Principal's Report

Learner Growth

As you would be aware, we have had a strong focus this year on Excellence – Challenging yourself to be your best. I have mentioned in previous newsletters the many successes that we have had across the year that have demonstrated our students and staff achieving excellence in a range of academic and co-curricular activities. 

To support our College value of Excellence, our staff have been focusing on our key goal of optimising the learning growth of every learner through point of need teaching. To achieve this, we have been working through a series of key actions that have included:

• Developing a whole school plan on how we are using evidence to inform our teaching
• Providing professional learning to staff on collecting and using evidence to inform teaching
• Developing a Teaching and Learning continua to assess our progress in curriculum development, teaching strategies, evidence and assessment practices
• Providing professional learning to staff on the Berry Street Education Model to support student wellbeing and learning within the classroom
• Providing Wellbeing/Inclusion/Leadership programs to support students
• Reviewing and adapting our processes around the development of Individual Education Plans to meet the needs of our students
• Reviewing and designing a whole school approach to the use of ICT within the classroom to support the teaching and learning for students and staff
• Implementing a new approach to whole school Inclusion

It has been extremely pleasing to look at this list and reflect upon the exciting progress that we have been making in each of these areas. This is an ongoing journey and we will continue to review, design and implement key strategies to inspire our students and to optimise their learning growth. 

Parent Student Teacher Conferences Term 3

Parent Student Teacher (PST) Conferences provide valuable opportunities for the teacher, student and parents/carers to share and learn more about the students' academic achievement, learning and wellbeing. Recently we sent out a survey to gather feedback from our community on our Parent Student Teacher (PST) Conferences. The purpose of this survey was to gather the thoughts of our community on our current conferences and some new proposed models for Term 3. We received a wide range of feedback and it was positive to see parents commenting on their appreciation of being given the opportunity to have input. We have considered the feedback provided and have made the decision to trial a new model for PST Conferences for Term 3. This decision was informed by the feedback from our community with the intention of ensuring that as many families as possible have the opportunity to attend our conferences around their work and other commitments.

Term 3 Parent Student Teacher Conferences:

Thursday 14 September:  4pm – 8pm onsite. All conferences will be held in person at the College.  

Friday 15th September :  10am – 1pm online.  All conferences will be hosted online. 

This approach aims to offer families the highest degree of flexibility to participate in our PST conferences, fostering collaborative discussions on how we can further enhance students' learning growth. Further details about the PST Conferences will be shared via Compass on Monday 4 September.

Production – Oliver Jr!

Lilydale Heights College’s first musical Oliver Jr! was recently performed over four consecutive nights. It was incredibly exciting to see the months of hard work come together and for our students to share with us their performance. School productions are incredibly important as they are a key feature of the school calendar that bring together many members from across our community. School productions are also one of those events at school that create lasting memories for students. It was wonderful to see students and staff come together to build sets, rehearse singing and acting, choreograph dances, usher audience members, selling tickets, providing catering and assisting with set changes. And of course, our students were amazing!!!  A huge thank you to Caitlin Lunnon and Jordann West who worked tirelessly to bring this performance to the stage. Many staff assisted throughout the production, both in rehearsals and on the performance nights. Thank you. Your support of our College Production is truly appreciated.  I have also been receiving emails from our community over the last few weeks regarding the production and have included some of their feedback below: 

‘We would like to tell you how impressed we were after attending the College Production of Oliver Jr! last week.  The production had vitality, enjoyment and impressive elements which are highly valued in the theatre world.’

‘What talent you have in your students - they performed with empathy, enthusiasm and inclusiveness. From the Year 7's to the Year 12's, they gave their all with cohesive acting, singing, set management, lighting and sound etc, all in response to great direction and production.’ 

‘I am emailing to congratulate your school, teachers and most of all students for the recent production of Oliver Jr!  The level of professionalism and the joy was clear to see.’ 

 ‘The hours of work that have gone into the production (within and out of school time) has been phenomenal. The endless energy and kindness that Jordann West and Caitlin Lunnon have poured into the show is something to be celebrated. Everyone who was involved should feel incredibly proud on delivering such a wonderful production and experience for the students.’ 

‘We were blown away by the sheer joy and talent shining from the stage.’ 

We are now looking forward to seeing what the 2024 production will be!

Shane Kruger - Principal.