Principal's Report

Welcome back to Term 4! The last term is just as big as all the others but seems to go even faster as the older students start to wind down and leave. In just few short weeks, our Year 12s will be off on study leave with exams looming. I was so proud watching how the students conducted themselves in their practice exams at the end of the term – taking it seriously and practising following the VCAA exam rules. Many students also spent time at school during the holidays, having extra study sessions with their teachers. There’s not long left for our Year 12s and I hope that they can see the light at the end of tunnel of 13 years of schooling!

U 14 Dederang Mount Beauty Football success

Congratulations to the Under 14s Dederang Mount Beauty Football team who won their grand final match in the first weekend of the holidays in a very close game, with only 3 points in it. It’s been 10 years since the team last won the premiership and a great effort was made on the part of the whole team.

Well done to Brad Redmond and Aaron Lutter-Wood, the team’s co-coaches, for the time and effort they put into the team – it certainly paid off!

Annual Implementation Plan (AIP) Update

Each year, the school looks at the 4 year Strategic Plan and takes a part of it to focus on, documented in the AIP. The actions and activities recorded in the AIP is the work that all staff work towards implementing.

The overall goal of this year’s AIP was the Department’s priority goal: to focus on student learning - with an increased focus on literacy and student wellbeing. The Learning Key Improvement Strategy was to support both those who need extra support and those who have thrived to continue to extend their learning, especially in Literacy-Writing. Actions to support this work were to engage in whole school professional learning and teacher collaboration and to develop a school wide literacy strategy focussed on improving writing.

The Wellbeing Key Improvement Strategy was to effectively mobilise available resources to support students' wellbeing and mental health, especially the most vulnerable. Actions to support this work were to establish student focus groups to promote student voice and seek feedback on the promotion of wellbeing and positive mental health and establish and embed the School Wide Positive Behaviour Support (SWPBS, or shortened to PBS) framework.

Each term, the School Improvement Team (SIT) review the progress on the AIP and at the end of last term, were pleased with the amount of progress that has been made. The use of Professional Learning Communities to build a culture of collaborative practice is now well established and comments, such as ‘I wouldn’t have tried this if I hadn’t seen it in the PLC’ were very rewarding to hear. The “Write to Learn” strategy was trialled in Term 2 and 3 and teachers will continue to implement this in classes this term.

For the Wellbeing actions, Student focus groups commenced last term, providing students with the opportunity to feel supported, engaged, seen, heard and valued. The PBS coach engaged with the school last term, to develop the plan and timeline of implementing this strategy. With a 5 year timeline, we are now at the stage of developing a shared understanding of this strategy with staff and preparing some of the supporting documentation that is required, before then introducing it to students.

Overall, progress on all actions set for this year has commenced, with some being fully implemented and needing to be embedded as part of everyday practice. Well done to the staff that have actively been engaged in making this progress happen, and to those that ‘jump on the bus’ to help get the work done.