SCHOOL LEADERSHIP MESSAGE

PRINCIPAL'S REPORT

I’m sure that everyone is now aware of the tragic circumstances surrounding the passing of three local community members over the weekend, while another remains in a critical condition. Events such as these always hit hard on a tight-knit community such as Korumburra. While I am aware that the names have been released by several news outlets, at this time the families are still requesting that the names are not released so I won’t comment much further today. Like many individuals and organisations in Korumburra, Korumburra Secondary College has been deeply affected by these events and joins with the rest of our community in grieving for these wonderful local citizens. Support is available for all staff and students at this time. We will have more to say about these events, and our local community members who have lost their lives at an appropriate time.

Earlier this year I encouraged all students to ‘Dream Big’ in whatever they do. ‘Dreaming Big’ is how our students can achieve amazing things, and even if this doesn’t lead to amazing outcomes, working hard and taking advantage of all opportunities is how we can all be our best. Over the last couple of weeks it’s been amazing to see many examples of this. These examples have come in a diverse range of fields including sports, music, drama and academics.

In sport we recently saw Tara Zeally run at the state Cross Country championships and Zac Sporle complete at the South East Victoria clay target shooting championships, finishing a very impressive 4th out of 28 competitors.

Xander Beach of Year 8 continues to work with the finest performers in Victoria as they prepare for the Victorian State Schools Spectacular in just a few weeks. Xander also participated in the Yarram Eisteddfod last weekend, competing in 7 different sections, winning three and placing in the other four. This is a highly prestigious competition with many professional musicians from Melbourne travelling to perform.

These achievements are the outcome of many years of hard work from each of these students, as well as approaching as challenges with a positive mindset, and taking advantage of all opportunities that came their way. On Friday last week we saw this in action as four Year 7 – 9 teams participated in our annual Write a Book in a Day challenge. When the opportunity was offered to them to really extend and stretch themselves with their writing, art and other skills and capabilities, 38 students opted to participate. These 38 students arrived at 8am to start work on this challenge, working steadily in four teams for 12 hours to have a fully written, illustrated and published book. An incredible effort with many skills, knowledge and capabilities developed along the way. (Pictures on the following page).

Congratulations to all these students for their willingness to stretch and challenge themselves, taking a positive mindset in to all opportunities offered to them.

On Tuesday 25th and Wednesday 26th July Korumburra Secondary College hosted the Grade 5s from our local primary schools. We know that transition to secondary schooling can be a challenging process, and the more opportunity that students have prior to starting Year 7 to get comfortable at our school, the better their start to secondary school will be. The Grade 5 students participated in a Science and LOTE lesson, then enjoyed a lunch in the PAC. It was great to hear the positive feedback from the students, and how much they are looking forward to Year 7.

On Thursday 27th July we had a Student Free Day as our staff completed some professional learning in the morning, and then Parent-Teacher Interviews in the afternoon. The morning Professional Learning sessions were based around our School Strategic Plan goals. During our School Review last year, our reviewer highlighted the fact that our teachers were demonstrating outstanding practice, and it would be good to develop processes for staff to share teaching strategies with each other. On Thursday 27th  staff were developing processes for spending time in each other’s classes to watch innovative teaching strategies in action. Our students will start to see other teachers visiting other classes over the coming weeks.