Principal's Report 

Graduation

The College’s 2020 Year 12 students were sent off in fine style at our Graduation Day on Friday 20 November.  Forty-three students graduated, with 91% of those students achieving a WA Certificate of Education. Sally Panizza (Director Agricultural Education) attended the ceremony and had a brief tour of the campus and farm, including a visit to the robotic dairy, in the afternoon. 

Unfortunately, due to COVID 19 restrictions the College was required to limit the number of people who could attend the ceremony to Year 10, 11 and 12 students, College staff, Year 12 parents and a small number of invited guests. Venue capacity was determined by W.A.’s 2 square metre rule.

Our guest speaker for the 2020 Year 12 Graduation was former Western Australian Police Commissioner Karl O’Callaghan – a position he held from 2004 to 2017. He was the longest serving post–war West Australian Police Commissioner and was formerly a career police officer having served for more than 43 years. His presentation and speech was certainly well received by the Year 12 graduates and the wider College community. 

Congratulations to all those students who received awards or scholarships this year; it was pleasing to see such a wide spread of winners.  Matt Dykes (College Dux) and Josh Crook (Top VET Student) won the two top academic and vocational education and training awards respectively, with Sophie Cuthbert winning the Runner-up Dux and Hannah French receiving the Achievement Award. As with last year, the presentation of our Special Awards concluded with the two major Citizenship awards. Kasey James won the Year 11 ‘Don’t Walk Past’ Ambassador’s Award and Bianca Roth and Murray Findlay were the recipients of the Year 12 Citizenship Award. Our thanks to College Board member and Year 12 parent Mick Pratt and Neville and Elaine Haddon for their continued support and sponsorship of the Citizenship Award. 

One of the highlights of Graduation for our returning students is the announcement of next year’s Student Prefects.  Congratulations to Libby Miell, Kasey James, Hamish Bowie, Georgia Dalton, Tomas O’Farrell and Nathan Bryden - Dwyer who were announced as our Year 12 Student Prefects for 2021.  Students and staff vote on the make-up of this important leadership group.  I look forward to our new Student Prefects returning to the College on Sunday 31 January 2021 to assist with the Orientation Program for new students. 

 Year 12 Achievement data

The two main achievement targets for our Year 12 students are the attainment of a WACE (Western Australian Certificate of Education) and the achievement of a Certificate II in Agriculture. We are very pleased with the 100% completion rate for the Certificate II in Agriculture. The College also achieved 100% completion rate for this qualification in 2019, which was the first time since 2012. 

Five of the seven students who were enrolled in the Cert III in Agriculture achieved the qualification, a completion rate of 71%. A concern is the number of students enrolled in the course.  We would like to see more students taking advantage of this excellent training programme in the future. At the present time twelve students have indicated their intention to complete the Cert. III next year.

2021 Year 12 ATAR scores will be released by the School Curriculum and Standards Authority in late December.

Public School Review

The College 3-year public School Review was completed in Week 7 of this term. The review had originally been programmed for Term 2 but was cancelled due to COVID 19.  We were required to review and report on College operations including; Relationships and Partnerships, Learning Environment, Leadership, Use of Resources, Teaching Quality and Student Achievement and Progress. Parents, staff and the wider college community were invited to contribute and provide feedback to the review panel. The Agricultural Advisory Council Chair (Owen Sounness), College Board members and the newly elected 2021 College prefects all met with the review panel early in the day and provided valuable feedback.

The feedback from the review panel was very positive. They were very impressed with student achievement and outcomes (student grades, ATAR and VET data), the quality teaching and learning programme, the management and use of resources (including the College farm) and the operations of the College during a very difficult and challenging period. The panel also mentioned the positive relationships and partnerships that have developed over time and the parent, student and community support for the College. 

The next College review has been set for 2023.

2020 Parent and Residential Surveys

Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to provide us with feedback in either our 2020 Parent Survey or our 2020 Residential Survey, or both.  We’ve had a good response rate so far. Just a reminder that we only get the feedback from those surveys that are fully completed.  At the moment we have a number of Parent Surveys (17) that haven’t yet been fully completed.

• The link to the 2020 Parent Survey is: https://www.schoolsurvey.edu.au/s/afMnRhzx
• The link to access the 2020 Residential Survey is: https://www.schoolsurvey.edu.au/s/VtV3xZnK

The results of the surveys will be reviewed by College Staff and by the College Board as part of our annual self-review processes.  Copies of the results of the surveys will be published online early in 2021.   

2021 Student Enrolments

One of the anomalies with our enrolments for 2021 is that we still have beds available for boys in our College Residence.  If you are the parent of one of our (boy) day students and you’d like to discuss the possibility of him boarding at the College next year, please contact either myself or our Head of Residence Kelli Gillies. 

2021 Staffing

I’m very pleased to say that, at this stage, it seems we will have minimal staffing changes for 2021. Jack Marney has been appointed to the second ATO - Dairy position. Jack has worked on a number of Dairy Farms over the past 11 years and is highly qualified with a Diploma of Agriculture (Dairy) from Goulburn Ovens Tafe and a Bachelor of Education qualification. Jack is based in Victoria and as a result requires permission from the South Australian Government and the West Australian Government to travel interstate. We are expecting Jack to begin work at the College mid-January 2021.   

Priority Maintenance Program

As I have mentioned previously the College has been allocated $654,533 to address building maintenance issues identified through the College’s Building Condition Assessment Report.  This will be rolled out over the next two years. 

We requested that the removal of the old piggery and the widening and resurfacing of Jack Moore Avenue be the priority. The work on Jack Moore Avenue will be carried out during the end of year summer school holidays.

Demolition of the piggery has been completed. An issue did arise during the demolition which should be resolved shortly.

2020 has obviously been a very difficult and challenging year for everyone. Thank you to our College parents, students, staff and wider community for all your understanding, assistance and support during the year. On behalf of the staff at the WA College of Agriculture, Denmark I’d like to wish all our parents and students a happy and safe Xmas and New Year season.