Warrandyte High School Newsletter

Principal's Desk

I am sure you would all agree that if feels like only yesterday we started 2024 and here we are, already having (almost) finished Semester 2. Although it has flown by, I am incredibly proud of all of the achievements of both students and staff in many different areas. This has included in our classrooms and outside in the community. 

 

This term we have been so lucky to introduce ‘Clancy’ to the team at WHS. Clancy will be trained as our therapy dog later in the year, ready to start his intensive work with students in 2025. In the meantime, our Mental Health Practitioner (and Clancy’s human mum), Kylie Lloyd, is bringing Clancy to school three times a week as part of the familiarisation process. Students (and staff) are absolutely loving getting to know the adorable little ball of fluff and we are all looking forward to having him join our staff next year.

 

Throughout this semester we have had a strong whole-school focus on bringing our Wellbeing Framework to life. In particular, we have been focusing on the ‘Connection’ pillar through building student-teacher connectedness, rapport and relationships. This has been occurring consistently in all classrooms each and every day and recentLeadership Walks have evidenced this in practice with staff and students regularly building this into their daily habits. We have seen our students far more settled and approaching staff more frequently when something is bothering them. The early indications of our hard work are demonstrating that the whole-school approach we are taking is extremely positive. We will be continuing to build on this in the coming months and years.Further evidence of the ways in which we are continuing to support the wellbeing of all students has been our ‘REACH Workshops’ for students in Year 9 (with more to come in Semester 2 for Year 10-12), our LQBTQI+ Workshops with our Year 7/8 students and our continued focus behaving and acting respectfully with the introduction of our School-Wide Expectations. Again, this hard work is evidenced in the classroom.

 

It has also been an important term for WHS to gain feedback from students in a variety of areas. We are so proud of the work our Student Voice Council continue to do this year, and it has been great to see the introduction of Student Voice Council Sub-Committees aligned with the School Captains’ Portfolios. They have planned some exceptionally exciting things for Semester 2 including a whole-school Environment Day and a Wizard of Oz Day, in support of our upcoming School Production. All students across the school have also had the opportunity to respectfully share their views through the annual Attitudes to School Survey. I would like to commend all ofour students on how well they completed the survey this year, in our new style administration of the testing period. This year I spoke to all students prior to the survey, giving them a good understanding of what the survey is and why it is important. Year Levels then came together and completed the survey extremely well. It will be great to be able to share the data with the school community later in the year. In Term 3 all staff will also have the opportunity to share their views through the School Staff Survey, and parents will also have the same opportunity through the Parent Opinion Survey. These surveys provide us with fantastic data and, often, lead to significant school improvement.

I was pleased to be able to present to the school community our first-ever ‘WHS Parent Forum’ late in May. With keynote speaker, Cassie Kitani (our Real Schools facilitator) delivering a fantastic information session titled ‘Building Resilient Teens’ the tone was set for a fantastic evening. Following this, parents were invited to share their views and suggestions about Compass and our newly introduced ‘WHS School-Wide Expectations’. 

 

I thank those parents who braved the terrible weather and came out in support of our school initiatives, and share some of the feedback from this forum for you below:

 

Compass:

  • Of all the parents who attended, all are consistently using Compass and regularly accessing the school newsletter
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  • Of all the parents who attended, all said that they access the variety of daily newsfeeds and other digital information
  • Positive Green Chronicles are very well received, though it would be good to get a notification to let parents know there is one to view
  • Many parents were not aware that there are daily lesson plans published by all teachers for every class so that they, too, can view what is being delivered in the classroom
  • Some parents reported issues emailing teachers if using the app (but it is ok if using a laptop/desktop device)
  • The school could improve by having teachers alert/email parents when there is feedback on a Common Learning task to view
  • Of all parents who attended, all are consistently using Compass to access their child’s Interim & Semester Reports

 

WHS School-Wide High Expectations

  • Of all parents who attended, all parents were aware of the WHS School-Wide Expectations poster (mostly through our school communications about this)
  • Of all parents who attended, all parents agreed that our high expectations are reasonable ones
  • Of all parents who attended, all parents agreed that they too can echo these expectations at home
  • The school could improve by posting more positive/green chronicles
  • Parents expect consistency with uniform expectations and that all staff are requesting and addressing the same thingsOn the right path

 

Throughout the latter part of this term, we have had a strong focus on future pathways for our Year 10 – Year 12 students. Students have been out to visit both Deakin & Latrobe and we have had our own ‘Mini Careers Expo’ run by our VCE-VM students. Year 10 students commenced the important steps in selecting their pathway for 2025 through our Course Counselling Student Information Session, VCE Parent Information Evening and our Course Counselling Interviews. Their selections for their chosen pathway in 2025 will all be complete by the end of this term which allows the school to commence important planning of classes and staffing in 2025. 

 

I congratulate all of our Year 10 students on the way they have shown enthusiasm and motivation for their future – well done. Also a huge thank you to Ms. Bloom, Ms. Miller, Mr. Blair and Ms. Burton for all of their hard work throughout this process.

 

Late in Term 2 we also received the exciting news that Ash Dorio had her gorgeous baby, Finn. Mum, Dad and baby Finn are all doing very well, and Pippa the pooch is loving her new baby brother!

Rachel Lynch

Principal