Principal's Report
Principal's Update
Following an extensive recruitment process, it is a pleasure to announce that Belinda Parini has been appointed to the position of Assistant Principal of Curriculum, Teaching & Learning Innovation. Belinda will begin with us at the start of Term 2. From that point onwards, the principal team will be:
- Stewart Milner—Principal
- Belinda Parini—Assistant Principal of Curriculum, Teaching & Learning
- Gary Vella—Assistant Principal of Student Engagement & Support.
Belinda comes to us from Keilor Downs College, a school that has improved rapidly over recent years, and she brings substantial experience in leading effective teaching practices, rigorous curriculum development, continuous assessment and reporting to parents, as well as the establishment of strong subject-based VCE networks. Belinda has been integral to the establishment of university-experience programs for VCE students with four different universities and this will be important work for us to undertake as our VCE program expands significantly in the next two years. Belinda has also led the implementation of the DET Respectful Relationships program.
I look forward to introducing Belinda to everyone at the start of Term 2 and I trust that she will be warmly welcomed into our growing school community.
International Women’s Day
International Women's Day was held last week as a global day to celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The day also marked a continued and important call to action for achieving gender equality, addressing family violence, and promoting the empowerment of women.
This day was an opportunity to consider and address the inequalities faced by women here in Australia and around the world in terms of the proportion of girls and women in leadership and positions of power, the pay gap between women and men, and the lack of access to education in many parts of the world. Last month, the UN website http://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/sdg-report published a new report entitled ‘Turning Promises into Action: Gender Equality in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’ and that report presents relevant data for each continent and region, including Australia, such as:
- Globally women hold just 23.7% of parliamentary seats and as of September 2017 in Australia just 28.7% of parliamentary seats are held by women;
- In 18 countries across the world, husbands can still legally prevent their wives from working; in 39 countries, daughters and sons do not have equal inheritance rights; and 49 countries lack laws protecting women from domestic violence;
- In Australia, 17% of women over the age of 18 have experienced physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence at least once in their lifetime;
- The increased educational attainment of girls and women across the world over the past 50 years has been a positive story because it has directly reduced the number of people living in extreme poverty and has increased income security, access to decent work, and overall quality of life.
Since it was released last year, we have pioneered the Department of Education’s Respectful Relationships program at Coburg High School to promote respect for everyone regardless of gender, sexuality, cultural background and religious beliefs. We are committed to doing our part to eliminate family violence by promoting positive relationships at school and by challenging and supporting students to become confident, respectful, resilient, assertive and successful adults. We expect all students to treat each other with respect and decency at Coburg High School and to understand the importance of equality and fairness.
In terms of highly successful women, it is important to recognise that there are many former students of Coburg High School who have broken new ground in leadership and have achieved excellence in various fields, including:
- Shirley Robinson—former Coburg mayor and founder of the first childcare centre in Coburg;
- Glenyys Howlett—mayor of Moreland and former state parliamentarian;
- Raelene Boyle—record-breaking athlete and multiple Olympic medallist;
- Doris Carter—the first female Australian track and field athlete to represent Australia at the Olympics.
More recently, the Dux for the highest VCE outcomes and ATAR score at Coburg High School has been attained by two outstanding young women: Ayah Khalid Abdel Wahab (2016 Dux) and Kalliopi Kouliadelis (2017 Dux).
At Coburg High School, we firmly believe that all of our students can and will achieve greatness in their own lives.
Multipurpose Court Construction
It is a great pleasure to announce that the first stage is set to commence for the $560,000 construction of four new Mapei-surface competition-grade netball courts here at Coburg High School. Construction works will begin as soon as next Monday 26 March.
The four brand new courts will be used as multi-purpose courts for netball, basketball, tennis and futsal and will have lighting, fencing and team shelters. Once construction is completed, Moreland City Council will be able to hire the courts in the evenings for netball teams and training, as part of this Joint Use Agreement through the Inner City Netball Program. Following a rigorous tender process, Turf One has been appointed as the construction company. This project has been made possible by the Victorian School Building Authority and Sports & Recreation Victoria.
This is a major project and it will make a significant difference to our overall sporting facilities. The entire court construction project is expected to take approximately 17 weeks (82 days). The first stage of the project is to remove the two existing concrete courts and this work will be undertaken over the coming holidays because it is noisy work and we want to avoid any disruption to classes.
During the construction period, there will be strictly no access to the construction site (located next to the oval), which will be completely surrounded by temporary fencing. The current drop-off zone at our entrance roundabout will be unavailable for most of the project because that area will have to be used by trucks to remove and deliver materials and to enable parking for the site workers and contractors who will use that area as the main entrance into their construction zone. During the project, students will need to be dropped off and picked up outside the school grounds. This may cause some short term inconvenience but in the long term there is a significant benefit to our school and students.
The oval will still be available for use during PE & Sport classes and at lunchtimes for students to use but, for safety reasons, ball games will be moved to an appropriate distance from the construction area.
School Renovations Update
The final detailed version of our renovations design is currently being completed by our architects, Kennedy Nolan. This will finish the design process and once approved by the Department of Education and the Victorian School Building Authority, we will begin the process of tendering for the construction work in Term 2 so that by the end of Term 3 the renovations can finally begin.
There are three main aspects to our $1.9 million renovation project:
1. Resource centre and complete library with central hub for IT, careers, and wellbeing services, and for clubs, silent study and ‘one-button’ studio video recordings; an improved Visual Arts storage area;
2. Central outdoor gathering area and amphitheatre;
3. Learning spaces upgrade: new STEM room, combination closable classrooms and multipurpose spaces, and additional sound buffering.
Drop Off Zone and No Entry to the Staff Car Park
Thank you to parents who have been observing the new drop-off zone regulations and are now using the entrance roundabout or nearby streets to drop-off and pick-up students instead of driving into the staff car park. This will ensure that the hundreds of students who walk, ride and scoot to school are as safe as possible traveling along the paths within the school grounds and across the driveway and car park. To reiterate, the staff car park is strictly out of bounds for dropping off or picking up students, except with special permission. With the upcoming construction works on the four new multipurpose courts commencing very soon, it will be increasingly important to avoid congestion around the school grounds, including the car park, driveway and entrance to the school.
Thank you for your understanding and support.
Bike Shelter in the News
It was terrific to see publicity in the Moreland Leader for our new bicycle shelter this week. Cycling and active transport is an important priority for us. We know that rates of active transport to school have decreased across the state over the past few decades and it is really pleasing to see an increase in the numbers of students cycling, scooting and skating to Coburg High School. The bike shelter will accommodate this increase in students riding to school as well as being an area for students to learn about bike safety and maintenance. We thank the RACV who have contributed a significant grant towards the construction of this bike shelter. We look forward to the national Ride2School Day on Friday this week.
Article link:
Harmony Day
Finally, I would like to extend my congratulations to everyone involved in Harmony Day activities this week. Special thanks to Melanie Buscema-Moore for her overall coordination of the day.
Harmony Day is a fantastic opportunity to celebrate the cultural diversity within our school, to learn more about each other's backgrounds and heritage, and to acknowledge the ways in which different perspectives, worldviews, traditions, languages, foods and music can make our school more vibrant.
In fact, our diversity as a school population not only makes learning at Coburg High School more vibrant and interesting, it may also be making us smarter and more creative, collectively, than more homogenous schools. There are landmark books such as 'The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools and Societies' by Prof. Scott Page that show how progress and innovation in the world now depends less on lone individuals with high IQs trying to solve problems by themselves than on diverse people working together to solve complex real-world problems.
Clearly, our diversity matters and is well worth celebrating on Harmony Day. When we share our cultural differences and really mix with one another, we can all benefit.
Stewart Milner
Principal
Coburg High School
