Principal's Report

Welcome to the final newsletter of Term 3. Each fortnight, we have discussed one of our new values, concluding today with a focus on Excellence.

 Simply typing ‘excellence in education’ into a search engine results in pitches from educational departments, spruiking excellence in their system, or celebrating excellence in practice. The concept of excellence is one though that you need to delve into more deeply than what we would regurgitate as a definition. 

I wonder how many of us may have a preconception that excellence is only attainable for the highest of achievers? This misconception is something that I want to break down, knowing that all our students (and staff, and community members) can achieve excellence if they so choose.

Firstly, a quote on excellence that I use regularly helps to break down myths on the ‘perfection’ of excellence:

Excellence is the gradual result of always striving to do better.

Doesn’t that make excellence achievable for everybody? Can you continually do something, strive to do it better and better, to the point where the outcome is excellence? I absolutely believe that you can. All of us can. 

I was made aware of an article, several years ago now, by a British educator, breaking down how excellence was fostered at the school he taught in, despite the pressures of the industry. Mark Esner, writing for The Guardian, broke-down the concept of building a culture of excellence into four steps:

1. Raise your standard high and agree what excellence actually looks like in your subject.
2. Lead the way by ‘live modelling’ what an excelling work sample looks like.
3. Is it excellent yet? Build a culture of excellence by setting an expectation that work isn’t finished ‘until it is excellent’. 
4. Taking it further by encouraging students to engage in additional research to support what they have learned in class. 

Excellence in learning and wellbeing is something that we strive for in our school. We believe all of our students can achieve this on a regular basis. 

Thanks for your ongoing support and keep doing your best.

Rohan Cooper

Principal