The life of the school takes many twists and turns throughout any given year and over the past two years we have seen this largely driven by a community response to the COVID pandemic. Now as we move forward into 2022 and beyond our work will be shifting from being reactive to the world around us to being proactive about our work, how we operate as a school and how we connect with our school community. Underpinning this work is our school mantra of “Learning for Life” and our school values of Commitment, Respect, Honesty, Fairness and Perseverance. Our school values are clear in their expectations of students and we ask our students to strive towards modelling the following behaviours, actions and understandings on a regular basis:

Commitment – being responsible for our learning and behaviour and always striving to improve
Honesty – being sincere, genuine, open and truthful to ourselves and others
Fairness – developing an understanding that we are all different yet all equal and treating others sensitively and justly
Respect – developing an understanding that all individuals are unique and can make valuable contributions to the community
Perseverance – building a sense of determination and optimism when faced with challenges in learning and life.

Thank you to our many students, parents and carers who have proactively followed up with conversations at home around how students might demonstrate our school values and contribute to a positive and safe culture and climate around the College. It is extremely pleasing to report that most students are demonstrating our values daily and that small handful of students that were presenting challenges at recess and lunch have now adapted to the expectations and routines of our break times at Epping Secondary. We will continue to monitor this situation, support students and as always be in contact with parents/carers when we have a concern. We know and value the importance of ensuring a safe and positive environment for our students and can assure all students and parents that when breaches of our College values occur that these matters will be taken seriously with the appropriate action being taken by College staff.

In addition to supporting students to model our College values, a significant component of our work in 2022 will link to supporting student learning and student wellbeing, with both of the streams reflected in our 2022 Annual Implementation Plan and our more long term Strategic Plan that takes us through until 2024. Our Strategic Plan was recently endorsed by College Council and articulates the following goals and key improvement strategies for our College over the next three years.

Strategic Plan Goal

Key Improvement Strategies

To improve students’ literacy and numeracy achievements throughout their schooling.

This will be achieved by:

Ensuring curriculum planning and assessment documentation includes the agreed ESC literacy & numeracy strategies.
Building teacher confidence, competence & capacity to implement our ESC Instructional Model, incorporating High Impact Teaching Strategies and the agreed ESC literacy & numeracy strategies.
Utilising evidence of student learning to inform targeted teaching and learning practices across the College.

To develop independent and self-regulated learners.

This will be achieved by:

Building and developing the whole school community’s understanding of student agency.
Building teacher capacity to consistently include student agency practices into their teaching and learning.
Developing a suite of tools and processes that enable opportunities for students to activate student agency around the College.

To improve emotional intelligence & resilience.

This will be achieved by:

Developing a whole school approach to equip young people with personal skills to support their emotional intelligence and resilience (through a holistic approach to student development).
Building staff capacity to implement the whole school approach.

Over the next few editions of the newsletter we will explore these Key Improvement Strategies in more detail and outline for you the specific work we will be undertaking in 2022 as part of our school improvement journey.

College Community Engagement

A reminder to all families to keep an eye on their XUNO News Feed and XUNO emails for details of our upcoming opportunities to engage with our school. There are some great opportunities to hear about our approaches to learning, meet other families and learn how you can support their son or daughter through their journey with us.

Parents and Carers of Year 12 students will have recently received an invitation to our Year 12 Information Evening. This is being held on Tuesday 1st March, commencing with a BBQ at 6:30pm, to be followed with our information session at 7:00pm. Families can RSVP and confirm their attendance by clicking here.

Year 7 Parents and Carers will have an opportunity to come in and meet teachers and other families on Wednesday 16th March, stay tuned for more information.

Mobile Phones

Thank you to everyone for your support in relation to our mobile phone policy.

A reminder to all students, that phones must be locked in lockers between 8:53am and 3:06pm. This includes recess and lunch time.

If students need to contact parents during the day, they should attend the Sub School Offices (Junior, Middle and Senior) and not contact parents/carers from their phone.

When students have to chat with their coordinators and teachers regarding any concerns, it builds confidence, resilience and independence. The staff will be only too happy to assist where needed.

It is important that everyone complies with the rules and expectations so that we can get on with the business of learning in a safe and consistent environment.

The aim of the mobile phone policy is to provide:

a safe environment to learn without inappropriate mobile phone use (including cyberbullying) or distractions
greater opportunities for social interaction and physical activity during recess and lunchtimes.

Parents who need to contact their children throughout the school day are asked to contact the front office on 9401 2599 and we will ensure that a message is passed on as soon as possible.

Team Building at ESC