton MBBS MPHTM FAFPHM FRSPH FACTM MFTM Victorian Chief Health Officer Victorian Chief Human Biosecurity Officer

The Australian Health Protection Principal Committee (AHPPC) met recently to consider the issue of school closures in relation to the community transmission of COVID-19.

The Committee’s advice is that pre-emptive school closures are not likely to be proportionate or effective as a public health intervention to prevent community transmission of COVID-19 at this time.

As Victoria’s Chief Health Officer and as a member of the AHPPC, I fully endorse this advice in relation to schools in Victoria.

There is currently limited information on the contribution of children to transmission of COVID-19. The WHO-China Joint Mission noted the primary role of household transmission and observed that children tended to be infected from adults.

Previous work suggests that the potential reduction in community transmission from pre-emptive school closures may be offset by the care arrangements that are in place for children who are not at school.

There is a particular risk associated with the fact that children may require care from vulnerable grandparents or may continue to associate (and transmit infection) outside of school settings.

Broadly, the health advice on school closures from previous respiratory epidemics shows the health costs are often underestimated and the benefits are overestimated.

This may be even more so in relation to COVID-19 as unlike influenza, the impact on otherwise healthy children has been minimal to date.

For pre-emptive school closures to be effective, prolonged closure is required and it would be unclear when they could be re-opened. If there were still a large pool of susceptible students when schools are re-opened, there would be likely to be re-emergence of transmission in the community.

School closures may still be considered late in the outbreak in anticipation of a peak in infection rates, for a shorter period of time. Short term reactive school closures may also be warranted to allow cleaning and contact tracing to occur.

Should evidence change in relation to school closures then my advice to the sector, in collaboration with AHPPC, would of course change also.