School Council News

from the meeting held on 23rd May 2017

Our SCHOOL COUNCIL for 2017/18

School Council meetings will be held on Tuesday in Week 3 of each month.

School Council President Todd Sprague

School Council Vice President: Julie Buick

School Council Treasurer Anna-Lisa Tewma

School Council Executive Officer Kerrie Heenan

School Council members Fiona Adrichem, Harry Agrios, Michael Benfari, Jessica Heatley, Theodore Kiosses, Fenella Russell, Annette Spence, Derek Whiteside

SUB COMMITTEES FOR 2017/18

Sub Committee meetings will be held in Week 1 of each month.

Education

Convenor: Chris Beare

Members: Fiona Adrichem, Harry Agrios, Michael Benfari, Julie Buick, Maria Parks, Fenella Russell, Todd Sprague, Warren Tofts

Finance

Convenor: Anna-Lisa Tewma

Members: Chris Beare, Kerrie Heenan, Amanda Kent, Theodore Kiosses, Marion Small, Warren Tofts

Buildings & Grounds and OHS

Convenor: Bill Panas – B&G, Fiona Walker - OHS

Members: Theodore Kiosses, David Tewma, Derek Whiteside - together with the members of the OHS subcommittee

Fundraising

Convenor: Annette Spence

Members: Fiona Adrichem, Harry Agrios, Julie Buick (helper), Theodore Kiosses (if available)

REPORTS TO SCHOOL COUNCIL

Principal’s Report – Kerrie Heenan

Enrolment

Enrolments for 2017 are steady.

Staffing

Meagan Heeremans had a little boy this morning. Nicole Watt had a little girl. A new computer tech person started this term and has resigned. Our new classroom assistant Tyson has started this week. Jayne is starting back next week doing ½ days , and is looking forward to coming back next term.

Funding & New Agreement

Proposed funding is political at the moment, we await further information. There are significant changes in the new agreement, with very clear guidelines and job opportunities, with people on contract to be made ongoing. Conditions and salary range for support staff has been significantly improved. One of the changes is that each teacher will be given 4 days leave professional leave, which is 400 days a year for our school that we have to provide, we await implementation details, but it will not be in the form of additional student free days.

Region

Principals conference the last week of term, have looked at what will be presented and have made the decision that the Principal Leadership team will not be attending as we cannot justify 4 people absent for 2 days. School Council acknowledges and supports this decision.

Visits

David Martin held a presentation to the SANE and Einstein kids last week about issues and problems in the world. Some responses that they would like to investigate and contribute to finding solutions are: getting plastic out of the oceans; putting a filter on the glasses for people suffering from epilepsy so they are not affected by strobe lighting; a way to forget the bad things and only remember the good things; use metal detector technology to create a shark detector on surf boards to help detect sharks.

Today The Lakes hosted Dr Denise Baken and Dr Mark Troutman who are world leaders in IT and homeland security. They toured our the unique setting guided by our dynamic student leaders. Our guests are hosted by Melbourne Polytechnic Director of the Centre of Applied Innovation, Dr David Martin and his team. The Lakes is privileged to have these leaders share their views on science and technology whilst giving insights into how they have developed their leadership as a tool for being innovative in their fields. Students had the chance to ask questions and meet our guests, who were thrilled to see kangaroos at the back of the Year 9 building. Denise shared conversation with her mother about discussions with Martin Luther King held around the kitchen table. Our female student leaders will be attending Dr Baken and Dr Troutmans' presentation, specifically for girls interested in leadership, at Melbourne Polytechnic on Wednesday 24th May when Dr Baken, in particular, will share her story ‘from Cradle to Colonel’. They want to come back and look at marketing and selling the story of what we do here.

We had 4,500 hits about David visiting us last week, showing the learning that is happening at our school. There is a definite shift in the community at the moment about where we are. We are a thematic inquiry based learning school, we will continue to explore and find ways to capture this in the future, with identification of the basics that we are able to build the next steps on. Without the basics such putting a sentence together or write a letter or be able to do the things that are functional, then the other stuff is nowhere near as rich.

Network

Whittlesea Tech School is moving along nicely – with community workshops being held about the design and layout. There will be opportunities for school ambassadors from 13 secondary schools involving key staff in rich learning in a 3 day professional learning program.

Programs

Year 2 at Westgarth town – feedback was that they most impressed with the quality of questions asked and answers given by other students.

Fire brigade – had to postpone the morning due to needing to attend a fire, but came in the afternoon to conduct the activity.

Our sporting teams out of the school have been very successful, showing our Values while out of the school.

The Early Years assemblies on Friday mornings are getting richer and richer.

The new basketball courts have been embraced by the students and especially after hours by the school community, with picnic tables and chairs coming for families to use.

We have signed off and welcomed the beginning of the Scouts, with a Joey group starting on Monday nights. From the original 8 members, in 3 weeks it has grown to 90 members of 2 Joey groups, Cub groups and Scout groups now starting. The original agreement for this year was to use the COLA on Monday nights. A new agreement for use on Monday, Wednesday & Friday nights, will need to include not-for profit costs to cover the extra cleaning and electricity usage.

The Song Dance and Drama Night is coming up on Thursday 8th June at the Plenty Ranges Performing Arts Centre. Tickets will be available for sale next week. The Early Years Choir and the Performing Arts students together with the ex-students currently at NCAT will be performing on that night.

Kerrie will be on Long Service Leave for five weeks at the beginning of next term, Chris Beare will be Acting Principal, and Maria Parks will be back filling for Chris. Bill Panas will be on Long Service Leave for three weeks at the beginning next term, with Marcus Hastings back filling for Bill.

Question – will we be discussing with the Scouts about building a joint facility?

Response: Discussion with Scouts Victoria, City of Whittlesea, and the government for joint partnerships with the school community. As a community we need to approach the local members, state and federal for funding, which has been available in the past.

Whittlesea Council came to a confidential settlement with the family about the issue with the teeth. Even though the road still belongs to the school, ownership will be transferred to the Council in the future.

Education Sub-Committee Report – Chris Beare (convenor)

NAPLAN testing was held last week, thank you to MJ and the team that supported her across the four year levels involved.

Year 9 b