Aaron Cox

Principal

Australian Primary School Teacher of the Year 2022

I am pleased to announce that our very own Josh Velez (Literacy/Curriculum Learning Specialist) has taken out the prestigious Australian Primary School Teacher of the Year award in Sydney last Friday night. This is a huge achievement for Josh and acknowledgement of his work as an enthusiastic and passionate educator. Well done Josh.

Kiss & Go Zone

Kingston Council have informed me that they will be coming to Kingswood on a more regular basis to issue fines to those drivers that do not follow basic road rules. Those rules include;

putting your foot on the break, or lining up, in the designated bus zone
leaving your car unattended in the Kiss & Go zone
performing 3 point turn in front of the school
parking in or across people’s driveways
parking in front of the fire hydrant in Plaza Crescent, etc.

School Review

It is with great pride I’d like to announce that Kingswood Primary School had a very, very successful 4-year review. The panel was extremely positive about the improvements made at Kingswood over the past 4 years and were equally confident about the direction for the school over the next 4 years. Personally, I have been involved in several reviews being on both sides of the table and I can confidently say this sits right near the very top with the best of them.

Kingswood Primary School is in its strongest position ever to make improvements to our students learning compared to any time in its past. This must give parents great confidence to know that the staff at Kingswood are doing such a great job.

As a school we know the areas of improvement that we need to work on including writing and student voice, agency and leadership. These will form the cornerstone of our objectives over the next 4 years. Kingswood is extremely lucky to have such talented leaders driving this improvement and dedicated teachers and staff bringing these ideas to life in the classrooms. I am an exceptionally proud principal because I work with first-class staff!

Time in Lieu - A Whole New World for Staff Work Hours

The new staff Enterprise Bargaining Agreement (EBA) has now been ratified by Fair Work Australia resulting in significant changes to the way staff work outside their official work hours. As we can all appreciate being on duty past work hours generally incurs additional costs to the employer. Educators work an enormous number of unpaid hours. This has finally been partially addressed by our employers, but the problem is that no additional funding has been provided for these numerous hours of work. Based on an evaluation of solely ‘principal directed’ events here at Kingswood, we would incur an additional $185,000 per year above our existing expenditure in wages and quite simply these numbers are beyond our means. As there is no funding to support these costs throughout a year, most future principal directed events will need to occur within the school day of 8.45am-4.45pm. This will include most information sessions, meetings, graduation ceremonies, performances, concerts. School camps are an integral part of a child’s education and the focus of our efforts moving forward will be to continue to provide these opportunities where possible. These changes will impact government schools right across Victoria.

Whilst I do not personally agree with the new system, without funding support, we are bound to work within the parameters set out within the new EBA. Schools are currently undertaking an analysis of all events throughout a year to determine how time will be acquitted. This process only highlights the extraordinary amount of time staff give freely to their profession outside of official work hours. We hope to have a clearer understanding of what is possible next year after our internal review and consultation with other local schools within our network. Further information will be provided when available.

Energy Breakthrough