Principal Report

One of the highlights of the year is the send-off of our Year 12 students with each one of them symbolically ringing the brass bell at the front gate after being led through a guard of honour of all our students by our drummers. Commencing during the Covid-19 pandemic, this has quickly become an annual tradition. It was wonderful to see so many parents and carers at the gates on the last Friday of term to share in this special event. Of course, there is still much to do with tutorial groups running during the coming examination period, HSC exams, graduation and, of course, the formal.

Every five years all schools across NSW undertake external validation (EV). In this process, schools are asked to present evidence, rate themselves against a framework and enter into a conversation about goals established in the school plan with an external panel of experienced principals. Evans undertook EV this term and the Panel agreed with our evaluation of our progress against the framework with the exception of two areas where they believed that we were at the higher level of Excelling than that which we had indicated and two areas where we were very close to Excelling. The whole process has illuminated our future directions as we enter the planning phase for the new school plan in early 2024.

Thank you to Ms Doyle for her leadership of the team through this project from assembling the group to structuring the collation and annotation of the evidence and keeping everything on track. Thank you also to Ms Liau, Mr Agcanas, Ms Elliott, Ms Tryhuba, Ms Lane, Ms Briggs and Ms Jones who so eloquently spoke about the amazing work that is undertaken at Evans to support student learning and wellbeing. They impressed the EV Panel with their passion and their ability to articulate all aspects of our school and its future directions.

Over the past four years, as Head Teacher, Mr El Hafiane has established the EAL/D Learning Support Faculty (EALLS) to the point where it is an essential teaching and learning resource in our school. His strong focus on equity, problem-solving skills and good nature along with a determination has ensured that students at risk, newly arrived and vulnerable young people are supported across their academic and well-being needs. As a result of his leadership, Mr El Hafiane was presented with the Director’s Award for Executive Leadership by the Deputy Secretary of Education, Deb Summerhayes. We are very proud of his achievement.

As you may be aware, staffing of schools has been a big focus of the Education Department. Evans was part of the staffing conversion program that has meant 11 administrative and teaching staff who have been in the school for a considerable period of time have had their temporary status moved to permanent. Congratulations to all.

At the beginning of the term, we took delivery of 6 demountable classrooms to accommodate the rising number of students attending both the high school and Intensive English Centre. This means that more classrooms will be available in the high school for the increased numbers of Year 7 students expected in the new year. The buildings were installed in record time and our IEC students commenced their studies in Week 9 in their new classrooms.

Our academic year comes to an end mid-term 4 culminating with Spirit Week when we celebrate our achievements and mark the beginning of our new year of study. In Week 6, all students in the high school will move into their next year with Year 7 becoming Year 8; Year 8 becoming Year 9; Year 9 becoming Year 10; and Year 10 and HSC1 together becoming our first fully HSC cohort. We are looking forward to the comparative HSC results from our current Year 12 and HSC1 students later this year and wish them all the best in the coming external examinations.

Nerina Pretlove

Principal