A Message from the School Board

OLA School Board Update

The role of a School Board is not often clear, however as Chair of Our Lady’s Assumption School Board for 2019 I hope this is something that I can communicate effectively during the course of the year. The Board is made up of elected members including parents in the school community, representatives from the Parish, and the Leadership Team. Our official role is to provide strategic guidance and planning for the school as well as advising on policy and monitoring the financial performance of the school. The Board does not have a role in the day-to-day management of school, which is successfully managed by the Principal and Leadership Team.

An update on the Board’s decisions will be communicated in real-time via the school newsletter, however I will endeavour to provide a quarterly update on the actions and achievements reached each Term. These achievements will largely be measured against the Strategic Plan 2019- 2021, which can be found at https://www.ola.wa.edu.au/pdf/plan_strategic2021.pdf

The Board met twice in Term 1 and it has become very clear that the Leadership Team with the support of the OLA staff have been working extremely hard to cultivate and embed a number of opportunities to enhance student learning and wellbeing within the school.

Academically, this has included developing a consistent school-wide approach to assessment and explicit teaching of literacy and numeracy; a range of intervention programs for learning support as well as the Sensory program; establishing opportunities for learning extension; upgrading digital technology within each classroom as well as new devices for Year 4 students and extending staff learning as part of a digital transformation program.

Pastoral improvements have been initiated with a newly structured and well communicated plan for students receiving the sacraments, and the school continues to maintain a strong association with the OLA Parish Team.

Culturally, the school has been re-energised with the introduction of the popular daily morning fitness program; extended Leadership opportunities for Year 6 Students including the new roles of Head Boy and Head Girl as well as the opportunity to attend a camp to Canberra. To match the school’s great strides forward to become contemporary, we also saw the marketing sub-committee’s 2018 rebranding of the school’s crest come to fruition with new school signage. The Board has also made the decision to update the school uniform, and this resulted in the commencement of a ‘fire sale’ of current school uniforms last week.

The Board’s focus moving forward will be the continual review of exisiting school policies and facilities, as well as providing financial oversight to ensure the school’s resources are managed and allocated sustainably to fund the priorities identified within the Strategic Plan. Future decisions and actions will continue to be communicated via the newsletter as required, and I look forward to providing the next update at the end of Term 2.

Amanda Cipriani

Board Chair