From the Principal Class Team

Dear Parents and Guardians

We are very much looking forward to meeting with you at Parent-Teacher interviews next week, and hope that you are well underway with making appointment times. Our partnership with you is critical in supporting the best possible outcomes for your child; and teachers and coordinators value this opportunity to talk with you about your daughters or son’s progress this year, and what we can do together to further their success.

It is also a really good opportunity for you to have a look around the school to see some of the improvements we’ve made to the facilities: the renovated Junior School and Wellbeing offices, the new Individual Needs space, and the additional staff work area in the Science Centre.

We are now able to offer a comprehensive range of allied health services to support students and families, with 3 social workers, a youth worker, 2 speech pathologists, a health promotion nurse, and access to a general practitioner, and a psychologist onsite. Please feel free to drop into Wellbeing or Individual Needs next Wednesday to find out more about these services.

 

Schools that Excel Award Winner 2019

This week, as part of a special feature on education, The Age, in conjunction with the Australian Council for Education Research (ACER), announced 10 Secondary schools across Victoria that have shown the best growth in their results over the past decade.

We are really pleased that St Albans Secondary College was recognised for this award in the Western Melbourne area. It is a wonderful acknowledgement of the expertise, and dedication of our teaching and education support staff over many, many years, of our sustained focus on improvement, and of the support we are given by our entire community.

Congratulations and thank you for such a significant contribution to the lives of so many young people, to their families, and to the wider community.

The Age article https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/schools-that-excel-how-the-west-was-won-20190322-p516ov.html 

From The Age:

How were the schools that Excel Awards decided?

The 10 schools The Age judged as having shown the best growth in their results were chosen following input from Nathan Zoanetti of the Australian Council for Education Research. We used Department of Health and Human Services boundaries to categorise schools as metropolitan or regional, and divided the metropolitan region into west, north, east and south. One government school and one non-government (Catholic or independent) school was chosen for each area based on their records of improvement by Year 12. Of course, some qualities of schools cannot be measured. These include a school’s culture its inclusiveness and the dedication of teachers.

 

International visitors

Last week, we hosted a delegation of educators from the US, Singapore, China, Japan, Canada and Hong Kong. The visitors were in Australia for the Global Cities Education Network (GCEN) symposium. The theme for 2019 was ‘Future ready students; Future ready schools; Future ready leaders.’

They met with a number of our teachers and leaders, as well as our School Captains, Habiba Habib and Daniel San Jose, Student Learning Action Team (SLAT) members, Connor Buckley, Johnny Nguyen, Iris Wen and VCAL students, Sarah Mollica, Jessica Panayi, and Yoonus Muhuseen. They also dropped in to visit Ms Amy Lee and 9 for some local geography.

Congratulations to our students who were excellent ambassadors for the school and for education in Victoria. They spoke passionately and eloquently about what and how they learn, the links to business and industry, and their career aspirations.

 

Principal Team

Last year, Ciar Foster, Assistant Principal at Northcote High School, joined us for two weeks as an Intern Principal as part of her studies in the Bastow Institute for Educational Leadership’s Unlocking Potential program. Ciar is back with us for another two weeks now to complete her internship. It has been a wonderful opportunity to learn from and with Ciar, and to benefit from her, valuable contributions to the work we are doing on teacher collaboration this year.

On behalf of all of us, we wish Ciar all the very best for her work in education, and thank her for what she has brought to St Albans.

 

Self-Evaluation

As mentioned in our last newsletter, this year is our year of self-evaluation and review. it is a process that all government schools undertake each 4 years.

We are currently finalising our self-evaluation for presentation to School Council. The self-evaluation has been informed by input from staff, students, parents and school council. Thank you to all parents who have contributed through the online Compass survey.

There will be further opportunities for input during the 4 day review period where we will run more forums. These will be advertised through the newsletter and Compass.