Acting Principal's Message-

Shaun Doherty

Term 3 comes to an end

With Term 3 coming to an end, I have been reflecting on the challenges and highlights we have faced this term. The staff shortages experienced across the state and the impact of student absences have provided some challenges to schools this term, particularly ours. I am pleased that, as a community, we have been able to rise to this challenge and provide some fantastic opportunities to our students that we have not been able to provide in the past couple of years due to COVID. Project Direct, the VCAL Industry Showcase evening held this week, excursions, sporting events, online Parent-Teacher Conferences, Course Counselling, Book Week, NAIDOC Week, Snow Camp and Staff v Students events are all examples of all the extra things that have created the absolute highlights of this term. Thank you to everyone involved in organising, running, supporting and/or attending these events.

NAPLAN Results

As a school, we received some provisional data on the results of the NAPLAN 2022. We are incredibly proud of our Year 7 and 9 cohorts in their results, particularly given the interruptions of remote learning over the past two years. Our Year 9 Writing data was a real standout and is pleasing given our whole school focus on improving writing over the past four years. We also had some fantastic results from our Year 7 cohort in the area of spelling. Well done to all students and staff on their collective efforts and impact on this one indicator of positive learning outcomes.

School Review – PRSE

Our School Reviewer and Senior Educational Improvement Leader recently acknowledged how well the McClelland College learning community engaged with the pre-work associated with the Pre-Review Self Evaluation (PRSE). The feedback received from parents/carers, student focus groups, staff and community partners was thorough and well considered. McClelland’s School Review will take place in Term 4, and the feedback obtained this term will inform the college’s next Strategic Plan.

Year 8 Building works

With the Year 8 Learning Centre out of action for Term 3, I am pleased to announce that we are receiving a handover of the building this week and will use the term break as an opportunity to prepare the new space for classes to operate in Term 4. We look forward to unveiling this space at the beginning of next term.

Queen Elizabeth II memories

As the world reflects on the 70-year reign of the Queen, some of you might have seen the photos posted on social media of the Queen’s visit to our school on March 7th 1986. The Queen and Prince Phillip were on our school oval, where over 2000 students from Ballam Park Tech and Ballam Park Primary School were present. What an amazing piece of history for us as a college.