From the Principal
Bonjour à tous.Welcome back to Term 4. I hope that you had a great break and you are well-rested. Unfortunately, I did not catch a fish these holidays but I enjoyed the gastronomic delights of the South West. Trips into the Ferguson Valley and the Great Southern wineries were food for my body – and soul.
Welcome especially to our new staff members, Tina Nottle (student services) and Andrew Hawkins (HASS). Also, we have two pre-service teachers with us this term. We have also advertised a job on the jobs board for a Maths teacher position.
Some people think that the last term is a slide into the holidays, but I find it is a really busy time.
You will start the term making sure that all the necessary Year 12 classwork, exam revision and certificate work is completed. Before you know it, Year 11 exams will roll around, the Presentation Night will be here and then Year 7s will be doing orientation. PHEW! And of course, in amongst all this, you will be reviewing the year that has been and delivering lower school lessons.
During this time, it is important to keep the lower school students focused on working right to the end. The students very quickly get the idea that little by little they can inch their way to doing less, trying less and generally not keeping up to the Bunbury SHS standard.
I encourage you to keep your standards high. Work to the bell times. Only show videos when they are appropriate and follow–up on the things that you say you will do. Have a great term.
Instructional Leadership
So far this year I have focused our instructional leadership discussions on:
- Term 1 – Behaviour and Relationships
- Term 2 – Bunbury SHS Instructional Framework
- Term 3 – Questioning and Feedback
This term we’ll discuss a set of guides to assist teachers with their Peer Observations. The coffee club still meets regularly and I highly recommend you seek out Mark Longbottom to join if you are looking for support in getting your Peer Observations going.
Attempt
Take one observation at a time. The best thing to do is to get started. Evaluate the success of your attempt discuss it with your partner and refine the process
Develop
Adapt the process. Add other steps if your need to. Make sure that your goals are SMART (specific, measurable, relevant and timely).
Experts
Use research-based information to increase the knowledge of the aspects of your practice that you are trying to change.
Practise
Put your plan for change into action. If you are going to embed it into your routine practice, you will need to practise, evaluate your success and make small changes
Test
The effectiveness of a new strategy or improvement that you are focussing on is really measured by the impact that it has on student learning. This might include examining the quality of student work.
Nuts and Bolts
Some of you may have known Bernie Dent and her husband who regularly invigilated examinations at Bunbury SHS a few years back. They passed away during the school holidays through very tragic circumstances. Our condolences go out to the family.
If you or someone you know is affected by these events, I encourage you to contact the Employee Assistance Program provider on 1300 307 912
Bus Embayment
As you can see the new Bus Embayment is almost complete. We hope to have the majority of this work completed by the end of the week. The P&C will be assisting with some landscaping around the embayment at a later date.
CONNECT
Recently I received feedback from a parent regarding the teachers use of CONNECT. The parent had been used to seeing assignment due dates in their child’s CONNECT calendar, receiving notifications about pending due dates and seeing marks and feedback promptly.
It is a timely reminder of the power of these tools and the expectations of the families who send their children to Bunbury SHS – 2019 School of the Year. Please do whatever is in your power to maximise the power of this platform to leverage the parent as a partner in the education of their children.
If you would like more training on the use of CONNECT to “power up” your use please let your PC know and we will arrange some tutorials.