Deputy Principals

PETER DICKINSON

Deputy Principal - Operations

Enhancing the Umbrella of Pastoral Care

Oakleigh Grammar prides itself on the pastoral support that is provided to all members of the community, especially our students. This begins with the work undertaken by the Home Group Teachers, who are the key points of contact for students and parents should any issue arise. We then have in each section, a Head of School and a designated leadership team, who oversee and respond age-appropriately to the various welfare and behavioural issues, and develop a specific pastoral care curriculum. The Principal and the Deputy Principals may then become involved depending on the issue.

Furthermore, staff in the Arrowsmith Program and Learning Enhancement play important roles. We are also blessed to have the support of Father George Adamakis. To further enhance our pastoral care umbrella in 2019, the School has introduced an additional Year Level Coordinator for Year 10, and importantly, a school counsellor. We are delighted that Fiona Baudinette will begin working in this role on a part time basis. Counselling is available for students on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. Parents and children are welcome to book a time with Fiona before/after school, and during school hours. Fiona is also available to meet with parents regarding concerns with your child and parenting challenges, if needed.  

Bookings are made via email: counsellor@oakleighgrammar.vic.edu.au

Counselling is confidential, unless the student asks for information to be passed on to parents or teachers, or if there is harm to self, others, or by others, in which case Fiona is legally bound to disclose confidential information. This is discussed with students so they are fully aware of confidentiality and the limitations to confidentiality. Please feel free to contact Fiona via the office, or email if you have any questions.

We continue to reflect on our practices to improve what we do but are driven by a strong desire to ensure that our support programs provide the best possible school based pastoral care.

PETER CUMMINS

Deputy Principal - Teaching & Learning

Development of the TLM in 2019

Last year the School embarked on a major curriculum initiative of developing a whole School Teaching and Learning Model (TLM). The first step involved consulting with teachers from across the School, to help guide the development of a whole School approach to what constitutes best teaching and learning practice at Oakleigh Grammar.

Considerable time was spent discussing what good teaching and learning looks like at our School, and using this and other best practice ideas, to develop our TLM. We worked along the lines of keeping the model as simple as possible, keeping the language reader friendly such that our students would be able to identify with each phase of the model. This resulted in a four phase teaching and learning model with three key elements in each phase:

Clearly the goal here is to improve teaching and learning, improve student engagement in their learning, and improve student learning outcomes, across the School.

This term teachers will take part in onsite professional learning to support the introduction of the next phase of the TLM ‘Purposeful Teaching’. At these workshops, the focus will initially start with ‘Explicit Instruction’. In Term 2 the aim is to consolidate the Purposeful Teaching phase. Terms 3 and 4 we will introduce the Active Learning phase, and all going to plan, the Reflect phase.