Principal's Report

If no mistake you have made, losing you are. A different game you should play.

Yoda, Jedi Master  896BBY-4ABY

Welcome back to all in our community to Term 4. 

To start I would reinforce the best wishes of all staff to our Academy students in their Higher School Certificate Examinations. We also extend those wishes to their families who will deal with children who might at times be a little stressed and or anxious. I have had the opportunity to speak on several occasions with some of these students and they have universally acclaimed what a nightmare it would be for them if they were studying under the traditional delivery model rather than our Academy. It has only been since the examinations have commenced that the reality has truly dawned on them what having 5-7 examinations would be like compared to only 2-4.

This of course brings us to the point that for all students at Uralla Central School the formal academic year is coming to a close as we race towards our rollover at the end of Week 5. The final touches are being put on our new timetable and all of the sundry organisation that goes with organising the daily happenings of a school are being finalised. I am exceptionally pleased to be able to announce that barring any dramatic decline between now and the beginning of next year we have been able to really maximise the impact of the innovations that have been implemented in the past three years to the benefit of all of our students.

Our Head of Junior School, Kate Prosser, officially retires next week and I have listed her vacancy with the Department and hopefully we will be able to have a substantive replacement in place for the beginning of school next year. I am told that her temporary replacement Jenny Richards will go on leave pending retirement from the beginning of next year; I believe that it is highly likely that Bill Platts, our 'Science Guy', is also likely to make a decision about retirement in the near future. As a consequence we will see some staff changes as we move forward. I wanted to publicly thank and congratulate Janette Holmes who joined us last term for all of the time and effort she has put into our school and students and to congratulate her on her recent promotion to Head Teacher Mathematics at Duval High School. Janette will be with us until the end of Week 5.

Our current planning sees us maintaining our current staffing except for the changes already outlined. Excitingly, despite slightly smaller numbers in our K-6 area, we will be able to maintain 'straight classes' in the Junior School for the third year running as follows;

K Rubies - Sophie Kelly

1 Sapphires - Mel Turner/Maureen Locke

2 Opals - Amy Brodbeck

3 Emeralds - Jenny Uloth

4 Pearls - Christie Oxley

4 Diamonds - Tom McLean

As always if you have any questions about school organisation don't hesitate to contact the school for clarification; either myself or our Deputy Principal, Tracey Jenner, directly or the relevant head of School.

Head of Junior School (K-4) - Jenny Richards

Head of Middle School (5-8) - Dan Williams

Head of Senior School (9-Academy II) - Mark Wittig

We look forward to seeing many of our parents at the many events scheduled to take place over the next few weeks. Could I also bring to your attention the survey regarding After School Care in the Community Section of this newsletter. My colleague principal at St.Joseph's Uralla, Judy Elks, and I firmly believe that a quality education is available to all of the young people in our town, in our town. We have a strong working relationship and are happy to work together if it means students stay in Uralla - we are not in competition with each other. I have investigated After School Care for our school but it is difficult to find a provider willing to work in Uralla and the government system. Judy has found one that will do it in non-government schools and in Uralla if there is sufficient interest. I urge you to complete the survey if you think After School Care is something that would be useful to you. In the meantime I will continue to research to find someone willing to run such an opportunity through our school.

Have a wonderful fortnight.

The capacity to learn is a gift;

The ability to learn is a skill;

The willingness to learn is a choice.

Frank Herbert (1920-1986) Author of Dune