From our Principal

I would like to take the opportunity to wish all Guyra Central School students and their families, the Guyra community and our ‘partners in learning’ a happy and safe Christmas Break. We look forward to seeing everyone in the New Year, perhaps at the Lamb and Potato Festival.

A special congratulations to our Year 12 students, who now have their HSC results. Well done everyone. Good luck with the next chapter of your lives and thank you again for the great contribution that you all made to Guyra Central School during 2023 and during your years of study at the school.

I have provided a transcript of my Presentation Day Principal Address. Thank you again for supporting our school.

Presentation Day Principal Address 7th December 2023

I would also like to acknowledge our Elders past and present and welcome our community Elders who are here with us today, and to our future Elders, those who sit within this room as students, please know that you have my personal support and the support of your school. To our student leaders who are up on stage with us today, representing themselves, their families, our school community, and the entire Guyra community, thank you for your courage and commitment. While thanking our incoming leadership team for their current and future commitment to supporting our students and staff I would like to again acknowledge our outgoing K-12 student leadership group, some of whom are here with us today. Congratulations and thank you for everything that you were able to achieve during your tenure and thank you to our entire Student Representative Council and to our Junior AECG and to the staff who have nurtured and supported our student leadership team, thank you. 2023 was also the year that the Guyra AECG (Aboriginal Education Consultative Group) was re-established, and it is with great pride that we celebrate the fact that the newly elected President, Tremaine Patterson, Vice President, Eunice Blair, Secretary, Amy Pixton and Treasurer, our former school captain, Nioka Levy, are all current employees of Guyra Central School. We look forward to working with the AECG during 2024 and strengthening our connections. Please speak to any of these great people to learn how you can become an active member of our local AECG and have a say in your child’s education.

Welcome to all guests who are up on stage today, to our parents, carers and community members, our student body, and staff, welcome. Thank you also to our performers and staff assisting these performances, thank you for your courage and commitment to entertaining us here today.

We are here today to celebrate Equity and Excellence, to acknowledge and celebrate our students who have demonstrated a commitment to upholding our school core values – Pride, Respect and Responsibility. Congratulations to all who are receiving awards today, and thank you for taking pride in your work, respecting yourself and those around you, and working

hard to become the best version of yourself. You have obviously taken responsibility for your own learning and made a personal commitment to personal excellence.

There is a need, a responsibility for each of us, to work together to develop capabilities within our students, to embrace learning as a lifelong journey, and acknowledge challenges and failures along the way. Our students will need to see, to embrace, these failures as opportunities for growth, rather that roadblocks. At Guyra Central School we continue to ground education in real-world opportunities and strive to produce students with highly developed analytical and problem-solving skills, ready to take their place as successful and engaged global citizens. The connections that our students develop with one and other, a sense of community, citizenship, and collaboration, along with creativity and complex problem-solving skills, including a development and valuing of empathy, a key 21st century competency, is imperative.

At Guyra Central School we are very proud of our personalised learning environment and continue to devote resourcing that encourages and stretches boundaries, facilitating the creation of individual learning pathways for each student – One student at a time in a community of learners. Students at Guyra Central School will continue to be able to choose from a wide range of study patterns in 2023, with students, with the assistance of their families, staff, and outside agencies, being able to select the best learning pathways, one that provides opportunity for personal excellence and future satisfaction.

We are a large enough school to attract sufficient funding to operate as a well-resourced educational facility, while providing individual and personalised learning experiences, and support, to all students and their families. We have decided, as a school, to resource extensive student transition programs to support and assist the development of our pre-school and Year 6 into Year 7 students. Our student numbers continue to grow, across the school, with projected enrolments for 2023 exceeding expectation. We have grown from 292 in 2021 to 323 as we head into 2024. Last week we took delivery of our new 24-seater bus, providing the opportunity for us to now transport whole stage groups. Early in 2024 our staff elected to complete their driver training to be able to drive the larger buses. Our buses are leased, and our new addition to the fleet will be the first to be adorned with our student designed ‘skins’ These skins are replications of the mural designs that you can view in the Primary Quad.

As the learning ‘hub’ of the Guyra community, and as educators, the entire staff at Guyra Central School understand the responsibility that we hold to create a safe and engaging learning environment for all students and their families, to create a learning environment where all students can succeed. I would like to take this opportunity and ask you all to join

me in thanking our entire staff for their efforts. Their tireless commitment is reflected in the shiny, smiling faces of our beautiful students who turn up every day.

It has been a great privilege for me, during what is now over 6 years in the principal’s chair at Guyra Central School, to get to meet, understand comprehend, the amazing wealth, and layers of knowledge and generosity that is the Guyra community. When I am out and about, speaking to other Principals, sometimes the discussion leads to, and usually questions come from Sydney based principals, how do we manage the challenges of being a principal in a rural school. How do we survive without support networks, people, and expertise. It makes me very proud to speak long and loud about the depth of all these things within what is by comparison a very small community. It is about the willingness to share and support, the commitment to go above and beyond, that makes everything possible. The generosity is also obvious, given our many sponsored awards today. Our partnership with the University of New England is crucial. It should never be taken for granted, the luxury of having a major tertiary learning facility at our doorstep and the willingness of the university to engage with our school. Special thanks to the Oorala Centre and to Jim White, ex- Guyra Central School Principal, Director and now working with the UNE for his continue support and assistance to navigate our Big Picture Education university pathways. I would also like to take the time to acknowledge the great work that is done quietly, behind the scenes, by Kylie Adam, in her role as the Head Teacher Regional Careers Network, and Alison Dunden, SBAT Regional Coordinator, for our school. Thank you from me and thank you from us to our community and community partners.

Thank you to our Guyra Central School Parents and Citizens. Thank you, Richard Post (President) and Robert Jackson (Vice President), for your great leadership of this team. I would like to invite our attending parents, carers, and community members here with us today, to take the time to talk with our President, Richard Post about how you can join in and become an active member of the P & C and contribute to decision-making around your child’s education.

At the end of term 3 2023 Guyra Central School engaged in the NSW Department of Education External Validation Process. Once, during a four-year cycle, all NSW Department schools undergo an external validation of the evidence of their school self-assessment.

Each year approximately 25% of schools are selected as a representative sample across School Performance Directorates. Schools engage in discussions with an external panel and have their self-assessments validated using the School Excellence Framework (SEF). We were listed for External Validation 2021 but all processes were pushed forward due to the COVID pandemic.

The panel, comprised of a Principal School Leadership (PSL) and a peer principal, who met with the school external validation team and determine whether the school's evidence supports their self-assessment using each element of the SEF. An external validation panel report, which includes the school-determined next steps in the self-assessment process, and

school-determined future directions to support school improvement, is provided to the school following the external validation. We presented the findings and recommendations at last month’s P & C meeting. Showcasing all of the great things that we do here at the school to an external panel is also a great opportunity. We are now in future planning mode and will take the opportunity very early in Term 1 2024 to have a collection of community forums to gather data around what it is that you, the community, and school body, want for your school into the future. As a school team we will be focusing on this during our student free days at the beginning of term. Thank you to Christopher Bice, our School Director for his support during the external validation process and future planning work.

Our celebration of excellence assemblies do not come together without dedication, commitment and quite frankly a lot of hard work. Thanks to Mr. Tim Lloyd and Ms Annette Callister, Ms. Emma Linderman, Ms. Louise Dowden and Ms. Natasha Roberts and the whole office ‘engine room’ team. Thank you from all of us. Thanks to our technology team that sits in the room over behind you with very little recognition for their continuous problem solving and great work. Thanks.

Have a great Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone. If you are travelling stay safe.

We look forward to welcoming you back at the end of January.

Thank you all for your continued support.

Michelle Nicholson

Proud Principal

Guyra Central School