Heard on the Hill Term 3, Week 3

From the Principal

Bonjour à tous, and Wanju

Well, the weekend held a little for everyone.  Some wintery weather, some sunshine, wins for our West Australian AFL teams and I finally caught something on my fly-fishing rod (a very small brown trout that was released).

“Teacher Collective Efficacy” is a term that you may hear often but its meaning and what it looks like is complex. Simply put, it is the beliefs that we individually hold about our combined group’s capacity to achieve the goals that we have set for student learning.

The more I read and reflect on us as a group, I see that Bunbury SHS has a very strong Teacher Collective Efficacy – and we continue to reinforce the practices that build it.

The leadership of the school plays an important factor. I have said numerous times before that the leadership must

• Inspire a sense of common purpose – our mission
• Buffer teachers from disruptions
• Analysis and focus on data that provides evidence of the collective impact
• Thoughtfully design staff development activities
• Enable teachers to observe one another

I hope that we have been doing these things. Please let your PCs know if you think we can improve here. There are some things that I think the leadership of the school can do to build our collective efficacy further.

• Provide teachers with detailed feedback on the quality of their work
• Facilitate other activities to reduce teacher stress
• Intellectually stimulate the curiosity of staff

I hope that this fuels discussions in your learning area as you are preparing your PC for their “fireside” review meetings. Like the three questions that we frequently ask to check on our performance: How are we going? How do we know? and What next? There are several questions that we can ask ourselves about Collective Teacher Efficacy.

• Do we engage parents in ways that promote student learning?
• Do we support the development of literacy and numeracy?
• Do we develop or adjust programs where students are not engaging?
• Do we use data from students to evaluate teaching strategies and learning programs?
• Do we use a range of assessment strategies to assess student learning accurately and meaningfully?

My own view is that we are doing all these. This explains why we have a collective view that we can make a difference. However, the questions are good to keep in our mind as things to focus on to keep pushing our beliefs of the capacity of our group to impact student learning.

Have a great week.

En Avant

Mike Sinagra

Please see below for a copy of last week's leadership minutes:

NAIDOC Week at BSHS 14-18 August 

BSHS is celebrating NAIDOC Week from 14 to 18 August. The Cultural Inclusivity Committee needs your support to make this year's NAIDOC the best ever! This year's NAIDOC theme is For Our Elders. We will be trying to get many elders into the school throughout the week.

A calendar of events and activities will be published next week and we hope that you will promote and encourage your students to participate as much as possible.

On Monday 14 August during period 2, we will have a special whole school NAIDOC assembly with special guests.

There will be an official opening of the student hub - its official name is Koolangka Kadadjiny Wardarn (Children Learning by the Sea).

In the weeks leading up to and including during NAIDOC week, it would be great if you could incorporate some aboriginal content into your curriculum. The SBS website has a range of resources.

Workload Advisory Committee

Workload is often the main cause of staff stress or anxiety. Our school has a workload advisory committee, which was set up as part of our focus on Staff Wellbeing in our previous business plan, and which we continue to support through the new Staff Wellbeing Committee.

Staff Representatives for this year (continuing their 2 year tenure) are: Renee Chapple, Luke Marinoni and Adam McGill.

If you have workload issues, please discuss them first with your line manager, as many of these can be resolved quickly and easily.

If you have an issue that cannot be resolved, please submit it via either the survey link provided here, or on the document below (which can also be found in the School Templates folder on your desktop.

Social Media Content

We love seeing students in action, whether in a classroom setting, in an incursion or off-site for an excursion or camp.

If you are conducting any activities you think are suitable for our school's Facebook or Instagram pages, please submit your content through the link below.

Please contact me with prior warning if you would like me to attend a session, lesson, activity etc if you would like me to take photos/videos to accompany your story.

If you have taken photos on your phone/iPad and are unsure of how to transfer these to me, please send me an email or come and visit me and I can assist you.

Submit your Facebook post using the link below.

Schoolzine

Keep up to date with all the latest news for staff and parents via the schoolzine app. You can access Heard on the Hill, the school's website, Facebook page, calendar, Connect, and more via the homepage of the app.

This easy-to-use app also sends you notifications when newsletters have been published.

See below for how to download the SZapp.