Principal's Report
Principals Conference Professional Learning
I’m pleased to share with you some insights from the Monash Manningham Principal Conference held at Cape Schank last week that the wider Principal team had the opportunity to attend. This annual event brings together school leaders from across our network to learn, reflect, and collaborate on the most pressing and promising areas of education today.
The theme of ‘Thriving Culture, Empowered Leadership’ was the framework for the program this year and provided opportunities for our network to continue to grow stronger and find more opportunities to learn, collaborate, and support each other. This is not just professional development; it’s a collective commitment to improving the educational journey for every student in our care.
We were fortunate to hear from inspiring experts:
- Mark Carter delivered the Opening Keynote on Leadership and facilitated a powerful workshop on school culture. He challenged us to think deeply about how leadership can create thriving, values-driven environments for both staff and students.
- Dr Jo Blannin from Monash University presented an eye-opening plenary on Generative AI in Education. Her session explored how rapidly evolving technologies like artificial intelligence are shaping the future of learning and how schools can prepare students for a world where AI will be part of everyday life.
- Dr Simon Breakspear, a leading education thinker, led a session on The Pruning Principle—an approach to school improvement focused on simplifying, focusing, and ensuring that our efforts are truly impactful. His insights helped us reflect on how to make more room for what matters most in teaching and learning.
Through conferences like these, we build strong professional connections and continually develop as leaders. Most importantly, we bring back fresh ideas and practical strategies that benefit your children and our whole school community to create the best possible learning environment for every student.
Student Forums
Over the course of this week, a cross section of students have provided feedback on their experiences at school via through student forums. This is an addition to the student survey posted on Compass in recent weeks. At Brentwood we value student voice as a powerful means to improve student engagement, wellbeing and quality instruction.
The data from this survey, the PIVOT survey run by each classroom teacher last term and the student forums that allow us to unpack this data, support us to gain an understanding of our students’ perceptions and experiences and is used to plan programs and activities to improve your child’s schooling experience.
Learning Walks
Furthermore, over the next week, members of the Brentwood teaching staff will participate in Student Learning walks. Learning walks aim to reinforce a shared vision for high-quality teaching and provide support to enable collective responsibility for achieving school-wide priorities.
In addition to this:
- Learning Walks provide an opportunity for observers to see the Brentwood Instructional model in operation.
- Learning Walks help provide feedback on how students are learning in our classes and how school-wide priorities are being implemented in various settings throughout our school.
- De-identified whole school information will be reported back to staff and will be used to help shape our professional learning program and school improvement initiatives.
Pathways Expo
The Brentwood Pathways Expo is scheduled on 15 May 2025 to celebrate the National Careers Week (12-18 May).
Pathways Expo is a perfect opportunity for students in senior school to consult various subject teachers and representatives from tertiary institutions to plan their VCE subjects and future pathways.
The expo will run as per the following sessions in the college hall:
- Period 2 (9:52 am - 10:52 am) - Year 9
- Period 3 (11:17 am - 12:17 am) - Year 10
- Period 4 (12:20 pm - 1:20 pm) - Year 12
- Period 5 (2:05 pm - 3:05 pm) - Year 11
Parents are welcome to attend these sessions with prior booking.
More information is available here https://www.brentwoodpathways.com/news-jobs/pathways-expo
Sonja Ardley
Associate Principal