Acting Principal's Report
Welcome back to Term 4
As communicated throughout this term Ms Satchwell has been on leave. Ms. Satchwell’s husband suffered a serious mountain bike injury whilst overseas which has impacted on his ability to fly back to Australia. Unfortunately during this period Ms Satchwell has also been diagnosed with pneumonia. I have been in the Acting Principal role until she returns hopefully in the near future.
Mr Tudball also had an unfortunate holiday period. Mr Tudball was involved in a major car accident which has resulted in a period of time in hospital and a number of complications. Mr Tudball is a very enthusiastic and dedicated staff member and is exceptionally keen to be back at work but unfortunately his condition was worse than expected. Mr Tudball is gradually returning to full time work and he will be at school for a couple of hours a day throughout the week. Ms Emma Hickey will remain in his class until he returns.
Outstanding Primary Principal
In July this year Jane was notified that she was shortlisted as a finalist for the Outstanding Primary Principal for the Victorian Education Excellence Awards (top 4).
As you know, Jane is still overseas therefore she was unable to attend the ceremony at the Regent Theatre so Cate (her daughter) and I went along. To describe it as ‘outrageously fancy’ is an understatement and to be honest it felt like we were at the Academy Awards with the ‘it’ crowd of the teaching profession.
On behalf of our school, I would like to congratulate Jane as she was announced as the Outstanding Primary Principal of the year for 2018. She absolutely deserves this award and we are exceptionally proud of her. Being a Principal is a challenging task and what she has been able to achieve in her time is unbelievable. This is an excerpt from her nomination and link to the associated video which also features a number of our students:
Chelsea Heights Primary School principal Jane Satchwell says she is proud of her journey with the school community to achieve her vision: 'High Standards, High Expectations'.
The vision aims for clarity and simplicity. It ensures strong understanding and application across the whole school.
Jane took the school from disadvantage to creating a culture where everybody believes that all students can succeed. Data indicated a need for the school to change its social climate. The first challenge was to transform the belief that demographics led to low performance.
Jane led a whole-school transition guided by the Professional Learning Communities' core principles. She enhanced staff collaboration, community cohesion and student-centred learning.
To achieve new targets for student success, Jane developed a learning environment that was safe and conducive to learning. This includes clear and focused teaching instructions with frequent monitoring and intervention. The results have been outstanding.
Over Jane's eight years with Chelsea Heights Primary School, the culture has changed. Before, the school was underperforming and reactive. Today, the school is collaborative, professional and adaptive to changing educational needs.
The school has achieved and sustained medium to high literacy and numeracy growth. Student behaviour has significantly improved. The school culture promotes inclusion and collective responsibility to support all student achievement.
To view the video go to the link below and type the password. Note our video is second last on the list.
https://vimeo.com/album/5495881
Password: VEEA
I’d like to also point out that these awards have been conducted over the last 14 years. Jane is the ONLY recipient to have won two awards (not in the same year), as Jane won the Lindsay Thompson award in 2006 which is the highest honour in the profession.
As Jane missed out on being at the ceremony due to the circumstances she is currently facing, I think it’s important that we make this something special for her when she returns and celebrate as a school community.
Class Structure and Student Placement
This time of year teachers are beginning to look at class placements for 2019. This process is quite extensive and teachers consider the academic, social, emotional, gender and other relevant factors when developing these compositions. The policy for Class Structure and Students Placement is available on the website and states that we will NOT be accepting requests from the end of October.
Pia Licciardo
Acting Principal