TERM ONE - ROUND UP

It has been yet another incredibly busy term, with a small ‘hiccup’ in the middle as Cyclone Alfred sent us into preparation for potential flooding, which thankfully did not eventuate. There was a massive, collective sigh of relief across our local community and indeed within the school when we returned to find only minor flash flooding and a couple of broken windows. We managed to come away relatively unscathed.

With the minor disruption to school over the week leading up to and after the cyclone (lots of moving resources to higher levels etc) we have been playing catch up with many aspects of school life. Having said that, our teachers have maintained the focus on learning and even managed to undertake NAPLAN with the year 3 & 5 students in the midst of the disruption. I have witnessed excellent work in classrooms right across the school.

It was particularly disappointing to postpone Monty’s Colour Splatacular last Friday. The weather and state of Gregory Park was just too bad to go ahead. We will have new date to announce shortly and, in the meantime, you can still access the portal and continue the fundraising effort.

Over the past fortnight it has been wonderful for our leadership team to be undertaking ‘Learning Walks’ in classrooms where we visit and speak with students focussing this term on English about what they’re learning, why, how do they know what to do to improve their work to get to the next level of learning, who or where do they go to get help and how do they know when they need the help. We meet with the teachers individually to discuss the responses.

This provides us and the class teachers with a snapshot of the teacher’s impact in the classroom and what they can celebrate and potentially address to improve the learning for the students in the weeks and months ahead.

The responses from students were very articulate, with the vast majority able to give clear and concise responses. They knew their personal goals, how to utilise the learning wall in the classroom and what the next step in their learning needed to be.

This process for the students is critical as it allows them to take responsibility for their learning and gives them that sense of independence that they can find ways to improve, before they go for adult assistance. Once they have undertaken this process, the class teacher can conference with them and address each student on an individual basis, providing feedback and direction where necessary.

SCHOOL REVIEW- EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

You may remember that earlier this term we undertook a whole school review which is a part of the Department of Education four-year process to inform our next Strategic Plan 2026-2029. The review was undertaken by three principals who are seconded to the School Review Branch. They spent three days in our school, speaking with all members of the school team and many community members.

As with any organisation, there will always be great things to celebrate and then improvement strategies to help inform our next steps. We are always working towards our school motto which is ‘Creating the Future’ for our students. There will always be much to do as work towards developing ‘the whole child’.

Below is the Executive Summary which we have just received and will publish on the school website. We are very pleased with the outcome of the review. I want to thank all parents and wider community members who were contacted or approached for feedback. It will all help to inform our future planning.

PARENT TEACHER INTERVIEWS

We have seen many parents take up the opportunity to come in to the school to speak with their child’s teacher/s over the past couple of weeks. The feedback I have had from parents has been very positive in terms of their child’s progress and the clearly positive relationship their building with their teacher.

What has been a little disappointing is that parents have made appointment times, only to forget the meeting and then have the expectation that the teacher will make another time at the parent’s convenience. The time that is allocated to undertake such meetings is precious to the teacher and indeed the parent. We can all have an emergency situation occur which is totally understandable and needs to be communicated to the teacher in a timely fashion. Some teachers waited after school until quite late in the evening for meetings where parents did not show up. 

In these situations, please do not expect that an alternative time will be made, when you as a parent have simply ‘forgotten’ to attend. Teachers have anywhere between 25-28 interviews to undertake, some even giving up a Saturday to do so.

PRINCIPAL WELLBEING SURVEY

Each year the Australian Catholic University undertakes a wellbeing survey with every principal across the country, state, private/independent and catholic. It focusses on workload and the treatment of principals by staff, students and community. I believe it is really important to highlight in every community, the results from this survey, so everyone can understand the impact being felt by principals.

This is not a bid for sympathy, merely an opportunity to determine the way forward across our country to address such issues, so we do not lose very experienced educators and leaders.

We are currently in the midst of a teacher shortage crisis and this is extending now to school leadership. We are truly struggling to fill schools from leadership through to teaching staff and the only way this can be turned around is if the wider community and parent community address these issues facing schools.

This is only going to disadvantage your children and the generations to come, when experienced leaders and teachers leave the profession and the roles either cannot be filled at all or are filled by those who are less suited or skilled, to the profession. The quality of teaching and learning will suffer significantly.

Let’s get behind our schools and show support, encouragement and respect. It is only then that we will maintain the great leaders and teachers that all children deserve. After all, as our motto states, together we are ‘Creating the Future’.

Below is the link to the latest report:

https://theconversation.com/it-is-a-seriously-difficult-role-and-only-getting-harder-school-principals-speak-about-stress-violence-and-abuse-in-their-jobs-253327?utm_medium=article_native_share&utm_source=theconversation.com

LONG SERVICE LEAVE

Over the three days between Easter and ANZAC Day, I will be taking long service leave. During this time, Deputy Principal Kylie Dunne will be acting in my place.

I hope you all have a lovely break over this time.

Kind regards,
Paul Zernike
Principal
pzern1@eq.edu.au