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Welcome back! I do hope everyone has had a rejuvenating festive season was able to connect with the people and activities that fill your cup. I also extend my caring wishes to any who may have experienced difficulty during this time.

As I walked around our campuses over the past few days, I was buoyed by the excitement radiating from our staff and students. However, understandably there is always some apprehension felt by some at the start of a new year, so I encourage us all to support each other and to foster an ever-increasing sense of community and of caring within our School. When analysing our School’s CLERR values (Compassion, Leadership, Excellence, Respect and Responsibility) with my Year 7 RAVE class this week, I created a ‘wordcloud’ for the words we used during the lesson. Given the welfare of our students, staff and families is a focus for our School this year, I was pleased to see the word ‘Caring’ came up as our most referenced word during that activity.

Our School does not remain dormant throughout the summer holidays. January saw our first Rowing camp of the year, the return of our overseas exchange program students and rehearsals for Annie and each of these activities allowed our students and staff continuing to grow with their learning, sport and culture throughout the break. I thank all those involved in making these things happen. I would also like to acknowledge the Finance, Administration, and Grounds and Maintenance staff for their hard work over the break in preparing Gippsland Grammar for the year ahead.

As mentioned in my welcome email, this year our School is embarking on a year of strategic planning and I look forward to working collaboratively with our Board, staff, students and the wider community in developing a positive and aspirational plan for our future.

I talked in several forums toward the end of 2022 about our focus toward a zero tolerance to bullying at our School. Over the holidays, I educated myself further about current trends and ways to address this issue in our community to help us with our desired outcome. One of the organisations that provides great resources is ‘Bully Zero’ and I encourage parents and carers to become familiar with some of the publications and advice Bully Zero provides at www.bullyzero.org.au. (I have also included Bully Zero’s ‘Six steps to keep your child safe online’ in this newsletter.)

Finally, while our newsletters will continue to be published on VOS, I hope many in our Community, including our Old Scholars, enjoy reading our first newsletter for the year on our new website! This website has been an exciting project for our Leadership, Marketing and IT teams over the past few months and I hope you agree it showcases our School to both our current and prospective families in a dynamic and eye-catching way. Going live on a new website is always a huge step and there’s a chance we may not yet have everything working just right. So if you can’t find something or would like to provide us with some feedback, please email our Marketing Manager Zoe Curtis at zcurtis@gippslandgrammar.au

You may also notice our website and School emails address have a different domain name. The new website address is www.gippslandgrammar.au and over the coming weeks all staff and student emails will transition from @gippslandgs.vic.edu.au to @gippslandgrammar.au. During this transition, I can assure you that no emails will get lost in cyberspace and all emails sent to our existing email addresses will be diverted to the new domains and continue to be received by the intended recipient. Exciting times!

I wish everyone a wonderful 2023.

Michele Wakeham

Principal