Message from the Principal 

FROM THE PRINCIPAL

Wednesday 8th March is International Women’s Day. This is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. It is a wonderful opportunity to acknowledge the role of women across our school and education more broadly. We are fortunate to have so many strong women at Greenhills leading the way to ensure we are all playing our role to champion girls education and embrace equity, which is this year’s theme for the day.

My photo this week showcase how GREAT it is seeing our students connect, be curious and challenge themselves with our new STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Maths) Specialist subject. Nigel Dunne and Jen Ellis have developed a really engaging curriculum across all levels of the school from geology, coding through to a Mission to Mars. 

STEAM is also a place where our students develop their critical and creative thinking skills and this is work that we are keen to expand on across the whole school.   

MID-TERM MEET WITH THE PRINCIPAL TEAM

Don’t forget that tonight we have our first Mid-Term Meet with the Principal Team. This will be via Webex from 7.30pm. The sessions are held at the mid-point of each term which we introduced last year to help keep you in the loop with things that are happening across our school. They are also another forum to ask questions, provide feedback and suggestions and continue our strong home school partnership. 

Here is the link:

https://eduvic.webex.com/eduvic/j.php?MTID=mbfb575abf7e2a77749373f917b3bd963

STUDENT AGENCY CONFERENCES

Have you logged onto Compass to book your child’s Student Agency Conference? 

These are being held on Tuesday 28th March from 9am through to 6.45pm. Each conference is for 15 minutes and students only attend on that day for the time of their conference. Our Student Agency Conferences are one of the key ways that we are building and enabling our students to have agency and voice in their learning and the more we research about this it is becoming clear that there is an argument that this is just about the most important thing schools need to do. 

ANNUAL REPORT DATA – Part #1

Each year school’s produce an Annual Report and share this information with their school community. The report contains specific data that DET and schools collect to inform decision making and assess progress around strategic plan goals. Over the next few weeks I will share some of the specific data sets that are contained in our 2022 Annual Report and also provide the full report via our Website and a Compass newsfeed. 

We are really pleased with our Management of Bullying data for 2022. In the graph we are the yellow line and this is a measure of positive endorsement percentage as reported by all of our Years 4-6 students via the Annual Attitudes to School Survey. In 2022 this positive endorsement was 83.3% which is nearly 10% higher than the school’s we are compared with and nearly 8% higher than the State average. Our 4-year trend data is also very positive with an average of 5% higher positive endorsement that the Similar School average.

This has been achieved through our staff’s commitment and level of concern, extensive and comprehensive communications, positive classroom and behaviour management processes, social groups, buddy program and of course our weekly wellbeing focuses. 

This week we held our first School Council meeting and I am pleased to announce that during the meeting Sam Redman was elected as School Council President, Irina Fainberg as Vice President, Jamie McGowan as Treasurer and Caroline Bennett as Vice Treasurer. 

At the meeting we also confirmed our sub-committee structure for 2022. These are:

• Finance  - convened by Jaime McGowan 
• Parents Association (PA) – convened by Josh Lucas with James Penson as the current PA Rep on School Council
• Parent Partnerships (which also includes policies)- convened by Adam Laws
• Sustainability, Environment & Canteen – convened by Rosita Zakaria
• OSHClub - convened by Jessica Allen

Our sub-committees are where the actual work of School Council takes place. All school councillors serve on at least one sub-committee and we also welcome other parents, carers and staff to join these. It would be GREAT to have lots of parent and carer involvement across all of these groups.  I will publish the meeting dates and times for these committees over the next few weeks and you can also flag your interest in joining one or more of these teams with me and I will link you in with the convenor of the group.

GOOD LUCK YEAR 6 CAMPERS

Only 6 more sleeps until our Year 6’s travel to Anglesea for their camp. I know this group of students is very excited and our staff team have put significant planning in place to ensure that the camp runs smoothly. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the staff that will be attending. 

SCHOOL ENROLMENTS 2024

Believe it or not we are now starting to forward plan for 2024! Next week I will send a letter home to all families with younger siblings that may be starting school next year. It will be important for you to indicate to me that you have a child starting in 2024 and complete an enrolment form as early as possible. 

We also have regular school tours each week on Tuesdays at 9.30am, or by appointment. I am also hosting an evening tour on Tuesday 21st March at 6.15pm. If you know of any families that are interested in coming to our school please let them know about these tours. 

James Penson

Principal