PRINCIPAL

My congratulations to our Year 12’s for completing their final year of schooling and graduating last week. It was lovely to be part of the ceremony and speak with parents so proud of their young people and so pleased with the role the College has played in the last two or three years. 

As usual, the staff put a big effort into making the ceremony memorable for students and families and I thank them for their efforts. Congratulations to all the prize and award winners across all years. Congratulations also to Rachel Smith and Michael Kilrain who have been selected as our 2023 College Captains. 

Next year, COVID permitting, our aim is to have all Year 10 and 11 students attend the ceremony so they can be part of the celebrations.

This week we farewell most of our Year 11 students with some returning for short courses next week. At this time of the year there is talk from students about some not returning next year. It would be helpful if we hear this from parents so we can offer places to new students on our wait list.

Survey

My thanks to the parents who completed our School Satisfaction Survey; we had 34% of Year 10 families, 30% of Year 11 families and 55% of Year 12 families. These numbers are not large and it is disappointing that more families did not choose to tell us where we can improve or where we are doing well. However, as usual the responses were mostly overwhelmingly positive which is lovely to see, although I always like to see the suggestions about where we can improve. There are a few improvement trends that stand out including reporting student performance to parents and consistency of staff dealing with student issues and behaviour. 

We have finished surveying the Year 10’s and 11’s and the data will be presented to the College Board and staff to be used in our school planning and improvement cycle. I am very happy to provide the data to parents who might be interested.

Kudos to the Front Office staff who rated highly as usual. Two examples of comments are;

The front office staff always seem well coordinated and knowledgeable about everything going on. They go out of their way to help, respond quickly with any enquiry and are friendly to everyone. I would also like to thank the management, administration and support staff who have shown a great deal of support for our daughter with her schooling as well as always showing concern for her social engagement and mental health while away at school.

The office staff are all AMAZING!!!! So friendly and helpful. Nothing is ever a problem. I can't thank them enough!!! 

As you know our intent is for our Farm to be as close to industry standard as possible and so are always looking to improve operations and systems to ensure students are exposed to current technologies and thinking. 

As part of our Farm Improvement Plans, we have a number of projects underway. One of these is the overhaul of our Horticulture Section which comprises a number of elements including; 

• New citrus varieties - more varieties, but less numbers of each to spread fruit availability.
• Consolidating plant types together for management ease and irrigation efficiency.
• Upgrading the reticulation system for better watering efficiency, soil water monitoring and remote management. 
• Renewing and expanding raised bed vegetable growing.
• Propagating for specific occasions - Mothers Day and Daffodil Day. 
• Introducing hydroponics in one of the existing Eco shelters.
• Collaborating with the Intensive section with a rotational sequence of free range poultry, Dorper sheep and in ground summer vegetable crops.

Horticulture in all its form is something that provides massive employment opportunities for our students and is something that sets us apart from most of the other agricultural colleges. Our improvement plan will take couple of years to be fully complete, but even in the redevelopment stages students are gaining valuable skills and knowledge.

Have a great weekend

Steve