Hillbrook State & Federal Government 2023 Annual Report

AT A GLANCE

The following points summarise the highlights for Hillbrook during 2022

834 students enrolled in 2022

95% apparent retention rate Year 10 to 12

89% average student attendance rate for the whole school

96% Year 12 QTAC applicants received a tertiary offer

100% teachers engaged in Professional Development

ANNUAL REPORT 2023

(BASED ON 2022 DATA)

OUR MOTTO

In Balance

We Grow

SCHOOL SECTOR

Independent

SCHOOL ADDRESS

45 Hurdcotte Street

Enoggera QLD 4051

TOTAL ENROLMENTS

Girls: 406

Boys: 423

Other: 5

YEAR LEVELS OFFERED

Year 7 to Year 12

CO-EDUCATIONAL OR SINGLE SEX

Co-educational

SCHOOL INCOME FUNDING SOURCE

Available at MySchool website

www.myschool.edu.au

THE ESSENCE OF HILLBROOK

Hillbrook is a co-educational high school founded in 1987 by teachers and parents. The school is owned and run by teachers, parents and friends of Hillbrook who are invited to become members of Hillbrook Anglican School Limited, and the School Board is elected from these members. This structure provides teachers and parents with significant responsibility for the strategic direction of the school. Hillbrook provides our teachers and students with an open, inclusive and collaborative environment that fosters inquiry, innovation and creativity. Through our commitment to social, economic and environmental sustainability, we aim to develop our students to become informed and active local, national and global citizens.

PURPOSE

Hillbrook lives to shape good humans that contribute to a better world by developing students who are:

• Compassionate, ethical and creative thinkers with a sense of curiosity, wonder and hope.

• Able to demonstrate core academic knowledge and skills.

• Prepared for a productive, fulfilling, well-balanced life.

• Appreciative of their own and others spirituality.

• Culturally and globally active.

OUR VISION - To open minds, inspire hearts and nurture dreams.

OUR MISSION - To empower young people to make a positive difference.

OUR BELIEFS

These underpin the culture of our community and help to provide direction to our purpose.

• Growth - All who come to the school - students, staff, and parents - will grow in ways that reflect the many dimensions of what it means to be human.

• Balance - There will be a dynamic balance of expectations, learning experiences, commitments and behaviour that characterises daily life at Hillbrook, as expressed in our motto ‘In Balance We Grow’.

• Inclusion - Staff and students have the right to belong and to contribute to our community as their talents and interests dictate as expressed in Hillbrook’s Rights & Responsibilities.

• Anglicanism - As Anglicans, we approach spirituality as a journey - through a creative balance of scripture, tradition, reason and experience.

• Learning - Hillbrook is founded on an inclusive focus and balance of the academic, social, spiritual and physical aspects of our development as human beings and facilitated by four themes:

• Thinking

• Teaching and Learning

• Adolescence

• Community

CAMPUS UPDATE

Flood rectification and mitigation works –redevelopment of Recreational Centre and refurbishment of flood damaged area

The School suffered major flood damage on the last weekend of February 2022 due to the overflow of the Kedron Brook, which backs on to the Northern end of the campus. The School’s Recreational Centre (Sports Hall) suffered the most damage with approx. 1.5m of flood water recorded in the Centre, which flowed in from the outside courts and sports field.

2022 was therefore a year of rebuilding for the School, with the Recreational Centre being closed for the full year due to major redevelopment.

Rectification and refurbishment work for the Recreational Centre included:

• removal and reinstallation of high grade sports/ courts flooring

• demolition and reinstatement of student amenities, staff room and storage rooms

• re-installation of significant audio visual equipment

• rebuilding of flood damaged fixtures & fittings, reinstallation of electrical, plumbing, mechanical and fire control services

Other staff areas throughout the School were damaged by significant water ingress and refurbished in accordance with insurance assessment requirements. This work was carried out sequentially throughout 2022.

Further minor capital works are being carried out throughout 2023 to future proof the School from further flood damage including redesign of external drainage areas and building of roof structures to protect buildings from excessive water ingress.

CURRICULUM OFFERINGS

Hillbrook is a thinking-centred school that provides opportunities for members of our community to become creative, independent thinkers. We view the term “curriculum” in a broad sense. It isn’t just the subjects studied: it is all the intended learning experiences that students undertake at the school, in and beyond the classroom.

Our motto In Balance We Grow is central to our curriculum and as such, our program is based on a balance of learning experiences drawn from our everevolving understanding of how young people learn. Our students experience a broad-based curriculum with an academic focus that encourages them to engage with a variety of disciplines. We believe that together these will:

• Provide a challenging yet supportive environment for adolescents.

• Set high expectations for the success of all. We believe all students have the potential to achieve in a variety of ways.

• Model the different ways that people learn and work together, in both physical and virtual spaces.

• Engage our students to grapple with fundamental ideas and concepts in extended tasks.

• Promote critical and creative thinking and develop unique ways of addressing complex issues.

• Develop personal accountability and a propensity to action guided by a strong moral and ethical framework.

• Lay the foundation for an understanding that learning continues throughout life.

• Encourage the search for a deeper meaning for life.

Hillbrook is an academic school and as such, does not offer vocational education programs. Students study a variety of intellectually challenging subjects. These are selected from the academic offerings of the Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority, and all of our students are expected to achieve an Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR).

The majority of our students will use this to obtain tertiary entry after school. Others will choose to pursue different options, such as work or trade-based study. Whatever their destinations after graduation, we see our task as providing a broad, liberal education that gives our students as many choices as possible.

OUTDOOR EDUCATION

Hillbrook’s Outdoor Education program is designed so students gain an understanding of their potential while helping to develop initiative, self-reliance, co-operation and leadership.

Outdoor Education primarily takes place in the natural environment, often with challenging and physical adventure-based activities. There is a strong context for collaborative learning balanced with space and structure for reflection.

PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY

At Hillbrook we believe that the ability to think well is fundamental to the lives of all people. Our Philosophical Inquiry (PI) program provides opportunities for students to explore intellectually significant ideas about the world in which we live, such as the gaining of knowledge and the making of ethical and informed decisions. This is an intellectually rigorous process requiring students to think critically, creatively, reflectively and collaboratively, with the development of argument being paramount.

By reflecting on prevailing beliefs, exploring possible alternatives and giving and accepting reasons, students learn to be reflective, sensitive to meaning, divergent and reasonable. They learn also to be fair and openminded, intellectually co-operative and mutually respectful, thus developing the capacity to make reasoned judgements.

CO-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES

Project Active, Hillbrook’s co-curricular program, offers our students a wide range of activities that provide plenty of opportunities for them to pursue new interests and hobbies and to meet and mix with students from all year levels.

Project Active is compulsory for students in Years 7 to 9 to encourage the development of specific skills. Most activities take place after school, or on weekends. Our 2022 Project Active offerings included:

Term 1 2022

• COVID restrictions

• Project Active cancelled

Term 2 2022

• Table Tennis

• Cricket

• X-Golf

• Cross Country

• STEM Punks

• Indoor Bouldering (x2)

• Hip Hop Dance

• Teen Tennis

• Volleyball

• Basketball

• Jazz Funk Dance

• Barefoot Bowls

• Advanced Sewing

• Boxing

Term 3 2022

• NPL Soccer Skills (x2)

• Touch Footy (night comp)

• Rugby 7’s

• Cheerleading

• Cap Crusaders

• Hip Hop Dance

• Self Defence

• STEM Punks

• Indoor Bouldering (x2)

• Rollerskating

• Help! I’ve Got Homework

• Learn to Sew

• Boxing

• Intermediate Sewing

• Story Bridge Climb

Term 4 2022

• Table Tennis

• Cricket

• Rugby 7’s

• Xmas Sewing (3 groups)

• X-Golf

• Judo

• Herri’s Hikers

• STEM Punks

• Bouldering

• NPL Soccer Skills

• Teen Tennis

• Jazz Funk Dance

• Josie’s Joggers

• Boxing

SOCIAL CLIMATE

Hillbrook is well-known for our vibrant, caring and highly inclusive school community. Our unique school culture has been intentionally nurtured by our School Leadership Team (SLT), School Board, Wellbeing Team and Staff since its inception in 1987. Philosophically, our school believes in fostering connectedness, balance, equality, inclusion, collaboration and respect for difference.

Hillbrook firmly believes everyone in our school has the right to feel safe, and our Harassment and Bullying Policy outlines a zero-tolerance approach. We also have Digital Technology and Digital Access Pass programs that provide our students with guidelines regarding the school’s expectations for digital use and online behaviour.

STUDENT SUPPORT AND WELLBEING

Hillbrook provides a caring and connected community in which our students feel valued and develop a sense of belonging to their school. Our Student Support and Wellbeing initiatives encourage students to become compassionate, ethical and creative thinkers with a sense of curiosity, wonder and hope.

ENRICHMENT CENTRE

The Enrichment Centre provides advice and assistance for students with individual needs, ranging from learning difficulties through to students’ individual talents and interests.

LEADERSHIP, RESPONSIBILITY AND SERVICE

At Hillbrook, we take the view that the great majority of people want to do well in their lives. They will welcome responsibility as well as the opportunity to show leadership by making a positive difference in their own lives and in the lives of others.

ANGLICANISM

Students of any, or no denomination, are warmly welcomed at Hillbrook. Anglicanism is a form of Christianity that sees spiritual growth as a pilgrimage: a journey of exploration and discovery through a creative balance of scripture, tradition, reason and experience. It is both inclusive and exploratory.

We believe there’s a spiritual dimension to every human life, and strong evidence shows that young people are keen to explore this; to seek deeper meaning in their own lives. As such, all of our young people are required to embark on a personal voyage of spiritual exploration and are tasked with composing their philosophy of life at the end of Year 12.

OUR COMMUNITY

Community is a word we use a lot at Hillbrook. We believe it is a fundamental human need to be part of a larger group and to feel like you belong. At Hillbrook, we strive to maintain and develop Hillbrook as a thriving, engaged and inclusive community where adults and young people feel connected and welcome.

PARENT INVOLVEMENT

Hillbrook warmly welcomes and encourages parent involvement at the School and aims to build a strong foundation of collaborative partnerships between the School, staff and families.

Parent-teacher communication is key to ensuring this partnership and an effective system of communication between school and home is well-established. We have a number of active parent support groups including: Parents.Connect, Parents.Learning and more. Parents are also very involved with events such as our bi-annual Musicals and our Parents Outdoor Program (POP), an outdoor education program specifically for parents of students at the school. Other parents prefer to give their time and support as Tuckshop volunteers, guest speakers, audiences and spectators.

PARENT SATISFACTION

In the spirit of growing and developing as a learning community we conducted 3 external surveys across our community – staff, parents and students. This feedback is important for our operational and strategic planning, as well as for tracking changes in our performance.

OUR STAFF

Hillbrook employs 71 Teachers & 51 Support Staff. This includes a full-time Teacher Librarian, a Chaplain, two Careers and Guidance Counsellors and three Learning Support Teachers.

Our staff play a fundamental role in the School’s success, and we place high value on attracting and retaining quality teaching professionals. There is extensive membership of professional associations among our teaching staff such as the Australian Council for Educational Leaders, Australian College of Educators and various professional subject associations.

Qualifications of all Teachers:

Qualification

The percentage of classroom teachers and school leaders at the school who hold this qualification

Doctorate or higher 1%

Masters 33%

Bachelor Degree 64%

Diploma 1%

Certificate 0%

Average teaching staff attendance for the school, based on unplanned absences of sick and emergent leave periods of up to five (5) days: For permanent and temporary teaching the average staff attendance rate in 2022 was 95%.

Proportion of teaching staff retained from the previous year: From the end of 2022, 93% of staff were retained for the entire 2022 school year.

Examples of teacher participation in Professional Development activities: Description

Total number of teachers participating in at least one activity in the year 71

In 2022, expenditure on Teacher Professional Development was $57,735.00 or an average of $813 per teacher.

OUR STUDENTS

Hillbrook is an Anglican, co-educational, academically non-selective independent school based in Brisbane’s inner northwest. We draw students from a wide range of suburbs and more than 40 primary schools. As there is always a high demand for places at Hillbrook, we advise parents to enrol their children as early as possible.

Once at our School, students benefit from the academic curriculum Hillbrook provides and our strong pastoral care program, designed to support their development during the critical years of adolescence. Our students are happy, well-balanced young adults who are moving through adolescence with support, responsibility, respect and joy.

ABSENCES

Parents are contacted if a student appears on the daily absentee report as an unauthorised absence.

Average student attendance rate (%) for the whole school: The average student attendance rate for the whole school as a percentage in 2022 was 89%.

Apparent retention rate: Year 12, 2022 student enrolment as a percentage of the cohort in Year 10 in 2022 was 95%.

NAPLAN YEARS 7 & 9 YEAR 12 RESULTS