Principal Report

Welcome to our first e-newsletter for 2024. Welcome also to our new families who have joined the Evans community whether from our primary schools or nations across the world. We look forward to partnering with you and your child in their journey through school. The strength in a successful education lies in this strong relationship.

In this newsletter, we have focused on the wide use of technology across our school to support your children in developing confidence and academic attainment as well as technological literacy that will carry them in their post school transitions be it directly to work, into trades or university. As you will see, we have significantly invested in the latest tools and staff professional learning to embed their use across all faculties to ensure that students have access to build their skills, knowledge and understanding in this rapidly changing area.

To support our families and ensure equitable access to technology, we have directed and invested considerable funds over the past five years to equip all our classrooms with class size banks of computers (Chromebooks). As a result, students are able to access computing-based applications without the complications of bringing their own devices and families incurring costs of having to provide these for each of their children. We are committed to maintaining up to date hardware and software. You will notice on your school invoices that we request a small annual Technology payment and this goes directly to supporting our directions to ensure the continuity of this program.

Commencing last year, we have gathered a growing team of innovative staff who are looking at the potential and harnessing of generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) to enhance student learning and improve productivity across our administrative practices. Our new School Improvement Plan has a focus on the use of Gen AI to develop differentiated texts and activities with an emphasis on improving student reading.

In the ever and rapidly evolving world of Gen AI, there are many tools which can provide transformative opportunities to support both teaching and learning. Artificial intelligence has been around since the 1950s but Gen AI, the generation of new content including text, video, images, audio resembling content that humans create, is now in each of our hands. Since the beginning of last year, we have been investigating and trialing new technologies and staff have attended and delivered cutting edge professional learning to support the utilisation of AI across the school.

We know that our students will be entering into careers that are already being transformed and underpinned by the use of this. According to a recent McKinsey report (July 2023), “the adoption of AI is expected to sharply accelerate the timeline for automation, potentially automating up to 29.5% of work hours in the U.S. economy by 2030, compared to 21.5% without AI. The report suggests this change is not limited to manual or routine tasks - but extends to areas requiring creativity, expertise, and interaction with people.” This is, perhaps, the greatest time of change in both the workplace and wider society since the Industrial Revolution of the mid 1700s. We must prepare our students.

At the same time, we are also looking into the implications of these tools in student assessment, equitable access and the wider implications of their impact on education and society as a whole. They are challenging both us and students in how we leverage their use whilst ensuring ethical and safe practices. Across all levels of government, including the Department of Education, there are a reviews and development of policy to meet the opportunities and challenges presented by these new and rapidly changing technologies. The development, led by NSW, of the Australian Framework for Generative AI in Schools supports and guides us in the building of our knowledge and skills to transform education in this new world.

It is an exciting time that is sometimes raising more questions than answers but we are striving to provide your children with the tools and the opportunities to build the mindset to meet the future. Please look out for our parent workshop and information sessions, next term, where you can come and see what we are doing, ask questions and join us in preparing our young people (and ourselves) for this brave new world that is already embedded in our workplaces, recreation and wider society.

Nerina Pretlove

Principal