To the School Community,
I hope that this Blog Post finds you and your children well!
In this entry, I would like to share with you how impressed I continue to be about the care and support that our community shows each other in times of need.
We are a very fortunate community that is made up of positive and caring students who love learning and connecting with each other. This, of course, happens because of the family values that are held by our parent community as a whole.
Despite this, there are often stories of hardship or challenging times that some of our students and their families experience. In my position as principal at our school I am in a position to know about many of these situations and connecting to families who need our support and care is an important part of the role our school plays. In the last few weeks, I have been involved in conversations about a couple of families who are facing very tough times due to the health of a parent, the school having a role in monitoring and supporting the children connected to this situation.
What has been evident though is how other community members step up to the plate and provide a bit of extra support that just helps make the world go round. I wanted to put this out there and show my gratitude to all of the people who continually step up to help others, they are not looking for recognition or acknowledgement, they just do what they do. Mentioning this is also to remind you that our school is a place that when in need you can turn to with confidence when you need support in any shape or form. We will either have the expertise or a connection to someone who can steer you in the right direction so please remember to seek our support at any time.
Enrolments and Class Structure
Our school has been in a time of transition over the last few years in relation to enrolments moving from a medium size school in the 300 – 400 range 6 or 7 years ago to a likely 500 in 2019. This is a positive in many ways and reflects the growth in the town’s population but this also poses some organisational challenges and careful planning for the future. Having 500 students is a challenging number in terms of space and planning a structure for the next 2 -3 years which will include composite classes at some year levels. The ideal situation would be to have 7 or 8 more students in some year levels to enable me to either add a grade to make 4 classes, not 3. Numbers in year levels never spread uniformly across a school either with the range at our school being between 62 and 80 for the 2019 school year.
We have scope to have another 7 or 8 preps to enrol for 2019 but at all other year levels, the numbers are at a level that isn’t quite up to having an extra class at this stage. Between now and the end of the year this may change depending on enrolments but after careful planning with the school leadership team and discussion at School Council level the structure for our school next year has been adjusted and will be:
73 Preps in 4 classes
74 year 1 students in 3 classes
76 year 2 students in 3 classes
146 year 3 and 4 students in 6 composite classes
130 year 5 and 6 students in 5 composite classes
I will inform you if there is any additional information related to this model closer to the end of the school year but thought it was important to share this with you. Added to this and leading into the transition sessions starting on November the 14th I can inform you that our staffing for the 2019 school year is almost complete with the teams for next year beginning to plan together for the 2019 school year on our Curriculum Day on November 5th. Below are the teaching teams and roles confirmed for 2019:
Foundation (Prep) – Kelvin Harris, Raelee Wilding, Jess Kearney, Cara Booth ( New Teacher)
Year 1 – Ree Rogan, Kate Strong, Sarah Dodds
Year 2 – Aimee Blake, Lauren McManus, Teagan Houston/Jane Brown (Shared role)
Year ¾ – Ruby Campbell, Kate McIntyre, Drew Steven, Lisa Kebbell, Bridie Dix (New Teacher), Catherine Olsen
Year 5/6 – Luke Wierzbowski, Linda Jordan, Sharna Renfrey, Sean O’Leary (New Teacher) and Lee Holden sharing a grade with another teacher TBC.
Art – Jon Phillips
PE – Modesty Kneebone
Science (STEM) – John Burdess and Nicky Ferrari
Languages – TBC a selection process is currently underway with students involved in a specialist program fortnightly and follow up lesson alternately
Music – High Voltage Rock School 1 term per year
Intervention – April Jackson
Library – Chris Browne
Assistant Principal – Robyn Booth
Learning Specialist – Rachael Curtain
Education Support staff – Anna Shiels, Narelle Wood and TBC
Wellbeing – Kristen Dillon
Office Team – Tracy Davey, Alison Levvey and Tiara Ridwan
We are looking forward to preparing and planning for next year and I am proud of the team we have put together for next year. Unfortunately, there are a few names that you don’t see on the list which happens in schools:
Mr Sands will be travelling next year but we will see him back in 2020 I am sure.
Mr Lord will be headed to work at Torquay Coast PS
Ms Miller will be travelling
Ms Backwell is returning to study
Ms Buchanan will at this stage be returning to her previous school
I know we will miss them all and thank them for their efforts at our school this year.
Christmas Fair
Thanks to the organising team for this fantastic event held on DEC 7th please stay tuned for information each week keeping you up to date with important news. Please go to the school website and click on our School Fair tab on the home page.
Thank you to the students and families for their attendance at the last assembly, the visitors from the Barwon Heads Golf Club were impressed by the level of organisation, engagement and presentation skills of our students. It really demonstrated how wonderful our community is. The success of the garden area showing us what can happen when there is a real team effort and students experience something so wonderful.
*Please note that our new lunch order providers “Hungry Hampers” have started providing lunch orders at our school. They will operate every Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday. You can find a menu and order instructions on Compass in “School Documentation” or on our school website on our “Canteen” page.