Principal's Report

Today we celebrated ES appreciation week with a morning tea and some gratitude messages for our fabulous Education Support staff. Our school could not operate without the support of these amazing humans, from supporting the administration, finance, operations of the school, to helping run the science, sports, technology and food departments and our magnificent team of classroom support and wellbeing staff wo work tirelessly in support of some of our most vulnerable students. They do so much to help our teachers focus on what they need to do to support student learning in the classroom. Without them, we would not be able to offer many of the programs that we do or the activities and excursions. As well as a morning tea to celebrate, staff and students were asked to write messages of appreciation through each of the houses, these have been published up out front of the staff room so that all can see and it has been great to see so many staff and students stopping to read these heart felt messages. 

This month, we have finalised our school annual report for 2024 which you can now read on our website. Each year, the school completes an annual report as part of its compliance duties to the Department of Education. It is a great opportunity to reflect on all that has been achieved each year and help to identify where the work for the future needs to focus. In the annual report for 2024, some of the key highlights including the data showing that our 2024 Year 9 students are well above both similar school and state averages for both Numeracy and Reading and our 2024 Year 7 students had more students in the top two bands than the state or similar schools averages. In the senior school space, our school completion rate is above state and similar schools as is our retention of students from Year 7 to 12. 

We still have some work to do in the wellbeing data with our students’ sense of connectedness still below where we would like it to be despite a very strong focus on this in recent years but we are hoping that the work that we have been doing will be starting to pay off soon in this data. Our students will be providing feedback around this over the coming weeks as they are asked to complete the Student Attitudes to School Survey in their classes. This term, we will also be running a number of student focus groups to dive more deeply into how students are feeling and managing their way through the school as well as identifying any ideas for how we can improve their experience. The student leaders have been proactively working to support the students in this and engaging in peer mentoring as well as a range of other leadership activities across the term. 

At our school, curiosity is one of our core values—and not just in the context of learning. We often think of curiosity as something that drives questions in a science lab or fuels deep thinking in a maths classroom (which it certainly does), but curiosity also shapes how we connect with one another.

To be curious is to stay open: open to new ideas, to different perspectives, and—perhaps most importantly—to each other. When we approach the people around us with curiosity, we make space to wonder: What might be going on for them today? What might I not yet understand about their point of view?

This kind of curiosity is the foundation of kindness. It's easy to be kind when everyone is at their best. It's much harder—and much more powerful—when someone is having a tough day, or when we disagree. That’s where curiosity steps in. When we choose to be curious about the reasons behind someone’s words or actions, we offer them what psychologist Carl Rogers called unconditional positive regard—a belief in their worth and potential, no matter what.

We see this in action every day: in the student who asks if a classmate is okay after a difficult moment; in the teacher who checks in quietly with a student whose spark seems a little dimmer than usual; in the friendships that survive differences because both people want to understand, not just be understood.

At its heart, curiosity helps us see beyond assumptions. It keeps us from writing people off or reducing them to a single moment or mistake. And it reminds us that everyone is a work in progress—ourselves included.

So, as we move through the term, I invite you to notice where curiosity shows up—not just in the questions we ask in class or at home, but in the way we listen to one another, extend patience, and make room for complexity. Because when curiosity and kindness walk hand in hand, our community becomes a stronger, more compassionate place for everyone.

Kerryn Sandford

Principal