From the Principal

It has been a very busy and productive term 3 with many highlights for our students in and out of school.

Staffing update

Marion Coady will be on leave for the first two terms of 2027.  I am very pleased to have the opportunity to continue to act in the Principal’s role until July of next year. During term 4, we will complete the process of filling the other leadership vacancies which occur as a result of Marion’s 2027 leave.

Three staff will be on leave during term 4:

• Sharmaine Mills

• Brooke Nykiel

• Alan Peat

Selection panels have been held late this term to determine who will fill the leadership vacancies held by these staff. At the time of writing, Alicia Dean has won the position of Year 10 Leader behind Brooke Nykiel.  The other selection panels are ongoing and will be finalised before the end of this term.

Student Free Day

Our last student free day for 2026 was held on Friday 4 September focusing on further work to support regulation in the classroom, making the Berry Street Education Model’s pedagogical features evident in the work of all of our teachers, and building the culture of our student cohort.  Teachers were asked to reflect on how they framed and could re-frame student behaviour, re-design learning to incorporate the essential elements of Berry Street and to plan to take advantage of the micro-moments of opportunity to connect with students.

Department for Education update

I attended the Department for Education Leader’s Days with Deputy Principal Fran Charlton and Assistant Principal for Curriculum and Pedagogy Ryan Brown on August 17-18.  The focus on these days was to give information about the roll out of the South Australian Curriculum, with version 1 to be released in October this year (schools have previously only had access to prototypes of the curriculum).  Schools will be working to a timeline of full adoption of the SA Curriculum by the beginning of 2028.

Martin Westwell, Chief Executive of the Department for Education, set the scene in his keynote address by commenting that the curriculum is a tool.

• Yes, it is important to know stuff – knowledge

• Yes, it is important to be able to do stuff – capabilities

• The most important part is how people turn up – the last three feet.  The dispositions define the ways that our students can turn up to improve their futures.

This was significant. The South Australian Curriculum has always incorporated knowledge (know), capabilities (do) and dispositions (be), but there has been significant debate about whether the dispositions would be assessed.  This was unequivocally clarified with information that we were given about the to-be-released Learning Standards, which describe expected standards of achievement at each year level, and which integrate knowledge, capabilities and dispositions…all three of these things will be a part of the holistic judgement that a teacher makes about student learning when assessing and reporting. 

We are well placed for full adoption of the South Australian Curriculum in terms of the work we have completed on knowledge and capabilities. We will spend 2027 finalising how we will give our students opportunities to demonstrate the dispositions, and how we will go about collecting evidence that they have done so.

After a busy term, I hope that your child enjoys some well-deserved rest during the upcoming two-week break, and I look forward to welcoming them back to school on Monday October 12 for the beginning of the last term of 2026.

Cassie Dickeson Principal