It is with regret and indeed, much sadness, that I inform our College community that today, 21 September 2018, marks the last day of my employment as Principal of Hampton Park Secondary College.

I will remain an employee of the Department of Education for some time following this, however, this will not be at the college. Unfortunately I have need of further surgery on my neck which will require a considerable period of rehabilitation to follow the surgery.

Given this situation and the need for a potentially quite lengthy recovery period, I have made the decision to relinquish my position as Principal of the College. The alternative to this was to use up some of my accrued ‘sick leave’.. At the moment, I have sufficient sick leave to enable me to to be off work for anything up to 3 years. To do so, however would leave the College with someone placed as the Acting Principal for anywhere between six and 18 months. I have therefore made the decision that it would be far better for our college and our community that the position be advertised and a new Principal appointed in a timely manner.

I would like to take this opportunity on my last day in the service of the College, to express some of my feelings on leaving our community.

Over the past 11 years, our staff and school council have worked incredibly hard to ensure the capacity of our College to meet the needs of our quite unique student cohort. While obviously there is still a long way to go on our improvement journey, our College now sits as the College of choice in the community. Our curriculum offerings, our ‘State Of The Art Facilities,’ coupled with the incredible dedication of our staff, have combined to create a learning environment that is 2nd to none. In regard to the development of our curriculum using the Harvard backward design method of curriculum design delivery and review places us at the forefront of educational thinking in this State.

It has been an absolute pleasure and a privilege to have worked in and served our community over the past 11 years. It would be absolutely remiss of me if I were not to recognise and applaud our incredible staff for accepting the challenge to transform our teaching and learning methodology in order to provide our students with the greatest opportunity to continue their life’s journey on exiting the College. Our College Council has committed to support staff in developing their knowledge, expertise and skill sets in order to create the 21st century learning environment that is now in place at the college.

I wish to acknowledge and to thank my executive leadership team both now and across all of my years at the College. Individually and collectively, they have supported my dream to create our College as the learning Hub of our community.

On leaving our College community, I most certainly will miss our students. Sitting here now and putting these few words together, I find it difficult to imagine not walking into work each day and experiencing the joy that our students offer each and every one of us on a daily basis.

Finally, I would like to acknowledge the education support staff at the College for their dedication to ensuring our students and staff are fully supported in delivering on our mission as a learning community and for their incredible support of me over the journey that we have taken in the course of the past 11 years.

The journey we have all shared over my time at the College, now sees the College incredibly well placed to provide our students with the education that they deserve and the education so vital to ensuring that each and every one of our students, on leaving the college, are able to participate as active members of the wider community.

So now, is a big tank you to all and farewell, as I move into the next chapter in my life.

Dave

David Finnerty

Principal

David Finnerty

Principal

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