Principal's Report

2024 Parent/Caregiver Opinion Survey

This DET survey is now open and all families are invited to participate. We encourage one adult from each family to complete the survey. The data collected gives us an understanding of families’ perceptions of school climate, student behaviour, and student engagement. The school uses this information to plan for the following year. It assists us to identify areas for improvement, professional development needs in the school, and to target school planning and improvement strategies. From last year’s survey results, we saw that families were less positive in the areas of general school improvements, physical environment and school pride and confidence, all of which have been targeted with a range of school upgrades.

Please refer to the email or Compass newsfeed for login details for the survey. Taking only about 20 minutes, it can be completed on a desktop, laptop, tablet or smartphone and closes Friday 30th August.

Senior School Subject Selections

The Senior School Subject Expo and parent information session were held in the first week of this term. Jo Macklan, Careers Practitioner, is now in the throes of holding subject selection meetings with all current Year 10 and 11 students, to discuss and record their choices for 2025. It may appear that we started this process early, however our process truly provides student voice in what subjects run the following year, and this takes time. Firstly, we look at our teachers, see what subjects they can offer at the senior level and create a list of subjects to offer. This is how as a small school, we continue to offer as broad a range of subjects as possible. The emphasis in this process is on providing as much choice as possible for the senior students. This list is given to the students, who ‘vote with their feet’ in their subject selection meetings. We then take the students’ choices, work out which ones can’t run, due to lack of numbers, then ‘block’ the remaining subjects, to know which subjects will run at the same time as others. The students who chose a subject that won’t run are given the opportunity to pick something else (this is a very basic explanation of a complex process). While time consuming, I prefer our method as it provides the majority of our students the ability to choose what they want to study. Other schools don't place as much emphasis on student voice throughout the process as we do. 

Term 3 Progress Reports

Next week will be the end of Week 4 in Term 3 – where did that time go? This means the mid-term Progress Reports will be available on Compass next Friday, 9th August, after school. These reports focus on the learning behaviour of students, with an expected level of achievement for all students being 3.

Staff Professional Learning Day

Thanks to all the staff for their active participation in our learning day on Thursday. The collaborative conversations, energy and enthusiasm for their work was clearly visible. The morning was spent focusing on student wellbeing, while the rest of the day focused on teaching and learning. Thanks also to Heather in The Cafe for providing a delicious lunch for all to enjoy. 

Notice of School Council Meeting

Wednesday the 7th of August will be the Term 3, Week 4 School Council meeting. All community members are invited to observe. Items for agendas can be passed on to our school councillors prior to meetings, but may not be discussed until the following meeting. This is to allow time for discussion and to ensure thorough consideration is given to agenda items. If it is a simple matter, and there is time at the end of the meeting a new agenda item may be able to be addressed in that meeting, if the councillors agree.

All meetings are held in Room 9, starting at 6pm.