From the Principal
Proposed design
A roof over our heads
Thank you to the many parents who have shared their feedback with teachers and who have so clearly appreciated their efforts in rising to the challenge of online, remote learning. I hope that every family has gained from this experience in some way, with greater insight into their child’s learning needs and the ways these can be met. Our invitation for feedback does not stop with the return to regular classes.
As a staff, we will be allocating considerable time over the next several months to incorporating innovations and strategies that have been found to be effective in online learning. We want to keep some elements we may never have had the chance to trial otherwise and ensure that our willingness to innovate and try new ideas is not lost in an unthinking return to the easy safety of outdated notions of normality.
During these weeks, with teachers and students working from home, we have also taken advantage of the opportunity to carry out many projects that normally have to be crammed into holiday breaks, such as painting and refurbishment of several spaces. Hopefully these efforts will not go unnoticed by our discriminating students!
I am delighted, finally, to be able to let our community know that after many months of waiting our plans to have a roof installed over the basketball court, aka The Cage, have finally been approved. Having announced this in the newsletter last September, it has been a tedious business and I can now let families know that we should have this work underway in the next weeks, with renewed hope that the facility will be ready early in Term 3.
While the School has entered a stage of cautious budgeting and has put a number of projects on hold until we can more clearly predict the final impact of the pandemic on our plans, the basketball court was approved by Council last year and a financial outlay was committed from the 2019 Building Fund. The Secondary School has long seen a need for an undercover space where everyone can gather, not just for sport but for a variety of other social and performance possibilities.
In a time of lockdown and limitations on social interaction it is a small symbol of better times to come.
As it turns out, this transformative project will enable the beginning of a raft of improvements planned for the areas immediately adjacent to the basketball court. We want to partition an area for the messy utility work that needs space in any school and then concentrate on creating more attractive outdoor recreation and learning areas in what is now a rather bleak expanse of aged tan bark.
Hopefully these projects can generate opportunities for our Design classes as well as reflecting the positive impact a natural environment has on our students’ sense of wellbeing. A delightful aspect of the deserted campus has been the marked increase in birdlife; thoughtful planting of this area will be designed with the ambitious aim of making birdsong a permanent soundtrack.
Marilyn Smith
Principal