Heard on the Hill Term 3, Week 5
Bonjour à tous, and Wanju
Wow what a busy time it has been. NAIDOC celebrations were fantastic. Kristy and Kelly did a great job leading the organisation of our activities. I would also like to thank all those that assisted them, as it takes a team to get this done.
Last week I had the pleasure of listening to Kevin O’Keefe speak at the WASSEA conference. Creating a culturally responsive school does not have to be a complicated matter. He broke it down to have two areas of focus.
- Reconciliation
- Creating a welcoming and culturally safe environment.
Already we are developing a culture within our school to make the changes necessary to develop these two areas. I am very proud of the genuine efforts that we make as a whole.
There is an area though where we can do more.
“Supporting Aboriginal Students to succeed as Aboriginal people”
I’m not really sure what that looks like or how we can do this – but - we will start a journey together to work towards this goal.
On behalf of our students, I would really like to thank the staff that are embracing our vision of taking the learning into the real environment. There are a number of great activities coming up this week and next. To name just a few
- Cooinda PS art mentoring
- Cinefest OZ excursions
As well as the regular events happening in the school – like the Autonomous Car competition.
There are some great partnerships developing that I hope will allow more of you to become more creative with taking your learning to the world.
Have a great week.
En Avant
Please click the link below to access last week's Leadership Minutes.
Staff Wellbeing
Staff Wellbeing is one of the priorities in the school's business plan for 2020-2022. Throughout the past three years, we have implemented a range of strategies to support the wellbeing of staff in the school. Some of these included:
- Setting up a Workload Advisory Committee (which meets once a term to discuss staff concerns)
- Moving to generic comments in our formal reports (identified as a major workload item)
- Adding in an optional Wellbeing Goal into our Performance Management documents
- Professional Learning - presentations (Brain Ambulance, Reboot Mindset Coaching), online programs (NESLI), individual coaching (Amy Coombes)
- Wellbeing activities - as part of our school development days (lawn bowls, swimming at the beach, canoeing, art)
- A Graduate Support Group (this group meets every fortnight)
- Future Leaders' Program - to support aspirants (we have a current cohort of 6 staff)
- New Staff Induction - Kylie has refined and improved this process over the years and we now have a comprehensive Staff Handbook
- Top of the Hill - an opportunity to recognise the work of your colleagues
- Special Morning Teas - something that we all agree to participate in and contribute towards
- Relevant wellbeing reading material purchased for staff - you can access these from the Teacher Resource section in the Library
- Social events - The Calamari Cup, laser tag (look out for the next event when I send out the agenda for SDD Wk8)
- Toiletries in the staff toilets - having some nice products is a small, but pleasant thing
I guess my question is - what's next?
Staff wellbeing is always going to be important in a school setting. The work we do is often onerous and exhausting. It is also very rewarding. Please have a think about what you would like to see next in our workplace, to support staff wellbeing. Lauren Dragon and I will be giving you an opportunity to share those ideas at our next school development day (Monday 5 September). We have a staff OneNote page dedicated to Staff Wellbeing – it has heaps of resources for you to access.
In the meantime, if you have any workload issues, please click on the link to our WAC submission survey. Any workload issues should be discussed with your line manager, and anything they can't solve can be submitted.
For those who aren't aware, we have free access to an Employee Assistance Program called PeopleSense. This organisation provides confidential counselling support to all department employees and their immediate family.
Classroom Observations
Classroom observations recognise teachers as professionals who engage in continual learning and growth. At Bunbury SHS classroom observations should be used to openly discuss teaching and learning and together determine instructional changes that can be made with the support of a colleague who is seeing the classroom with ‘fresh eyes’. It is important that the colleague doing the observing understands that they are seeing one piece of a complex puzzle of teaching and not to make judgements that can be detrimental to teacher professional development. The relationship should be collegial not expert/novice. Feedback should be a conversation between both.
That is why we have the Coffee Club. Take this opportunity to grow as a teacher in a safe, non-judgemental environment. Contact Cathy or me for more information. We have promoted the GROWTH Model here at school and the Best Teachers continuously take the opportunity to improve their classroom practice.
GROWTH Model
Conversations to raise awareness and encourage responsibility in teachers to reflect on their teaching classroom practices.
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Focus Questions |
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Goal |
What component of your teaching would you like to focus on? What would you like to see in that change? What impact would this have on your teaching/student learning? |
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Reality |
How do you think the lesson went? What worked well? Even better if? Were the students learning and understanding what you wanted? How do you know this? Was it what you intended? |
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Options |
What are some areas you could focus on? What other approaches have you used yourself or seen others use in similar classes? |
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Will |
What options do you like most? What will you do specifically next lesson? What are the next steps? |
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Tactics |
How and when will you do it? |
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Habits |
What behaviours do you need to demonstrate to ensure success? How can your coach/peer/colleague assist you? |
KINGIA ARTICLES
Only 3 weeks left to submitt your articles for this year's Kingia Magazine.
Articles for the Kingia Magazine can be submitted via the link below or you can email me directly at ellie.mackay@education.wa.edu.au
If you have a number of photos to submit (more than 10): you can drop these into the drive for me to access here: M:\Kingia 2022
Deadline to submit your Kingia article: Friday, 9 September (Term 3, Wk8)
Video for promotions
We love to see what projects are happening throughout the school! Across all the learning areas, we would like to capture a snapshot of what projects, activities and more happens during school for a new promo video that can be shared on our socials and website.
Ellie is available for classroom visits and can even attend incursions and excursions to get great footage of our students in action.
If you have something that you think could be videoed during class time or an incursion/excursion, please email Ellie: ellie.mackay@education.wa.edu.au with more details.
Download SZapp
Download the SZapp to keep up to date with all our school communications.
It's a very easy-to-use app with links to all of our school platforms, including the school website, newsletters, Facebook, calendar plus more!
Watch the video below on how to download and some of the features.
BUNBURY SHS INSTAGRAM
BUNBURY SHS FACEBOOK
Is something interesting happening in or around your classroom? Having an incursion or excursion this term? Please let me know!
We love to share updates from the school with our community and would like representation from each area of our wonderful school; no matter how big or small.
Please submit stories for our Facebook page via the wufoo link below and include as much information as you can, plus a few images to accompany the article. If you are having trouble with the wufoo form, you can email the information to me directly.(ellie.mackay@education.wa.edu.au)
Don't forget to follow us on Facebook and check out what our students and staff get up to.
What’s OnTerm 3, Week 5
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Monday |
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Tuesday |
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Wednesday |
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Thursday |
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Friday |
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Coming Soon |
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Mike's Week |
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Monday |
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Tuesday |
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Wednesday |
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Thursday |
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Friday |
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