07 Jun 2024
Principal's message:
Hello all and welcome to our Term 2 Week 6 newsletter.
Move-a-thon
We were delighted to host the annual move-a-thon this week with all students participating in a period of connection with our community and each other as we seek to raise funds with the school P&C for sensory play items for our playgrounds. The move-a-thon attracted dozens of families with mums, dads, aunties, uncles, grandmas, and friends all joining in the exercise fun. The students (and staff) completed a combined effort that will have amounted to thousands of steps and hundred of laps of our bike track. A great time had by all. Many thanks to the volunteers on the day who helped make this such a wonderful event.
External Validation
The school external validation process is an opportunity for schools to take a deep look at the function of the school utilising the Department of Education’s Schools Excellence framework as a tool to drive a conversation around out practice. The process seeks to provide a lens that affirms and challenges a school’s understanding of its work.
Last week we were joined by a Lead Principal School Leadership and a peer SSP Principal to look through a collection of evidence that describes the work we do in a number of key areas known as ‘themes’ in the school excellence framework. When considering these themes, we seek to identify an on-balance judgement as whether we are delivering this in our school, whether we are sustaining and growing a practice or excelling. The EV panel reviews these judgements and guides a reflective conversation affirming or challenging our self-assessment. The expertise of a PSL and peer principal is such that, with input from the school, a broad and objective viewpoint can be reached.
The results of our conversation were heartening. Overwhelmingly the EV team considered our efforts as teaching and support staff to be exceptional. They made regular comment as to the richness of information presented across the breadth of the excellence framework, the clear care for students, the obvious depth of understanding for the individual needs of our kids and the expertise to provide a high-quality schooling experience.
A key part of the EV process is thinking about our next steps, how do we build on the excellent work we are doing and continue to develop, challenge, enhance and improve so that our kids can have the best school experience we can give them. As a school we’re going to explore this over the next few terms as we prepare for the years ahead.
Mark Gosbell
Principal