Principal's Notes

Hi everyone

Amazingly, we are now entering week six of remote learning and there is a light at the end of this particular tunnel. Next week sees all staff members, Year 11 and 12 students, Year 10s in VCE subjects, and the Talbot Room gang returning to on-site learning then two more weeks and we are all reunited!

Thank you to staff, students and parents for the remarkable work being completed, and thank you to the many contributors to this week’s edition of ‘Connections’! 

Please enjoy this week’s edition containing, as it does, an update on the extraordinary life in isolation of Mr Morison and numerous insights into the remote learning experiences of students, staff members and even parents. I enjoyed reading each of the contributions, especially Rosie’s bread baking, and was amazed by the photo of Barb vacuuming in a wedding dress. Great to read, also, about students and staff members finding new ways to maintain their fitness.

Please keep those contributions coming and we will keep publishing them.

Today, I would like to highlight our amazing Education Support (ES) staff members. Remote learning at its most positive has shone a light on the qualities, assets and abilities that already existed in individuals and schools and I think that is especially true for each of our ES staff as individuals, for our ES staff as a whole and for our school. 

Without exception, over the remote learning period, whenever an ES staff member has been asked to take on a role, or to do a job big or small, the answer has been ‘yes’, without hesitation and when I think about it, I know that has always been the case.

To quote Tanya Ryder-Barnes, HHS is ‘smashing’ remote learning and that would have been impossible for teachers, students and parents without the outstanding support of the ES staff members.

From driving many kilometres delivering thank you packs, to compiling hard copy work, staffing the general office throughout this time, proof reading a whole website, supervising kids on-site, selflessly offering to do any extra work needed, arranging ‘virtual’ social gatherings, constructing virtual school tours, asking to come back to work early to support Talbot Room kids, being on-site day after day to help individual students, delivering music tuition remotely and doing a brilliant job, taking dozens and dozens of phone calls about IT problems, managing a pool staff doing entirely new jobs, working every day to keep the grounds fresh, clean and safe, sharing photos of the fantastic things being achieved by kids, arranging Kahoot games to keep us entertained, keeping us operating financially, arranging for more than 40 students to borrow computer devices, and getting that job done in an amazingly short time, supporting our most at-risk students with love, care and compassion and countless other tasks, roles and duties that probably don’t appear in anyone’s job descriptions, they have done all this and much more with grace, goodwill and without hesitation.

We are proud of our ES staff members- they ‘make a difference’ in the lives of children. 

Thank you.

Allan Rennick