SCHOOL LEADERSHIP MESSAGE

 PRINCIPAL'S REPORT

On Wednesday 13th March we held the official opening for our new Middle School Learning Hub and Bunji Buildings. It was an honour to host the Deputy Premier and Minister for Education, Mr Ben Carroll, for the day. Our school captains gave the Deputy Premier a tour of our school, then the whole school gathered in the Bunji Building to hear him speak, and officially open our new buildings. Many special guests who have been great supporters of our school were also invited to this event and it was great to have so many members from our local community attend as well.

Later that evening we held a second opening for any members of our community that wanted to have a look at our new facilities. We welcomed many local community members, including some ex-teachers from the school, with catering being provided by students from Years 8 – 11. We finished the evening with a smoking ceremony outside our Bunji Building.

Our 2024 School Council met for the first time last week and it was great to be able to welcome some new members. Sonya Pether has joined as a parent representative for this year, and our 2024 School Captain, April Reeves and Jake Churchill, fill the two student positions on School Council for this year.

School Council meets twice per term and is a great opportunity for staff, parent, and student representatives to meet and discuss aspects of our school’s practices and processes. One of the functions of School Council is to review all school policies, and at our first meeting each year we traditionally start by reviewing two of our most significant policies – our ‘Anti-bullying Policy’ and our ‘Attendance Policy’. In order for students to learn effectively, they must first be attending regularly and feel safe while at school. These policies will be provided to all parents over the coming days, and I encourage everyone to read these, and contact one of our parent representatives on School Council with any thoughts or suggestions about these. All feedback about these policies will be discussed at our next meeting in May before these policies are finalised for 2024. Parents are welcome to forward any feedback to the school and we are able to then forward this to our parent representatives on School Council.

As we approach the end of Term One I want to thank all students, parents and staff for their efforts this term. Term One is always particularly busy, and with the unexpected storm preventing us from running classes for three days in the middle of this term, it was even more disrupted than usual. The resilience and commitment to teaching and learning shown by all staff and students has been wonderful to watch. I wish everyone a happy and safe break, and look forward to working with everyone again next term.