Jackson School Staff Bulletin

Welcome Back!

Term 3 2024

Welcome Back to Term 3!

 

I hope you all have had a relaxing and well-deserved break. I hope you've been able to recharge your batteries in readiness for a busy Term 3. I know many of you have been able to get away these holidays to escape the cold and rain.

 

I spent a lot of the holidays doing house DIY in preparation for our upcoming house sale and the pending arrival of Baby No. 3 at the end of August. I will then be on paternity leave until Term 4. We did however spend a few nights in Melbourne visiting Disney on Ice, Lightscape and the Banksy Exhibition.

 

Congratulations to Sarah Brens and Jason on the arrival of Alexander (Alex) James Jennings born on 04/07/24. We can't wait to meet him! Congratulations Louise-Amy and Rikki on receiving their visas. We look forward to continue working with you both. Congratulations Alison who will now commence a new role as Assistant Learning Specialist for Phonics supporting the Teaching and Learning Team with our Little Learners Love Literacy roll out.

Staffing & HR

 

On behalf of the Jackson School Community, I would like to welcome our new staff: Leyla Munir (1/2C ES) and Maggie Vu (Speech Pathologist commencing in Week 5). Welcome to our community!

 

Several ongoing and fixed-term opportunities have been advertised for teachers and ESS over the holidays to support our workforce for 2025. The teacher fixed term and ongoing positions are advertised on ROL and close on Sunday. The ES ongoing positions were advertised internally on Teams and close on Monday, 15th July 2024. Thank you to the staff who have already applied.

 

As we enter the heart of the winter months, we have continued to book our regular pool of CRTs through ANZUK. This is a significant cost to the school, but it ensures we can operate as efficiently as possible. We will continue to roster additional periods across teachers as they become available. Apologies, we can't predict this until absences come in each day to see which CRTs will be available. We also have a large number of planned leave in Semester 2.

 

We are now commencing our Workforce Planning for 2025. Other fixed-term and ongoing positions will be posted later this term. Can all staff please complete the 2025 Workforce Preferences Survey by the end of Week 1. Click or scan the QR code below: 

https://forms.office.com/r/R8YLUzuCzC 

 

Buildings & Grounds

Over the holidays, we continued to have several trades in each day, working on our staffroom renovation and PA system upgrade as part of our Capital Management Plan. Final works are being completed on the staffroom upgrade this weekend and we will set-up the new staffroom on Monday. Thank you to the Kat McGee, Dimity and the 9/10 team for your flexibility whilst we used the Food Tech room as a temporary staffroom. The PA system upgrade is now complete. Final volume adjustments and testing will be completed when we are back onsite. Thank you to Phil and Sharon for coordinating this work.

 

Other maintenance and minor works have been completed, including annual maintenance of the trip hazard reductions and minor plastering and painting. This has also included a change in the fencing around the exercise equipment to allow the Middle School a second emergency access/exit at the end of the building. Thank you Graeme, Lyle and Azmi for your support with this over the holidays. 

NAIDOC Week - Keep the Fire Burning! Blak, Loud and Proud

National NAIDOC Week celebrations are held across Australia in the first week of July each year (Sunday to Sunday), to celebrate and recognise the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

 

Below are some resources from the ABC which you may wish to adapt for your students at the start of next week on our return to school. Helena has also organised for an incursion on Thursday in the hall for Prep-Year 10 classes. A timetable will follow shortly.

 

NAIDOC Resources

School Review

 

At the start of Term 3 we will have our School Review led by Martin Winfield (School Reviewer) from Monash University with Anne Fox (Senior Education Improvement Leader for Keilor-St Albans), Tim Howarth (Manager of Strategy and Improvement from Office of the Regional Director), David Lord (Liaison Principal of Think Twice Initiative), Lisa Murphy (Principal of Sunshine SDS).

 

The Leadership Team have now completed our Pre-Review Self-Evaluation (PRSE) as part of our School Review panel and endorsement by School Council. This includes a summary of the methodology, enablers and barriers to achieving our 2020-2024 School Strategic Plan (SSP) goals, key improvement strategies (KIS) and targets and an evaluation against the Framework for Improving Student Outcomes. 

 

We have been allocated 4 days for our Review:

  • Validation Day (including Classroom Visits and Focus Groups) - Monday 22nd July 
  • Fieldwork Day 1 (including Classroom Visits and Focus Groups) - Thursday 25th July
  • Fieldwork Day 2 (including Classroom Visits and Focus Groups) - Friday 2nd August
  • Panel Day - Wednesday 7th August

There will be classroom visits, a review of termly and weekly planning documents, observation of PLTs and focus groups including staff throughout the School Review. The classroom visits will be longer than our standard learning walks (up to 20 mins) and will not focus on one thing specifically. 

Wednesday in Week 1 and 2 has been allocated for teacher teams to prepare communal areas for Review Day 1 next Monday and the fieldwork days.

Jackson PAL Feedback

 

As part of our School Review/School Minimum Compliance Assessment, Jana Halloway from the School Compliance Unit has been assessing school-level policies. All of our policies can be viewed on the Jackson School Policy Advisory Library. These are additional to Department-level policies on DE's Policy Advisory Library (PAL). This is particularly important for new staff as part of your induction and/or provisionally registered teachers completing their VIT full registration. The desktop review of our procedures and child safe standards will occur following our School Review to ensure the revised policies and procedures are in place. Thank you again Sarah Portelli for all of your work in the review, development and publication of our policies as part of the assessment.

 

To view our revised policies on the Jackson School Policy Advisory Library (PAL) click here: 

We want your feedback on these policies. Please provide any views, questions or opinions through this online form:

 

Excursion eLearning Module

 

On Friday 31 May 2024, the prosecutions of the Department of Education and Port Fairy Community Pool Management Group concluded. These related to the tragic death of Merrivale Primary School student Cooper Onyett (Age 8), during a school excursion at Belfast Aquatics Community Pool and Fitness Centre in Port Fairy in May 2021.

 

From 15 December 2022 onwards, school staff with primary responsibility for organising a school camp and/or water-based excursion activity must have completed the mandatory excursions e-learning module. These staff are encouraged to complete the module annually. Staff responsible for organising excursions of any other type are also encouraged to complete the module. The module is located in eduPay.

 

A new version of SAL is now set to launch in Term 4.

 

Following Helena's professional learning session on Camp and Excursion Protocols, please see below a list of Excursion Tips to support our Excursions/Incursions Guide in the Staff Handbook.

 

Excursion Tips.pdf

Jackson Staff Norms & Protocols

 

As part of the implementation of our school Statement of Values and School Philosophy policy, we have merged our PLT Norms and Protocols and the previous Community Expectation Matrix first published in 2016 into new, more practical Staff Norms and Protocols for us all to live by the school values everyday. Most of these will be very familiar to staff who have worked at Jackson for a while.

School Staff Survey

 

There is not a Curriculum Day to start off Term 3. 

 

On Tuesday, the staff meeting will be dedicated to the School Review and School Staff Survey. You will receive the School Staff Survey link from Orima on Monday. There are a number of things to be aware of when completing the survey. Time will be allocated for all staff members to complete the survey in the professional learning session. This will run on Microsoft Teams. Please meet in your PLT Leader's room by 3:10pm for a prompt 3:15pm start so you have the maximum time available to complete the survey. 

For more detailed information on other areas of School Operations please click on the pages on the left for important updates ready to start the term. These include: 

I hope you enjoy the remainder of your break, and I look forward to seeing you all on Monday. Go England!

 

Anthony