From the Principal

I would like to take this opportunity to report on some significant news and events that have occurred in the last few weeks. 

Firstly, it is my pleasure to announce some key staff appointments for 2025. Over the last few weeks there has been an extensive recruitment process completed regarding staff leadership roles. I am very excited to work with all these staff as we continue to achieve great things for our students.  

Congratulations to: Assistant Principal – Dannielle Gibson. Danni is returning to Auburn High after spending three years as an Assistant Principal at Melton High School. She will lead the Wellbeing, Belonging and Community connectedness programs, as well as lead the programs involved in our Year 7 – 9 junior school. 

Year 11 – 12 Curriculum Leading Teacher – Lauren Barnes. Lauren comes to us from Penleigh Essendon Grammar School with many years of experience leading senior school programs. She will be leading curriculum work in our VCE, VM and IB programs. 

Year 9 – 10 Curriculum Leading Teacher – Andrea Ganotis. Andrea has completed an acting curriculum role in 2024 and will now lead the curriculum innovation and implementation in Year 9 and 10. Both Lauren and Andrea will collaborate with Cassie Mahony who is our Year 7 – 8 Curriculum Learning Specialist. 

Agency in Learning Leading Teacher – Michael Buckingham. Michael is a very experienced school leader at Mount Alexander College. He will lead staff in the use of data to inform teaching practices, and students in tracking their own learning via goal setting and conferencing with staff. 

Instructional Practice and Staff Development – Samantha Francis. Samantha has been Acting Assistant Principal for semester 2, 2024 and has been a leading teacher for some time at Auburn High. Sam will lead the induction, and instructional practices of our staff around the GANAG and High Yield Strategies work. 

The other members of the School Improvement Team are:

Ashley Lanfranchi – Student Leadership and Community Engagement

Anna Naylor – Wellbeing and Inclusion

We are currently recruiting for a further Leading Teacher position – Student Engagement, Voice and Agency. Pauline Delhostal has decided to stand down from the position and return to full time teaching duties at Auburn High. I would like to thank Pauline for her significant contributions to our programs and her passion and enthusiasm as she worked with our leadership team. Our loss to the leadership team, is a gain for our students as Pauline is an exceptional language and humanities teacher.

Sadly, last week there was a tragic incident at Auburn South Primary school. There have been multiple communications from the School to the parents, students and staff and the impact has been substantial. As a close-knit school community, both schools and their families, will continue to mourn Jack Davey’s loss and, when the time is right, we will collaborate as to how we can best honour him. The continuing messages of sympathy, offers of support, the generosity and kindness of people from across Victoria and beyond has been incredibly touching to both school communities. Each year we have between 20 and 30 Auburn South PS families join our school and so the connections are real. We have a significant number of families that share the two schools as siblings attend both. Since last Tuesday, my staff have designed and run community building sessions for Year 7 and 8 students to assist with framing language, behaviours and actions that are appropriate for a traumatic situation. All students have been very engaged and the staff have reported great value in the sessions. The focus is on empowering young people to have tools to approach the various situations that may occur. I am very proud of the work, and of the maturity and engagement of the students. 

This week I am attending the 2024 AAFEBS conference in Brisbane. Along with Genevieve Papon, and Sonia Boyer I have spent two days collaborating and learning with Heads of Schools from New Zealand, Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia and the ACT. The focus is on Bilingual Education and the benefit for all students in learning a second language. It is obvious when speaking to other school leaders that Auburn High School is unique in Australia. The programs we offer, the results we are achieving and the graduates we are producing are world class. This does not just happen. It takes years of hard work and persistence to invest in creating a program, collecting an expert teaching team, and providing a challenging and rewarding education for our wonderful students. Thank you to all past, and present students, parents and staff for the last 10 years of investment in the French Binational and Immersion programs.

Until next time, all the best.

Ross Pritchard