Principal Team Editorial

Mooroop Centre 

We are looking forward our new facilities opening soon and we hope to invite our community to a 'soft opening' ahead of an Official Opening, later in the year. In the meantime, we look forward to seeing many of you at our Open Night on Wed 26 March.

Academic Review Conferences

Today we hosted Academic Review Conferences for Year 7-11 students. The most important person in conversations about learning is the student themselves and this new format is a holistic approach to having students lead these important conversations. Today, teachers, parents and students reflected on learning data across all subjects and set goals for where they can improve. In past Student Conferences and Parent Teacher interview formats, we had declining participation with many parents/students not participating at all. We are confident this new format will support 90%+ attendance as we strive to ensure the conversations are data informed, meaningful and have the student at the centre setting goals. 

Principal for a Day - Principal Dusty

Dusty is a Year 10 student who was nominated by her peers and teachers to be the Principal for a day. It was a pleasure having Dusty work alongside me on Tuesday and I valued the insights she gave throughout the day.

In my role of Principal for the Day I had many tasks including meetings, guiding tours and observing classrooms.

When walking around the classrooms I noticed a lot of positive behaviours, with both teacher and student engagement in lessons. I noticed teachers gave clear instructions and guidance and students, as a result, were really well behaved and producing lots of work. 

When watching the teachers run the lesson, I noticed students were kept engaged with mini activities and tasks using individual whiteboards or students having 30 seconds to ‘turn and talk’ in pairs or table groups. This was a strategy teachers used to get students to consolidate their understanding of what was being taught which is important in the learning process. Class discussions and whiteboard activities got the classroom live and active, giving students the opportunity to check their understanding by having to respond to the teacher. 

I would like to thank Mrs Wallis and the Principal team for this opportunity to be the Principal for a Day and experience school life from the teachers’ perspective. 

~ Dusty Lijnders

Carrie Wallis

Principal