Principal's Report

International Women’s Day Celebration

Thank you to Ms Carolyn Parkes for her initiative in providing an International Women’s Day Celebration for many of our young women. Girls from Year 7 to Year 12 spoke about their achievements in a wide range of fields from sport through to helping others in our community.  The guest speaker was Ms Karen Visser.  Karen has many year’s experience working in community, aid and assistance for those in need.  The girls were inspired by the story of her journey and of those she has helped.

One of the themes of the event was that together we can stop violence against women and girls.  Ms Parkes and the girls are writing a full report, with photos, which will be in next week’s newsletter.

Parent Teacher night refreshments

The Parents Association will be providing refreshments for you on Parent Teacher day and evening.  They will be based in Mason House and have tea, coffee and biscuits.  Fund raising chocolates will be for sale as will the last few of those terrific Funde booklets with the cheap vouchers for many venues.  You may even get a bargain and be able to buy one for a discounted price!

Presentation Ball – donation to raffle prizes

Our Presentation Ball is coming up in July, and the Parents Association are seeking donations of any goods or services for their major raffle of the year which takes place at the ball.  This is a major fundraiser for the PA and the money they raise goes straight back into things to enrich the life of students at the school.  They are currently looking at donating to some increased shade and seating areas for students, as well as their annual donation to Learning Areas so they can buy those little extra things that might have been just out of reach of their budgets.

Curriculum Day

Our Curriculum Day on Monday was a really valuable experience for staff.  Phillip Holmes-Smith, the creator of the Student Performance Analyser program, built teachers’ knowledge about ways to measure student learning growth.  This is an important area of development in education.  There is a move away from labelling students as being behind, and rather focusing on the growth and development they are making.  As with all things developmental in growing up (crawling, walking, speaking, learning to read) children do it at different times when they are ready and the environment encourages it.  Learning at school is the same, with the students spread across a range of knowledge and skills but at the same age.  Yet for years students have felt themselves labelled as ‘failures’ because they aren’t at an expected level, but they may have been making huge growth.  Some schools are now not reporting on achievement grades alone, but have incorporated in the growth between year levels.  We will be having some debates about how we improve our reporting this year during our Review evaluations, so we will be really interested to hear what parents think.  

Swimming Carnival

We had a terrific day at the new Ringwood Pool for our annual Swimming Carnival last week.  It was 38 degrees in Ringwood that day, which set us a bit of a challenge at keeping students and staff cool.  We were able to move students around in both the indoor and outdoor space so they could keep in the shade and there were many drink taps for them to access water.  The exciting thing for us was the number of students who attended – almost all students were in attendance, which is something we have been working towards. There was a lot of serious swimming and races, and then many more students involved in the novelty events.  The heat might have had an impact on the numbers wanting to get into the pool!

One thing we are noticing, and is of concern, are the increasing numbers of students who can’t swim.  Not sure why this is the case, but with the increasing number of drownings we have in Australia, it is something we will have to look at as a society.

For the day to run so smoothly it took an army of people organising, marshalling, recording and motivating.  I can’t mention them all individually to thank them, but particular thanks must go to our new Leader of PE and Sport, Mr David Black, for his first major carnival.  We obviously made it even harder for him by holding it in a new venue, but he rose to the occasion and presented us with a superb whole school activity. Thank you to our AFL trainee, Mr Johnothan King for his work, and for all the PE staff who are tireless in making it a great day.

Working Bee

On Sunday 17 April we will hold our first working bee of the year.  This time we will focus on gardening, planting, pruning and mulching.  This is a really good opportunity to meet some other parents, and to work with staff in a more informal environment.  If you would like to join in, please email us at wantirnasc@edumail.vic.gov.au

Sue Bell

Principal