Principal's Report 27th July

Welcome back to term three and I trust the break from school routine was relaxing for you all. Term three is busy as the 2018 planning begins in earnest. The many pieces of the timetable puzzle including big picture planning, student subject choices, allotment preferences and staff appointments ensure we are kept on our toes! The hard work is worth it to support the talent and expertise of our students.

Thank you to our dedicated parents and staff who attended the information evening on Tuesday. It was wonderful to see and speak to so many of you. The girls are certainly excited about the possibilities for their futures and your support is so important to negotiating the plethora of choices and pathways available.

Strategic Planning

A crucial part of our work is ensuring the Strategic Plan 2017-2020 captures how Melbourne Girls’ College will guide future learning and success.

The key recommendations will be developed with staff on Tuesday for their ideas on key improvement strategies and targets we wish to set for the girls.

The key recommendations from the recent school review are:

To optimise the learning achievement growth of each student
To establish a consistent level of excellence in teaching and learning across the college
To optimise Wellbeing for every student

The review confirmed we should explore extension of our many Gifted and Talented students. I attended the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children Conference in Sydney last week. The learning was excellent in research, theory and practice providing insight into future directions in this area for our College. Please see this link to the conference program for more detail: https://world-gifted.org/openconf/modules/request.php?module=oc_program&action=program.php&p=program

Student Success

Grace Rosebirch of Year 8 recently appeared in an anti-bullying short film called "Spill". Grace plays the lead girl, Amy. The film has won many awards and been exhibited at film festivals around the world. “Spill” has now been accepted into the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) Film Awards. In order to win this highest short film honor the film needs maximum votes from the public. I encourage our school community to follow this link http://www.socialshorts.com.au/comedy/ to support Grace and the “Spill” crew in their endeavours. Any initiative to combat bullying is worth our support.

Congratulations to Mikki George of Year 12 who is the recipient of the 2017 Victorian NAIDOC Sports Person of the Year. Mikki has been in Utah attending a three week camp for her Aerial Skiing training and her skills, courage and commitment are inspirational.

Congratulations to our talented Technology Leader, Jo Jepsen who fostered the talents of Alannah O’Farrell and Lilly Oshlack to win the 2016 ‘So you think you can design’ competition. Alannah and Lilly were interviewed for the latest Design and Technology Teacher’s Association professional journal, Technotes, about their experience, “We had never worked cooperatively on a garment before; this made delegating tasks very challenging. However, it ended working in our favour because we were able to utilize our combined skills to produce a garment that incorporated both our individual styles. Working collaboratively on making our garment was really enjoyable”.

The Year 10 Visual Arts students have been involved in a collaborative project with the City of Yarra Artist in resident, Carolyn Cardinet. The students have created an amazing public artwork that will be installed in the Richmond library. Many thanks to our great Harriet Turnbull who always ensures her students have access to the best experiences possible.

The Rotary Club of Richmond’s Slade Literary Awards were held on Monday 24th July and congratulations are due to three of our students awarded major prizes for their short stories.

First place went to Sarah Kinch, Year 11, “Birds of a Feather”.

Second place to Greta Chadwick, Year 10, “The Guest List”.

Third place to Leyla Yucel, Year 10, “Behind the Veil”.

The stories explored homelessness, connecting with community and what it is to be a human being in the complex worlds we live in today including being a wedding guest! Thank you to Indra Leipins and Ruth Gadsden for supporting the girls in their creativity and writing.

Reminder: City Edge Network Professional Learning 16th and 18th August

Every two years the City Edge Network of schools conduct professional learning as an inner city Community of Practice. This year the Twilight Session will be held at The University High School on Wednesday 16th August, 2pm - 4 pm. All students will be dismissed at the end of period 3 on this day.

The Student Free Day endorsed by School Council for 18th August will see City Edge colleagues congregate at one of our seven schools to discuss pedagogy and curriculum, particularly related to our schools, performance development plans and Key Note speaker who is Adjunct Professor Erica McWilliam discussing “High Impact teaching for collaborative learning: What great pedagogy looks like.”

In her presentation, Erica will address the issue ‘why collaborate?’ before exploring what highly effective teachers do build, sustain and ‘normalise’ collaborative learning. Drawing on recent classroom research, she will share a range of useful pedagogical techniques for directing, supporting and sustaining collaborative learning in the context of a virtual ecology of digital disruption and distractibility and high stakes assessment. Insisting that all learning environments function best around facilitative routines, Erica will elaborate on pedagogical protocols for placing dynamic peer-with-peer collaboration at the centre of the inquiry-oriented learning environment.

We are delighted that our educational support staff are also involved in the joint professional learning day. They are focussing on effective teamwork and sharing of practice across schools. A great opportunity for all educational professionals to build their expertise.

Kind Regards,

Karen Money

Principal

Important Dates

July

August