Deputy Principal's Update

National Child Protection Week

National Child Protection Week was held from 6 to 12 September, with the theme Every Conversation Matters: Shifting Conversation to Action. The week provides an important opportunity to raise awareness of child safety and wellbeing, and to encourage conversations that help create safer environments for children and young people.

At Friends’, child safety, mental health and wellbeing are closely connected and remain ongoing priorities throughout the school year. While National Child Protection Week provides a particular focus each September, our commitment to creating a safe, supportive and inclusive environment for every student extends across all aspects of school life.

As part of this ongoing work, we have been encouraging students to feel confident raising questions, concerns and ideas about their safety and wellbeing. I am currently working with a student focus group to review our existing strategies and programs and consider where we can strengthen our approach. This work has included examining our website and child safety statements, as well as considering feedback from our recent whole-school survey, which included questions about safety, school processes and who students would turn to if they had a concern.

It has been encouraging to see how engaged the students in this focus group have become in this work. Their perspectives and experiences are helping us identify opportunities for improvement, and we look forward to developing practical actions that will have a lasting positive impact across our community.

If you have questions, concerns or suggestions relating to student wellbeing or safety, please contact the School or speak with me directly.

Welcoming Our New Head of Middle School

Following the announcement that Lindy Gannon, our long-serving and founding Head of Middle School, will retire at the end of the 2026 school year, the School undertook a search for her successor.

We are very pleased to announce that Steve Barratt was the successful candidate and will return to Friends’ as our new Head of Middle School from January 2027.

Steve brings extensive experience in senior leadership across international and local schools, together with a strong understanding of our community. During his previous time at Friends’, Steve held a number of roles, including Director of Teaching and Learning and, most recently, Coordinator of the IB Diploma Programme in 2025.

Steve already knows our school, community, staff and many of our students, and we look forward to welcoming him back to Friends’ in the new year.

Introducing The FOX

At the end of 2025, the School made the decision to transition from our current learning management system, SEQTA, to Schoolbox. This followed extensive research into a range of platforms throughout 2025, with Duncan Gillespie and the Information Services team, together with our Director of Teaching and Learning, Megan Eddington, leading the process of identifying a system that best aligns with the needs of our community.

Our version of Schoolbox has been named The FOX, a name that connects with both Friends’ Online Experience (FOX) and the historical significance of George Fox to the Quaker tradition.

We hope The FOX will become a familiar and useful part of school life, supporting communication, teaching and learning and making it easier for students, staff and families to access and engage with the information they need.

Teachers, the Information Services team and a number of Senior School leaders are currently transitioning to The FOX in preparation for the start of the 2027 school year. We look forward to sharing more information with families as this work progresses.

Shaun O'Rourke - Deputy Principal