Nossal News

From the Principals' Desk 

South East Feast – POSTPONED

After much deliberation and checking of weather charts the organising committee made the tough (but appropriate) decision to postpone the South-East Feast due to continuing poor weather conditions that had rendered the site muddy and dangerous. Rather than run a poorly attended event in uncomfortable conditions, we reluctantly agreed to not proceed on the 16th as planned and are now pleased to announce that the South East Feast will take place on Saturday 21 April 2018 when the weather will be much more predictable. My sincere thanks to the members of the organising committee and the Berwick Rotary Club who committed many hours to the organisation and planning of this event; and to the vendors, performers and sponsors who were to have been part of it.

 

I was greatly heartened by the responses from our generous sponsors and supporters who are keen to stick with us and continue to support the event on the yet to be decided date next year. My gratitude also to the many volunteers, PFA, Parents, Staff Students and Rotary members who had committed to assisting on the day. I apologise if anyone was inconvenienced by the postponement – we were all disappointed, but in retrospect it was exactly the right decision as the weather on the day was much less than ideal. The planning and hard work will not go to waste and we will be able to deliver a bigger and better event in the new year, and if the interest and support we have already generated is any indication, it will be the huge success that we have planned for.

End of Term Reminders

 

As Term Three draws to a close – I remind all members of our community to stay safe and positive during the coming holidays; to adhere to the holiday homework guidelines and to make space for some rest, recreation, relaxation and revitalisation. Term 4 is very short – especially for our Year 12 students who will be completing their final classes (ever!) a scant three weeks into the new term before embarking on the SWOT VAC and final exam cycle. We wish them well in their final few weeks as secondary school students and look forward to celebrating their outstanding final results at the end of term 4. The school will be closed for the holidays with some building works taking place.

 

I will be taking three week’s Long Service Leave at the beginning of Term 4, and Ms Harrap will be Acting Principal during my absence.

Nossal Performance/Results

I shared the following information with students on the assembly this week as I think this is very affirming data and something that we should acknowledge and celebrate. I also worry that over time we tend to “normalise” our experience and expectations and sometimes forget what a wonderful and privileged environment (and people) we have here at Nossal. We tend to normalise our performance too and while always striving to improve, I fear that sometimes we forget to acknowledge that we are in fact generally performing at very high levels and achieving excellent results across a range of measures.

 

One of the criticisms levelled at selective schools is that we take only high performing students and we should inevitably then get very good results, and that is absolutely true, however we now have 5 years of data that we collect annually measuring the performance improvement of our students between the Year 8 entry exam and mid-year 11 when we again run an Edutest assessment. This data shows consistently that there is significant “value adding” as a result of attending Nossal and in fact (for the current Year 11 cohort) 59% of them show significant improvement over and above expected levels. This is consistent with the results from previous years and provides statistically strong data to demonstrate higher than predicted levels of achievement.

 

The histograms Edutest provide as part of the data analysis are quite powerful as they clearly detail the performance levels of Nossal students as compared to that of the thousands of other Year 11 students from around Australia who undertake the same testing process. (Tests are done for scholarship, school entry, and diagnostic testing across all sectors.) You will see from the graphs that the Nossal cohort performance levels are very high in comparison to the normal bell curve (the solid colour) and that the lowest levels of Nossal performance are in the normal (Average) range and the bulk are in the Above Average (AA), Superior (S) and Very Superior (VS) ranges.

 

I share this information as a celebration of the hard work and achievement evidenced by this data, and as a reminder to us all that our students are performing very strongly and showing growth and improvement.

The other two data sets that have recently arrived are the “Student Attitudes to School Survey,” undertaken by every student in all Government Schools each year, and the Parent Opinion Survey which was recently completed in a new online format. As both surveys have been redesigned recently we don’t as yet have comparative data from across the state that we previously received, but we have been sharing our student survey results with the three other selective schools, Melbourne High School, MacRob and Suzanne Cory as they are the most comparable schools in the state. As you would expect the survey data from all four selective schools is very strongly positive and I was very pleased to see that Nossal Student Opinion data was significantly higher than the other schools in 18 of the 20 categories surveyed.

 

The survey does identify areas where we will need to focus some attention and where we think we could be doing better, but this is an exceptional and graphic endorsement of the Nossal culture and community and the obvious “buy in” from our students is most gratifying. Similarly, the parent survey data appears to be very strongly positive, although we have yet to receive any comparative results from elsewhere.

 

I thank the parents who completed the online survey as the response rate was very high which adds to the veracity of the data. This opinion survey data is of great importance to us this year as we will be undertaking a comprehensive review of our progress in 2018 as part of the four-year strategic planning and review cycle that all government schools undertake in order to improve their performance and to set future directions.

Teacher Workload and Expectation

Nossal teachers work very hard (as do our students) and we all want the best outcomes for our students. They place high expectations on their students and themselves and are highly committed and highly professional. I am proud to work with such a dedicated and caring group of educators, and know the long hours and significant extra time they put in over and above their paid hours.  Like many of our students, our teachers work too hard at times and do not look after themselves as well as they should, and this is not good for their mental and physical health, nor for their performance and efficiency. Increasingly we see evidence across the education system of burn out and stress taking a toll on the most dedicated and passionate educators and the exponential increase in compulsory compliance and bureaucratic processes exacerbates the situation further.

 

As many of you will have seen in your own workplaces the growth of digital media and online access means that the division between work time and personal time can become blurred and leaving the physical workplace does not necessarily mean that you have finished work for the day. This is not necessarily a problem and can bring many benefits as long as, with everything else, there is appropriate balance. It struck me several years ago when I was at the theatre with my wife one Saturday night and while waiting to go in, automatically pulled out my phone to catch up on emails and effectively go to work; and again recently when a principal colleague said that he’d “taken the weekend off, and was really suffering for it now” as he’d fallen behind in his work. It worries me that we find it increasingly hard to switch off or to maintain a work/life balance. Teachers are not alone in this circumstance, but have always spent many hours outside the classroom on preparation and correction and the like, and are also very responsive to the needs and demands of their students. Often they are their own worst enemy, making themselves available and responsive at all hours, therefore setting an expectation that they will always be so (and that others might – or should be too).

 

Like our students (and for their benefit) we want our teachers to be operating at their best so we have attempted to assist them to maintain more balance by promoting some standard expectations about access and availability across the school, and I would appreciate your support with this.

  • During the first half hour of lunchtimes teacher offices are student free to allow teachers to have their lunchbreak with colleagues if they desire – if they wish to meet or work with students at this time (as many do) they will find another space, but it would be better that (emergencies and special events and activities aside) this became the norm for all staff and students.
  • If teachers are using the designated “Teacher Silent Study Space” near the VSL room, they are not to be disturbed at all.
  • As a general guide, teachers will respond to general student emails or texts within 48 hours where possible (often earlier) but students should not be expecting a response after 8.30 pm, or during the weekend, or holiday periods.

There will always be exceptions and urgencies, but I hope that adopting some of the above expectations and intentions will improve efficiency, performance and wellbeing for us all.

Nossal Alumni

I have recently been interviewing for some new teachers for 2018 and was pleasantly surprised to have applications from two members of the Foundation Nossal cohort (Class of 2013) who are about to graduate with their teaching degrees. The school really is maturing and our graduates are starting to take their places in the world beyond university, and I’m very happy that some are wanting to return to us as teachers.

The Educator Magazine Innovative Schools Award

“The Educator” magazine has presented a series of annual awards for innovative schools from around Australia for the past three years and Nossal High School has been an award recipient on each occasion – see attached summary from the current magazine.

Congratulations to...

 

Thrisha Srinavasan – for placing second in the Charles Dickens Essay Competition run by the Charles Dickens Society.

 

 

Jordan Van Rhyn and Hayden Radford for placing third in the Rotary National Model United Nations Assembly Competition in Canberra recently.

 

Mr Fankhauser for presenting at the recent Blackboard Conference in Darwin where Nossal High School won the “Blackboard Catalyst Award” for “Leading Change in 2017.” (against a field of universities and other tertiary institutions)

 

  • Wendy Si, Annabel Keecha-Milsom, Mridul Garg, Jasmin Kaur, Mohit Patel and Raymond He who were the successful applicants to attend the Alpine School for 5 weeks in Term 4.
  • Our Regional Athletics Team who have come first overall at the Casey North Division Athletics! This is not an easy feat as most other schools in our division have competitors in all age groups, where as Nossal only has students from Year 9 to Year 12. More information in the next edition of Nossal News.

 

Roger Page

Principal