Brentwood Newsletter

Principal's Report

Term 1: 

Next week will mark the first term without any lockdowns, or remote learning since term 4, 2019. This means that for approximately 900 students in Years 7 to 9, they have all experienced their first full term of Secondary School. Congratulations!  

 

Whilst it is pleasing to see students complete a full term, there have still been a number of challenges with a higher than normal absence rate for students and staff due to COVID and isolation requirements. Students and staff have continued to adapt and work through these challenges with teachers ensuring lesson by lesson instructions are available for all classes and students continuing their learning at home. On behalf of the Principal Team and School Council I would like to thank and congratulate everyone for their efforts this term. Well done! 

 

Building Community Connections: 

Over the past two weeks our student leaders have continued to shine with several school activities. Our Student Representative Council (SRC) led our first Community Day for the year with a focus on diversity and inclusion. The SRC encouraged their peers to engage in a range of activities designed to bring students together and learn more about each other. This included games, face painting of different flags, sharing different cultural foods, wearing traditional cultural clothes and more. All funds raised throughout the day will be donated to support flood victims in Northern New South Wales and local students in need.  

 

For a number of our families this event was quite timely as they will begin observing Ramadan from tomorrow, the 2nd of April until the 1st of May. Ramadan is a special time in the Muslim calendar dedicated to daytime fasting and spiritual reflection. I wish these families a ‘Ramadan Mubarak’ or Happy Ramadan. 

 

Continuing with the theme of community, our student leaders ran their first House Day earlier this week too. This included a number of house-based activities designed to increase student connection to their House. A highlight of the day was certainly the dodge-ball tournament in the Gym where it seems that a Year 7 team defeated a Year 12 team! Here are the links to the House Assemblies that were part of the House Day: 

Our various leaders were also pivotal in supporting the success of our whole school Athletics Carnival on Thursday March 24. Students were active on the track and in the field and our Green Team continued their mission on promoting sustainable living by promoting recycling and reducing our waste with games and competitions. They also complemented the BBQ with meat free alternatives too. At the end of the day, it was a big congratulations to Wattle House for winning the Athletics Carnival for the second year in a row. This is testament to their level of participation in the day. Well done! I would also like to acknowledge our Director of Sport, Edin Selimovic, for leading another successful sports carnival.  

 

On Wednesday March 23, our Music Captains led our Music students back on stage for their first ‘twilight’ concert of the year. All of our Instrumental Students performed and sounded amazing. This was particularly impressive as they have only had a few weeks of practice this year! Thank you to our Director of Music, Lauren Davine and our team of Music teachers for their work and dedication ensuring our students were ready to perform. All the parents and friends who attended thoroughly enjoyed seeing the students back on stage.  

 

Open Night ‘Live Stream’:  

On Tuesday, March 29, the Principal Team along with our School Captains and Head of Wattle House, Bill Exton, hosted our live stream Open Night. The purpose of this evening was to provide important information about Brentwood to prospective parents which accompanies the large number of school tours being run currently. We encourage any families who may like to know more about the school, or who may have younger siblings enrolling at Brentwood next year to watch via the link below and on our website. Our school captains did a wonderful job responding to live questions from the audience.  

Open Night Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCwPfc0yYR4&feature=emb_imp_woyt 

 

A special thank you to Brenton Van Vliet for his technical wizardry in ensuring we are able to share our school with the wider community.  

 

 

Student Forums: 

Over the past fortnight the School Improvement Team and House Leaders have been running student forums where they were asked their views on three areas of the school: Student Connectedness, Student Safety and Student Voice & Agency. 32 students were randomly selected in Years 7 – 11, with an even balance of boys, girls, and Houses. Students were provided with some of the Attitude to School Survey responses from 2021 and invited to provide a more detailed perspective on each of these areas. Their responses will be used by House Leaders, the School Improvement Team and Leadership Team to help inform programs and operations at the school. These findings and actions will be shared with the wider community early next term. I would like to thank all the 160 students who participated in the forums.  

 

John Ballagh 

Principal