message from the principal

Karen Harris

Principal

As Term 3 concludes there are many individual and collective successes we can reflect upon as a school community.  It is always apparent to visitors to our school how many rich opportunities there are for our students and how well supported these opportunities are by our talented staff.  In the past few months a large number of those visitors to our school have been prospective families who will join us in 2020, with placements now confirmed.  We look forward to new families commencing transition activities throughout Term 4.  Many of the students and families who will join our school next year are drawn to it because of the many opportunities which present themselves to students at our school through our academic and co-curricular programs. It is not possible to list every school activity or success we have celebrated this term due to the sheer number, but I would like to mention just a sample of things of which we are very proud.

• Our recent BSC Masterchef competition saw competitors from  across Years 7 to 12 working together in pairs to present a dish in an hour, using the mystery box items. The creativity, skill and taste was extraordinary.  We had crepes, cakes, curries, mousses and tarts as some of the dishes presented for judging. Congratulations to all the students who participated for their good humour and enthusiasm on the day.  Special mention to Junior Masterchef winners,  Saskia Ernst & Eva Meggitt (Year 7) and to Senior Masterchef winners, Rowan Amos & Eshyn Rogers (Year 11) for their phenomenal efforts.

• Chatterbox  is our annual, in-school public speaking competition.  We were treated to speeches on a range of personal and global topics and also treated to special guest An Dang  (Year 11) performing her speech which took her to the National finals in the Plain English Speaking Competition.  Congratulations to  Julia De Vere who won the People's Choice Award and to Lu Galante Le Cornu (Senior Award) and  Sienna Calvani (Junior Award).

• Alex Pierce (Teacher- Humanities) was  recently recognised by the History Teachers Association of Victoria for her outstanding contribution to History teaching as the key organiser of guest speakers for VCE Unit 3 and 4 History Revolutions students across the State.

School Reviews

There have been two occasions this year where I have been asked to participate in the school review process for two other schools, namely Thornbury High School and Springside West Secondary College.  BSC completed its own school review last year in Term 4 which guided our 2019-2022 strategic directions.  I was delighted to be asked by the principals of Thornbury High School (Michael Keenan) and Springside West Secondary College (John Goodman) to join their review panels as a Challenge Partner, drawing on our experience of conducting a review process and setting new goals. 

It is always a great learning experience to spend time in other schools, noting the similarities and differences and how we can work together not only to improve our own schools, but the government system as a whole. There were many areas where we could see our schools working together in the future, sharing best practices with each other.

As part of school reviews, targets to measure teaching and learning achievements and growth are set each year.  We are able to assess some of our achievements against targets at this stage of the year given NAPLAN results and student survey results have been released.  I am pleased that our targets have been met or exceeded in many areas of Literacy and Numeracy.  These measures include the percentage of students achieving in the upper two bands of NAPLAN and the number of students who have shown a high level of growth from Year 7 to Year 9 in   Literacy and Numeracy.  There is a very strong investment by our teachers in professional learning around improving student learner growth and a very strong investment by the Department of Education and Training to improve literacy and numeracy levels of all students up to and including the latter years of education.  An example of this is the introduction of Literacy and Numeracy Improvement Teachers in all schools, specifically working with Year 10 students this year but expanding to working with Year 10 and Year 11 students next year.   Brunswick Secondary College has been selected as a case study by the Department of Education to highlight our work in improving literacy and numeracy.  Filming took place last week which will result in a short video on our work.

Brunswick Spirit

We continue to have a great level of support from our parent community, at social events and information evenings. 

Thank you to our Parents Association for their brilliant work in organising the Trivia Night this term.   The amount of work that went into the Trivia Night event was obvious to all who attended and a substantial amount of money was raised toward the improvement of the school.  More than this great financial result, the  atmosphere of warmth and collegiality amongst our parent community and the staff who attended, made this a memorable evening. 

Finally, thank you to the many parents who attended our information evenings this term, on subjects ranging from Year 12 VTAC, Year 9, 10 & 11 Subject Selections and the  2020 Central Australia trip.  Many parents have attended multiple events at the school this term and we have appreciated their commitment.

I wish all students and families a restful break, following what has been a very busy, but productive, Term 3.