College News
Production
Congratulations to all the cast and crew for their magnificent play of Wonder in Aliceland. I’d heard good reviews from the cluster ‘full dress rehearsal’ on Thursday and went along on Saturday to see an amazing spectacle. Mrs Stringer and Miss Pearson have done an amazing job with lunchtime rehearsals, putting together props and directing the play.
Students should be very proud of themselves for their efforts to commit to the production and time commitments associated. The benefits of giving up so much time could be seen in their performance and confidence. These experiences when handled by great directors (Mrs Stringer/Miss Pearson), once you are over the nerves of performing, can be so uplifting. Members of the community who attended or have just heard how the performance went, have had nothing but great feedback.
Because of the efforts of all involved the school will put on a luncheon for all cast and crew in the next few weeks!
Staffing
We wish Robyn Lyons all the best and thank her for her service to Edenhope College over the year. Robyn has filled the role of our Mental Health Practitioner for 2022, but has succumbed to the travel of driving from Hamilton to Edenhope and Goroke schools on Tuesday to Thursday. Robyn will continue working for Balmoral K – 12 College and will commence with Baimbridge College in Hamilton. We wish you all the best Robyn and thanks for all the students you’ve supported here while you were on staff.
A welcome is extended back to Carine Bezuidenhout who starts as our school counsellor this week. Carine is no stranger and I couldn’t think of a better person to take over where Robyn has left off. Carine was an ES staff member at the college as well as our Friday F-1 teacher previously. She has a strong background as well as passion in counselling and will be a great addition to the college, as she is to our local community!
We are close to making some announcements of new teaching and ES staffing at the school. I’ll do this over the coming weeks.
Timboon Trip
Rachel Munro, our Leading Teacher of Teaching and Learning as well as Senior Mathematics and Jane Francis, our Agriculture Teacher visited Timboon P – 12 College this week. Timboon has established a strong agricultural program within their school and it’s a direction we wish to develop at Edenhope College. Over the next couple of years all staff will be visiting other learning environments with the aim of bringing ideas back to our school. I’m looking forward to seeing what they bring back from this trip.
Curriculum
Planning gets underway for the new secondary reforms over the next few weeks. Teachers who are taking on positions in this area will be getting together, collaborating and planning for 2023. The reforms are designed to cater for all style of learners ‘academic’ or ‘hands on' and will have career pathways as one of the major focus. Chad Frost and Victoria Heffernan will be in charge of VET and Careers and associated work placement falls under this banner, so students will have plenty of options as they near the end of secondary school.
Over 2022 and into 2023 the school has and will introduce new programs to support students with their literacy. Student data over recent times has told us that literacy (reading/writing/grammar etc), were the area students needed more scaffolding in. Remote learning and becoming reliant on computers/social media has eroded some student’s skills in these areas. We are addressing this and putting programs in place to help in these areas.
Trevor McClure
Principal