Principal's Report

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Principal's Update

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as if everything is.” 

Albert Einstein

Our second term comes to an end with so many firsts for our school and our students.  The optimism is evident in all that has happened this term. The 11 week term has been fantastic as we settled into our Learning Hub and we explored how we would be using the learning spaces to enhance the learning experiences for our students. 

Our first whole school excursion

We had our first whole year level and whole school excursion which was to visit the Koorie Heritage Trust and the First Peoples Exhibition at Melbourne Museum.  Our students spent this term in Our World learning about Ancient Australia and Aboriginal heritage and culture.  Both venues were extremely impressed with our students questions and curiosity about Aboriginal culture. Once again they represented the college with the CORE values that we want to see in all that they do.

Term 2 Wellbeing Day

Each term, we will have a Wellbeing Day that provides our students with understanding the connection between a healthy mind and  body.  The Term 2 Wellbeing day focussed on resilience.  Students had 4 sessions throughout the day.  The sessions included a presenter who spoke about being savvy on social media,  stress and wellbeing, nutrition and wellbeing and mindfulness yoga.  It was an opportunity for students to learn about how their body reacts to stress, food with a focus on sugar.  I certainly was surprised by the amount of sugar in some foods that I considered healthy.

Teaching and Learning Update

The information regarding feedback on student learning this semester can be found in the Teaching and Learning section of the newsletter.  Thank you again to the parents who have participated in the working group.

As a group of educators our learning is continuous.  We have all been curating curriculum on Microsoft 365 OneNote and it has changed the conversations we have with our students around learning.  We hope that as parents you have started to ask your son or daughter to share the work that they are doing.  We have begun to explore frameworks which connect with our teaching and learning vision and have found that 21st Century Learning Design model links strongly into our vision.  The areas of focus are collaboration, knowledge construction, real world problem solving and innovation, use of ICT for learning, self- regulation and skilled communication. 

Community Day

Our Community Day on June 23rd was extraordinary.  There were over 1000 people that toured the buildings and grounds between 10am and 12pm.  Our students were the tour guides and are wonderful ambassadors of the school and its developing culture and values. Our student leaders led the opening event and impressed many with their poise and eloquence. The day also marked the official opening of the buildings.  Member for Mordialloc Tim Richardson did the honours of unveiling the plaque on behalf of the Minister for Education.  We also had the official naming of the Bob Whiteway Resource Centre.  Mr Bob Whiteway began teaching at Beaumaris High School in 1965.  His career as an educator here spanned 37 years. He taught PE, Geography and initiated Economics at the school which he taught for a further 5 years.

• His main focus was his Geography classes and in 1972 he began the now famous ‘Skin Diving Program’ in term 1 for year 10 students. Many of his past students describe how it opened a new underwater world for them, inspiring theirinterests in coastal and underwater environments. The course finished with an exciting dive into the wreck of the Cerberus (back before 1993 when you were allowed to dive in it!)
• Mr Whiteway brought a unique teaching approach to the classroom creating excitement and enthusiasm with the students  for example creating   ‘theatre’ in a darkened classroom with candles to explain the solar system, or taking the classroom outside in the local environment which he loved, to teach the children through first-hand experience which has inspired our teachers to continue the Beaumaris tradition of using our local environment.

Beyond the classroom, Mr Whiteway is a long standing & well respected member of the community of Bayside. He is well known in the community through his lifelong passion for the environment & in particular, his dedication towards the coastal and marine environment. Some of his achievements are listed below:

• Life Member of Marine Care
• Life member of the Black Rock and Sandringham Conservation Association--President for 5 years
• Life member of Sustainable Population Australia (Vic president for 5 years)
• Instrumental in the creation of the Rickett’s Point Marine Sanctuary
• Victoria Coastal Award – Lifetime Achievement
• Bayside Citizen of the Year – 2003
• OAM 2013 – Contribution to conservation and the environment

In addition he has produced numerous works in his fields of passion:

• Film – Coastal Wildlife of Sandringham
• Educational booklets on coastal life
• He published his First book in 2015 “Teacher Inside Out” which is an account of his time teaching at Beaui High. His 2nd book “Teacher Down Under” follows his adventures with his students on the ‘Skin Diving Program’ is about to be published. Those 2 books will definitely be  in the Resource centre that is named after him.

Our true community in Beaumaris has been so supportive of our students and we hope that this provides them with opportunities for service where they can learn and give back to the fantastic community. 

Member for Goldstein, Tim Wilson, also spoke about the college opening event on the floor of parliament this week sporting our school tie.  Please take time to check out the short video –it is great!

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6k1iwmqJZw&

Parents Association Meeting

Our parent community is wanting to engage even more with the school and I have received a letter signed by over 6 parents to organize a Parents Association.  The next step in the process is to promote a meeting for the interim committee and then develop a constitution that we must forward to the Minister of Education.  The sole purpose of an interim committee is to seek the approval of the Minister to form a parents’ club. I look forward to providing our parents with more connections to the building of our school community.  All parents are invited to attend the interim committee meeting to develop the constitution for a Parents’ Association on Thursday July 19th at 6pm in the Resource Centre.

World Series Education Perfect Maths Championships 2018

Our students have placed Beaumaris Secondary College as the #1 State school in Victoria – and #16 in the world – in the 101-250 students category. Congratulations to Isabella Wu for winning the Emerald Award, to Oliver Pearce, Aiden McCarthy, Henry Zhou, Claudia Chmara and Eric D’Souza for receiving Bronze Awards, and Sophie McCubbery, Declan Johns, Zachary Miot and Jordan Davies for receing Credit Awards.