Heard on the Hill Term 2, Week 2
From the Principal
Hello everyone.Well, Week 1 certainly flew by, didn't it? I know many of you will be trying to squeeze in what lessons you can around the various interruptions to the calendar last week and coming up this week. Unfortunately, there is a strong possibility that students may not attend this Friday as well (after ANZAC Day) if families opt to have a long weekend break. I am not sure if this is good news, but we do have 11 weeks this term to help you catch your classes up if you are worried about falling behind.
Thank you to those staff who presented on our School Development Day last week. It is a lot to ask of staff to do so on the first day back, and I really appreciate the work you would have put in to provide quality PL to your peers. I enjoyed Nicki's impromptu but very relevant mindfulness exercise. Nicki is doing a great job leading our Staff Wellbeing Committee. If you haven't had a chance to complete the survey she sent out, please do so, and provide her with the data she needs to work with her team on a strategic plan.
I did hear that Tina has some acting skills that I wasn't previously aware of and that she played a convincing student in the role play in Cathy Watson's presentation about informal contracts. The High Quality Teaching Team is a crucial group in our school, to support teacher professional growth. If you have some expertise that you believe could be valuable to share, please let Cathy know. Please remember to do the survey she sent out, too, so that your feedback can inform the HQTT's planning.
I want to thank Adam for his presentation about the proposed changes to the Year 10 curriculum. I hope it generated a lot of discussion and ideas. I want to reiterate Adam's statement regarding the change management process and that we are in the very early stages of this particular change. The Executive team appreciates your valuable input into this first stage of generating ideas and considering what Year 10 could look like in 2026 and beyond.
I recently finished reading an article in the latest Australian Educational Leader journal (Term 1 2024 Vol.46) by Pasi Sahlberg. If you haven't heard of Pasi, he is currently a Professor of Educational Leadership at the University of Melbourne, but he had a distinguished career in education in Finland, as their Director of Education, which is a country known for its educational excellence. In this article, Pasi points out some key flaws in Australia's current approach to education, which he believes is why Australia has fallen behind as a leading country for education in the past decade or so. I have attached my summary of this article - the original is 7 pages long, and I can send it to you if you would like to read it. The flaws he points out have nothing to do with quality teaching, by the way, it is all about the systems and structures that we have for education in Australia - I found it very interesting, especially the data he uses to back up his conclusions.
Mike will be back in the office next week. I have enjoyed filling in for him, and I am looking forward to my time at Eaton Community College. I hope you all have a great term. Stay well, and be kind to each other.
Kelly Anderson
Principal (relieving)
Nuts and Bolts
STAFFING
Congratulations and an official welcome to Stephan Krynauw, who is the recommended applicant for the fixed term Drama teacher position. Stephan has been in doing relief for us so far, but he will now remain with us for the term, filling in for Siobhan Maiden who is on leave.
Congratulations to Jenna Wright, who has won a position in Perth and which will facilitate a move she needs to make. We are sorry to lose Jenna, but we understand her decision. This means that we are currently advertising for an English teacher - please spread the word around your networks!
While we are preparing to advertise again for our AIEO position, Jason Goodlad has been in doing AIEO relief for us. Please say Hi to him and welcome him into your class to assist students. Jason's work is directed by Tina Nottle, and you can request his support via her. Jason is in for two days a week (Tuesday and Friday) for the first 4 weeks of term.
STOP WORK ACTION / SCHOOL CLOSURE
A large portion of staff will be taking stop work action on Tuesday 23rd April. I want to thank Renee Chapple for the work she has done to support staff as the Union Representative. I requested the DOE to close the school while the stop work action is on, as we will be unable to provide adequate supervision to students. This has been approved by the DOE. The school will reopen at 12.30pm. I do not expect that many students will turn up to school at this time, but there may be some. I will ask curriculum PCs to assist with managing any small groups and collapse classes as needed.
OLNA
OLNA testing commences this week. Please be patient with Andrew and the testing supervisors as they navigate through a very disrupted week. It is likely that there will be some catch ups needed next Monday as well, so please take this into consideration with regards to your planning for Weeks 2 and 3.
ANZAC Assembly pd3 on Friday 26th April
Please take the roll and then remind students to enter the amphitheatre silently for this assembly. It will be a short assembly, so you will need to have something planned for at least half of your lesson time.
COMPASS – CALENDAR
Lucia has been busy entering the school calendar into Compass. Thanks Lucia!
If you don’t want it to show up on your personal schedule, or you only want certain things to show up, you ‘toggle’ that calendar on/off by clicking the coloured tabs on the left side of the page.
Class Resources in COMPASS
Now that students and parents can access Compass, they can also view resources within their class pages.
A reminder that it is NOT COMPULSORY to have resources in this section for students, we still use CONNECT for this.
Sometimes resources are uploaded here to help with relief teachers accessing the class resource.
Just a reminder to change the visibility setting for the resource.
You can edit this by right clicking on the file in the resource section, then clicking edit permissions, then the tick box will show visibility options.
Instrumental Music Students
A list of students engaged in Instrumental Music classes can be located in Compass under 'School Resources'.
Please be familiar with students in your class who may be required to leave to attend Instrumental Music classes.
Students who need to leave your class to attend and music lesson will notify you, sign out through Student Services before attending their music lesson.
Students returning to class after a music lesson will sign back in through Student Services and have an attendance slip to provide you when return to class.
Prospective Parents Tour Night
We are again running the Prospective Parents' Open Night and are requesting staff to help run the tour portion of the night.
The tours will run from 5pm-6pm on Thursday 9 May 2024.
Staff helpers will take small groups of parents (around 20-30 people) around to different areas of the school. You will be given a map with a specific route to take along with a 'facts' sheet to help answer questions or topics to speak about at each location.
You will be welcome to leave after the completion of the tour (shouldn't be longer than one hour).
If you are able to help on the evening, please email Ellie: ellie.mackay@education.wa.edu.au
Promoting Bunbury SHS
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.
What’s OnTerm 2, Week 2
|
|
|
Monday |
|
|
Tuesday |
|
|
Wednesday |
|
|
Thursday |
|
|
Friday |
|
| Coming Soon |
|
Kelly's Calendar |
|
|
Monday |
|
|
Tuesday |
|
|
Wednesday |
|
|
Thursday |
|
|
Friday |
|