Principal's news

At Shelford, we are proud of the strength of our community. Many visitors comment that as soon as they enter our school grounds, they feel the warmth of the relationships that exist. Our students enjoy being with each other and have supportive and open relationships of trust with their teachers and other staff. Families feel welcome and comfortable on campus and enjoy meeting and working with the teaching, professional services and support staff.

Increasing and enhancing our parents’ engagement with their daughters’ education, is an area of focus for me in the coming years. The core principles of effective family–school partnerships are:

• parents and families are the first and continuing educators of their children
• learning is lifelong and occurs in multiple settings
• school communities flourish when the diversity and strengths of families are valued and leveraged
• community engagement expands responsibility and resources
• partnerships grow from mutual trust, respect and responsibility
• partnerships need committed, collaborative and creative leadership.

We are also committed to helping parents reinforce the learning at school at home, to further foster growth for all of our students.

The areas of focus for us at Shelford in this regard are:

• communication
• connecting learning at home and school
• building community and identity
• recognising the role of the family
• consulting on decision-making
• enhancing parent participation.

We have introduced a number of initiatives to support these areas of focus. 

An important step has been parent access to Shelly, our Schoolbox Learning Management System, which enables parents to view more information about timetables, curriculum and work due, and which simplifies our communication. 

The Shelly news items and the longer form, fortnightly Shelly Newsletter, also substantially improve the quality and consistency of our communication with parents.

We look forward to expanding what is available on Shelly in the future so parents have access to assessment tasks and feedback. We are working with our staff on developing this next phase of delivery. We are also working on the Shelford Girls’ Grammar App which will enable parents to access Shelford information in an easy format on their smart phones.

In addition, we encourage open dialogue between teachers and parents. It is possible to reach out to teachers with queries regarding particular subjects or tasks, in between the regular reports and parent teacher interviews. In addition, communication around more general issues of progress or wellbeing, can be made through the Year Level Coordinators in the Senior School. 

The SPA Committee and Class Representative activities this year have seen more parents and families engage with each other socially. Many parents have also contributed their expertise to the School through providing services like the Second-hand Uniform Shop, the Mothers’ Day stall and the Mothers’ Day breakfast. The opportunity to celebrate family, be together and to mix with other parents, is very enjoyable and builds School spirit and connection. We look forward to the Q Dinner later this year, for a larger celebration of our community.

We welcome opportunities to have parents onsite to share in their daughter’s learning and achievements. The recent Junior School Athletics, JDC Mother’s Day chapel, Senior School Musical, upcoming Autumn Concert, Junior School Performing Arts Showcase and the opening of SILC, all provide opportunities for parents to share memorable moments.

We are planning a number of other opportunities during the year for parents to meet with key Shelford staff and also a series of parent education forums and webinars, to assist parents in their own parenting journey.

Parent feedback on particular issues, through short parent surveys and focus groups, has been welcomed this year and last, and in Term 3 a more extensive parent satisfaction survey will assist our future planning. 

The expertise and skills of our parents are most welcome; we invite parents to speak with students as part of our Career Conversations and Year 9 Challenge Program weeks. We have current and former parents on the Board Sub-Committees and the Board. 

In the Junior School, parent helpers with literacy programs are able to support their own daughter’s learning at home with the benefit of knowledge and training. Such opportunities to share with you what we do in the classroom, so that it can be reinforced at home, extend and enhance our partnership.

As always, I invite your thoughts on this key area of Shelford, as we work together to strengthen the link between the work of the school and the work of parents, families and caregivers. I welcome learning more about how our parents can contribute to the learning and opportunities of our students. Feel free to email me your thoughts, ideas and suggestions kbrennan@shelford.vic.edu.au

Katrina Brennan

Principal

In Conversation series

Watch the next two videos in our series introducing our newer staff members. The first features Cameron Hall and Raymond Wang from our Mathematics Faculty. The second is with Cath Freney our Careers and Future Pathways Coordinator and Year 11 Coordinator.