From the Principal

Welcome back

Welcome back to Term 2 and I hope everyone had a chance to relax and spend time with family and friends over the break.  Our students have had a great start to the term, quickly settling back to routines at school.  We have resumed our parent tours following a long COVID intermission.  Visitors have been able to see the high-quality teaching and learning happening in classes, with our teaching model and differentiation evident during lessons.  It has been great for me going back into classes and speaking with students about what they are learning.

I enjoyed being on the judging panel of the Year 7 Holiday Science investigation last week, where students could apply their knowledge of separation techniques studied.  Students were given the challenge to develop a water filtration system for muddy water using only recycled materials found at home.  There were some innovative and highly efficient models created. 

The judges agreed that Josh D (7B) was the winner as his model created an effective filtration process producing very clear water in a timely manner.  Thank you to Ms Jayasuriya, and Ms Papon for facilitating this STEM challenge.

Great turnout to our Open evening last week

There has been immense interest from prospective parents to enrol at our school, which is a testament to the positive culture and academic reputation we have established in the community.  We had over 200 people attend our school Open Evening on Thursday 28 April.

Feedback from families was extremely positive on how passionate teachers are at our school, and how our school has a very welcoming and safe feel about it.  Our student helpers and tour guides did a marvellous job promoting our school and spoke confidently and competently when answering parent questions.  Thank you to all staff and students for assisting on the night, and to many of our current parents who are promoting Auburn High School in the community.  You are our best marketing tool, as your positive comments are being shared in our community.

French Elections

During the Term 1 holidays our school hosted the voting for the 2022 French presidential elections.  The elections were held on the Sundays of April 10 and 24 (in the school holidays) and the final legislative (MP/lower house) elections will be held on June 12 and 19.  There was an amazing turnout of French nationals for the voting and our school looked amazing with posters of all our French language specialisations.  There were food trucks and some of our students and French staff were present on both days, selling croissants.  I would like to thank our French Binational Coordinator, Genevieve Papon, for liaising with the French Embassy and for all her work on these days and our French teachers and students who helped out as well.

Menzies Update

As you may be aware, my Menzies School Leader Fellowship program involves working with other educational leaders, sharing knowledge and practices on leading schools through increasingly challenging and complex situations.  In particular, the focus of the Menzies Foundation project is on building collective efficacy with our teachers and staff and promoting a culture conducive to learning and development.

We have started this work with the Leadership Team and with teaching teams across various year levels.  I am using the scholarship funds to access high level experts and coaches to work with teams and support us with the work we are doing.  The focus for the year is on building stronger collective efficacy in teams centred on creating common formative assessment tasks, which we call Snapshot tasks.  This work should improve the collective efficacy of teaching teams and improve student learning behaviours and achievement.

Parent Public meeting and workshop sessions - Tuesday 14th June 6.00pm - 7.00pm

On Tuesday 14th June at 6:00pm we will be hosting a parent forum at school.  We will present our 2021 School Annual Report and run parent workshops on our current priority areas of:  Challenging all learners, Assessment and Feedback and Building school community.  Parents will be able to select the workshop they wish to attend.  A Compass invitation will be sent out soon to all families inviting them to this event.  The school Leadership Team as well as our school councillors will be present, and we look forward to many parents coming along and working within groups.