Heard on the Hill Term 4, Week 3

From the Principal                  

Bonjour à tous, and Wanju

Last week I attended the Innovation Academy presentation evening. Several Bunbury SHS students were involved and did a fantastic job with their pitch to their industry partners. 

The Independent Research Project, a Year 11 endorsed unit, is similar in structure to the program and our focus on project-based learning (1hr per week for a semester in Year 7 and Year 8) are the mechanisms for us to create engaging learning. Both programs and the focus of our enterprise approach at Bunbury SHS is to have students working on real world problems in conjunction with business, industry and higher education.

For many, this style may be unfamiliar. Here is a great article to get you thinking and moving in the right direction.

Challenging Real-World Projects for Students & Teachers | NGLC (nextgenlearning.org)

You may like to check out the United Nations -Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Most companies are working towards improving their practices to meet the UN’s SDGs. This is how the Innovation Academy works. 

Home - United Nations Sustainable Development

I am really looking forward to seeing the progress of our; IRP course in Year 11, Year 7 & 8 projects and our general enterprise approach as we prepare for next year. 

Today, I met with the Aboriginal Education Advisory Council. Obviously, the result of the referendum has hit our Aboriginal community hard. We need to support our students and be aware of how the outcome could be affecting them. Across the state, the result has amplified feelings of racism and we need to be aware of this to respond appropriately to the needs of our students.

The Focus 2024 will be released later this week. In it, you find the continued commitment to prioritising Aboriginal student learning, wellbeing and achievement through our school's cultural responsiveness and our Reconciliation Action Plan. The Focus document will build on the previous foci.

It is Presentation Night week, have a great week.

En Avant

Mike Sinagra

Nuts and Bolts

A Board meeting was held last week. There were many interesting topics to come out of the meeting

• The retaining wall along the lower fire emergency access road will begin shortly with the details finalised last week. This will see the northern bank retained and landscape to support the bank
• RTP outage from Friday 7:00pm - Monday 6:00am

World Teachers' Day

Australia will celebrate teachers on World Teachers’ Day on Friday27 October 2023.

On Friday, I would like to acknowledge the fantastic job our teaching staff do by providing scones with jam and cream, in the staff room, lunch 1, to celebrate World Teachers' Day.  Please come along and help to celebrate.

Classroom Observations

A teacher operating at an effective level:

• designs evaluation strategies to determine the effectiveness of teaching strategies in addressing specific learning needs
• gathers and analyses information from a variety of information sources to judge the effectiveness of teaching strategies in meeting specific learning needs
• recommends modifications or enhancements to teaching strategies based on findings of evaluation processes.

Classroom observations assist in the self-reflection as to whether the lesson worked well or not.

In an earlier HOTH, I made reference to Beginning of Class Routine as one example of peer observation and feedback. An attachment was not included so I have re-attached it for this publication. This example may provide impetus to do another classroom observation with a peer.

Staff Meeting

A quick reminder of the staff meeting this Wednesday 3:15pm-4:15pm in the Cafeteria.

Agenda is below. Apologies need to go through the Principal.

Using AI?

Are you using AI? How have you used it to support your teaching/planning?

If so, can you please get in contact with me and let me know. We are looking for some great examples to share throughout the school.

I have used it a few times myself……some worked great, others not so much.

Stephen Michael Rising Leaders Program

As a result of their dedication and application throughout the Stephen Michael Rising Leaders Program, these students have been selected to attend the annual Stephen Michael Camp.

Terence Cole, Kere Collier, Sunny Geen, Ezekeil Hamilton

The program has run weekly since the beginning of Term 3 with targeted Year 9 and 10 students, aiming to improve their personal skills, leadership attributes and emotional regulation.

Performance Management

Just a reminder that we should be looking to finalise our Performance Management for 2023 and booking our final meeting with our Line Managers.

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.

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.