2022 - a big year

It’s been another challenging year for schools, UHS included, but I am very proud of what we have accomplished. Despite the disruption posed by COVID and illness, and challenges with facilities combined with ongoing enrolment growth, plus the adjustment of returning full-time to onsite learning and working, we have made meaningful steps towards the goals of our Strategic Plan, supported by a new leadership team who have settled and grown into their roles.

We’ve refined and enhanced the ways in which teachers collaborate with each other to support and enhance teaching and learning, both through their domain teams and through Professional Learning Communities. We’ve broadened our Senior Pathways options for students; gaining accreditation for the VCE-Vocational Major and enrolling our first cohort of students into the program; as well as additional students into classes which provide an applied approach to learning such as Foundation English and Maths, and into a range of Vocational Education and Training (VET) courses.

We’ve enhanced our student leadership program, with a vibrant SRC and many other clubs, activities and leadership training opportunities taken up by students. We’ve re-engaged with our community celebrating students on stage and in exhibitions, with the return of the Production, Performing Arts events and Art Shows, as well as a Galileo exhibition. You'll see many of these celebrated in this newsletter.

Importantly, we've continued to enhance our relationship, engagement and wellbeing framework. We’ve continued our implementation of the Berry Street Education Model (BSEM), with targeted classes across Year 7 and 8 and the integration of BSEM practices in classrooms and sub-schools. We’ve streamlined the communication of student learning and wellbeing information to teachers, and developed our practices in preparing Individual Education Plans and learning recommendations for students who need additional support, as well as enhancing the consistency of systems and processes in our sub-schools. It’s been a big year, and I'm very proud of all of our students and staff for their role in this.

We've just farewelled our Year 12 2022 cohort, in their Graduation and Valedictory assemblies and at the Senior Formal. We look forward to the release of results as it is the next step in these students planning their future.

Facilities update

Our long-awaited refurbishment of the burnt-out Level 2 South Building science labs and classrooms will commence over the December/January holidays, and is scheduled for completion in Term 3 2023. We are very much looking forward to being able to move in to these new spaces. This refurbishment will be enhanced and supported by your generous donations to our Building Fund.

We are also working on repairing a complex structural issue in our Hall. Two classrooms and the Loft rooftop have been out of action whilst this is in progress: we hope to be able to re-occupy these rooms by the start of 2023.

The refurbishment of the Elizabeth Blackburn Sciences Lecture Theatre, led by the University of Melbourne, is also well underway, with completion scheduled for the start of the 2023 school year. It will be wonderful to resume use of this space as well.

Our facilities continue to be challenged, as our school population has grown to 1800 students. We are working on a range of small onsite improvements to both indoor and outdoor spaces, and also working with the Department of Education on longer-term planning to support our students' learning spaces.

UHS Vision and Values - join us in a workshop

Over the last year, we have been working on a school-wide review of our school Vision and Values. This helps us to clarify and articulate what is important for us as a community as we move into the future and our new Strategic Plan.

We have run a parent/carer, student and staff survey, as well as a series of student and staff workshops. This has helped us to identify common themes and develop some initial drafts of a renewed school Vision and Values. I now invite you, as parents and carers, to give us your feedback on this work, and to help us further refine and develop our vision.

This workshop will be held in our School Library, on Thursday 1 December from 6.30pm - 8pm.

In the workshop, you will review the feedback so far, and work in small groups to discuss it and give us your input.

To help us plan for the event, please RSVP via this link by Tuesday 29 November. You are welcome to bring children if you need to for caring purposes. UHS students have had, and will have in the future, the opportunity to engage in this work at school, so this workshop is primarily for parents and carers. I look forward to working with you during this time!

NAPLAN 2022

The NAPLAN national report was published recently, which provides data on statewide student performance in these assessments. Across the state, Reading and Writing secondary school results showed improvement. In general, Victorian schools performed strongly in comparison with the rest of the nation.

At the UHS level, the percentage of our students assessed as in the top two bands remained strong, with the key measures all sitting above state, network and similar schools measures. As the tests were not held in 2020, we do not have growth data for these cohorts to report. This is a summary of UHS results.

Year 7	% in Top 2 bands	% in Middle 2 bands	% in Bottom 2 bands / Exempt
Reading	51%	44%	5%
Writing	45%	44%	11%
Numeracy	63%	33%	5%

Year 9	% in Top 2 bands	% in Middle 2 bands	% in Bottom 2 bands / Exempt
Reading	43%	45%	12%
Writing	26%	54%	20%
Numeracy	49%	46%	5%

The tests were held online for the first time this year, which enabled these assessments to be adaptive. This means that, as a school, we now have access to highly specific student-level data and the ability to identify a zone of proximal development for students within the tests. We will be working with teacher teams to unpack and apply this data. We will also be using the information in a comparison with assessments against the Victorian Curriculum, to help us understand the interplay between these standardised measures and the learning we are seeing in students in our daily classes.

Planning for 2023 - adjusted bell times

Following staff and student feedback, we have decided to return to a more traditional shorter Recess break (25 minutes), while retaining the 50 minute Lunch. This will allow us, in 2023, to adjust our school hours to Monday – Friday 8.45am – 3pm.

This is a change from the current arrangement of 8.40am – 2.45pm on Mondays and 8.40am – 3.20pm Tuesday-Friday. The revised times allow for some co-curricular activities to be run after school but still within staff work hours, as well as providing additional flexibility for a rotation of staff meetings across multiple days.

We are also proposing the introduction, in 2023, of a once/week, half-hour homegroup program to support social and emotional learning, pathways and careers planning and connection to school. It will provide an avenue for the delivery of our BSEM program and parts of the Respectful Relationships curriculum, and is an opportunity to trial such a program in preparation for possible, more extensive changes in 2024 or beyond. This would be achieved via a shortening of other session times on that day by 5 minutes, and would not affect start, finish or break times.

Longer term, we are in the process of reviewing our overall timetable structure to assess if it is still best serving our needs and the type of learning we wish to deliver. Any further changes would happen no sooner than 2024. We will be seeking student and family feedback on this early next year.

Please enjoy this edition of our Newsletter, as we celebrate the many and varied opportunities at UHS.

Ciar Foster - Principal

Photos from the library soiree