Principal's Message

Thank You!

What a fabulous surprise when these amazing flowers were sent anonymously to the College on Thursday 5th March!  A big thank you to the person who sent them.

As a College we are very grateful and humbled for the recognition of our work so far in 2020.

Principal's Report

Good afternoon and welcome back to our fortnightly newsletter. The weeks are rocketing along and I am thrilled with the progress we have made thus far...on our journey to continuous improvement. Some days can be truly frustrating, but I sat with a colleague earlier this week and we reflected on the achievements so far. I tend to talk in 50 day blocks – that is one term.

We have almost completed clear roles and responsibilities for all the jobs in the school. If you suddenly took over the Maths Coordinator's job...exactly what would that look like? Exactly what responsibilities do you hold? 

We have also started our journey into establishing a School Wide Positive Behaviour System (PBS) and much, much more. We can’t pretend that everything has been perfect - it hasn’t, and we have had to address some significant unacceptable behaviours. Some families have been contacted, some suspensions issued. Those families are meeting with me to ensure clarity around expectations and how we will work into the future.

Two people from the DET Regional Office visited recently to complete some work with our Wellbeing team. They commented on how calm and structured the College felt. That gives me great pleasure indeed! Much work must be done and there is always more to do, but we are certainly making progress.

I have had the pleasure of being involved in our first School Council meeting for the year. What an outstanding group of adults who are clearly driven in the desire to improve our College and the educational standards for our students. We have adjusted the agenda a little and now will have 2 new regular features: Student Voice – College Captains will reflect on academic progress, report on the events of the past months and talk about scheduled events coming up. The second feature will be College Data and Results  to ensure clarity and transparency around how the College is tracking.

Due to a higher than usual number of nominations for College Council positions, we will need to have an election for staff DET representatives and parent representatives on College Council for this coming year. All families and staff will receive a voting slip to indicate their preferred candidates. Please return this information as soon as possible so that we can arrange for our new 2020 College Council. We are in for an exciting year (apparently we haven’t needed an election for years!).

Mobile Phones: This is a constant and we always ask that you support our efforts to reduce the impact of phones. I would suggest that 95% of our children are fine with this new law, but we will always have some who 'push back'. Please talk to your children and support them by using pre-correction and problem solving thinking. I recently spoke to a Year 8 student about why he had his phone 'out' and was using it. 'No lock' was the reply… Well - providing a lock is an easy fix and we can simply solve the problem! I must remark that this young man was polite and reasonable during our chat and he ended up giving me the phone for safe keeping during the day.

Something to ponder: How often do you role model reading to your children? Do you actively encourage reading in your home? The benefits of this are really quite remarkable!