From the Principal
Bonjour à tous, and Wanju
I was so happy Sunday talking to students, parents and teachers before they departed for Country Week. The first team to go in two years. There was a real buzz. It really is a whole school effort to get a team to Country Week and I thank you all for your contributions this week to keep the school running and supporting our Year 12 students in particular who will be impacted by the timing of this year’s event.
Of course, it has not all been smooth sailing getting there. You will know that some students have not been able to go due to breaches of school behaviour. The issues have “pressure tested” our procedures attached to our Good Standing policy. Like all feedback, some is good and some has provided an opportunity for us to improve. One particular area where we can improve is with the limitation of our 3rd party SIS management system. It does not give us the relevant data that we need to consistently apply a Good Standing Behaviour Policy for reward and incentives across the school. We hope to have this sorted in the next 6 months. The student services team will also be looking for other upgrades to our processes that create procedures to fairly, reward and incentivise the aspect of schooling that we hold dear – behaviour, attendance and engagement.
I have recently received accolades from our regional office about the work that we do with attendance. Our overall attendance is high, our number of unexplained absences are very low and we have processes to support those with attendance issues. I congratulate everyone working in this space across the school. In particular, I would like to acknowledge the work of Ann and Toni who do a lot of the leg work in following up and recording attendance.
Good attendance comes from students enjoying school and feeling like they belong. Your hard work in building relationships with students and providing engaging lessons is a large contribution to students wanting to attend school. I know that doing this is sometimes difficult. Thank you on behalf of the students for the extra hours your put into planning engaging, relevant lessons.
Have a great week.
En Avant
Nuts and Bolts
If you do not have a Positive Behaviour Poster and how to enact them in your classroom, please see Ellie to get either a portrait or landscape version. The poster reflects our positive behaviour developed by staff. It is very handy to continually refer students to acting in this manner.