August 2023 Principal’s Report

Greetings Families and Carers,

As you are probably aware the teacher shortage is affecting some classes. I can assure you we are doing our best to have classes taught actively by teachers qualified in that area, but it is proving difficult and sadly, some classes are missing out. We continue to raise awareness of the impact with those in the Department of Education including the Minister herself whom some of the Principal Team met with on Friday August 4. She is most concerned at the potential for government schools to be affected more than independent schools, the perspective is that some independent schools have had to cancel classes and withdraw subjects from their curriculum for next year. We are fortunately not at that stage. In an effort to recruit some beginning teachers, on July 28,

a team of us attended the Melbourne Graduate School of Education (MGSE) to participate in an expo for teaching students with the purpose of attracting graduates or pre-service teachers to come to us. In the past, many students filed through however this year, despite a larger number of institutions being represented, very few university students came through. The few who did come through, were very keen to speak to our sparkling young teachers Krystal Allison and Nic Bavcar.

Many thanks them both for their participation, they were superb ambassadors for the school and state education. In fact, other schools tried to get them to go and work for them! This was a bit of a low move but goes to show how desperate everyone is.

I should add that we have recently had five final year student teachers join us as teaching staff members while they finish their final semester of university. We welcome them with much appreciation and know that they are totally committed to providing the best learning to your children.

On a more positive note, and looking forward to next year, we concluded the Campus Principal panel last week and Andrew Atherton is now a substantive Campus Principal. The next round of advertisements will be for Leading Teachers and Learning Specialists including three new Learning Specialist roles to support staff in the implementation of Disability Inclusion. To support aspirant leaders, the Principal Team is running professional learning for staff interested in applying for these roles.

AS families you will be aware that the course counselling process has concluded, and we are currently in the process of analysing student choices to determine which subjects will run in 2024 which then flows into developing a timetable and determining staff requirements. It is worth pointing out that we are unable to run every subject that is offered in the booklets. Every year the Curriculum Committee makes recommendations to me regarding which subjects will run for the following year – which means that some subjects will not run due to insufficient numbers. There will always be some disappointment when a subject is cut out for that year however, we immediately look to students’ second preferences in the effort to satisfy them as best we can. I seek your understanding of this process that is replicated in all schools.

Disability Inclusion is an initiative gradually being rolled out across the state. Next year is our turn. It requires all staff to be very explicit about what actions they take to assist students with additional learning needs to access the curriculum. The most important aspect of this is that students with additional learning needs who currently do not ‘qualify’ for extra help will have a better chance of getting it. In addition, over time, the traditional Program for Students with Disabilities will be phased out and each student with additional learning needs will have their own uniquely tailored system of supports and adjustments.

Please see this picture of Karen Martin handing out one of the laptops donated by KPMG which came to us via ABCN. Catherine Morris from ABCN is on College Council and we are delighted at the additional benefits of this association. It is wonderful that there are organisations aware of and ready to help students who need some assistance in this area. Personnel from KPMG will have an introduction to the receiving students which will also serve as an entrée into their world of work.

In another heart-warming story, the mother of two former students, visited two weeks ago. She remembers very fondly the kindness and support staff gave her and her boys from Year 7 right through to their final years. She said that the school was like a family to her during those difficult years and she is going to sponsor an annual scholarship of $500 for a student who shows persistence despite adversity. The draft name is the Strive Award. On behalf of the school community, I would like to thank her deeply.

As part of our Transition activities our Dance teacher, Taylor Van Orsouw, is running Dance workshops at several local primary schools, to great acclaim. This sort of activity hasn’t happened since before 2020 so it is wonderful to see its resurgence and many thanks to the teachers and students who are willing to put themselves out there. We are also running some sport clinics.

As an adjunct to this I can report that our Year 7 numbers are looking strong, which will mean more classes than this year.

Copperfield Dance students doing a demonstration.

Parkwood Green students learning some dance routines.

The Hackathon Project kicked off last week and the combined group of Kings Park and Sydenham Year 9 Challenge Day students identified many issues they are concerned about in their community. Remarkably they are the very issues we as teachers and no doubt you as adults are also concerned about e.g., vaping, violence, youth boredom on weekends, domestic violence. The next stage is for them to start to start considering potential local solutions and decide on which issue they will focus and then spend the allocated money to realise their goals.

Tuesday’s Curriculum Day continued our focus on achieving the goals of our Strategic Plan; a team ran professional learning sessions about enhancing our aspirational learning environment.

KLAs also had time to refocus their curriculum maps in response to the changes in time allocation to various subjects as a consequence of adding the Connect lessons into the weekly schedule. Finally, we had external experts training us how best to respond to disclosures of a sensitive nature from students.

Families with students in Years 7 and 9 will have received a notice from me outlining the changes to NAPLAN reporting that began this year already but because it is a significant change a more general statement is in order. Firstly, the test is now adaptive rather than standardised, so each student gets questions more accurately pitched at their level. Secondly, the results are given in descriptive categories e.g., Exceeding, Strong, Developing, Needs additional support. We will not get instructions about how to best interpret the results until Term 4 apart from the fact that we cannot compare these results to those of previous years. A knock-on effect of this is that the NAPLAN targets in our AIP and SSP are no longer applicable so we will probably remove them and possibly look at substituting another form of testing.

Having said all that, we are being complimented by our region for our Year 9 Reading results with a higher percentage of students ‘exceeding’ than similar schools, followed closely by Numeracy, with a percentage of students ‘exceeding’ very close to that of similar schools.

Please look out for an invitation to participate in our Parent Opinion Survey. It will be most helpful in determining how we best communicate with you and include you in the college. We would love to get a more representative sample of views than we have in the past. The invitation will come from of the Campus Principals in a Compass notice.

I recently announced to staff and college council that I will be finishing as Principal of this wonderful school at the end of this year. I observed that I have been and am continuing to be principal in very challenging times but that I could not think of a better school community to endure those times with.

The process to seek my replacement will begin in Term 4.

Until next time,

Ms Pip Griffiths

College Principal

Important Dates