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Term 2 2023
PRINCIPAL’S MESSAGE Thank you to everyone who made Term 2 so successful. There are many highlights in this ML and we hope you will enjoy reading them. External Validation From a whole school perspective, our biggest highlight was External Validation. Every four years the Department of Education requires each school to have an “external validation” of its work. The school writes its own report and provides evidence against 14 “elements”. The school rates itself in each element and can be rated as “delivering”, “sustaining and growing” or “excelling” and then senior officers of the Department of Education look at all the evidence and “validate” the school’s own ratings. This is our school’s third external validation and the third time we have been rated as “excelling on at least 13 of the 14 elements”. This makes us one of the best government schools in NSW. I would like to thank the staff on the external validation panel, all the staff and students who contributed to the evidence and presentation of the evidence, and the families who have continued to support the school. The school was rated as excelling at: Learning Culture, Wellbeing, Curriculum, Assessment, Reporting, Effective Classroom Practice, Data skills and Use, Professional Standards, learning and Development, Educational Leadership, School Planning, implementation and reporting, School resources and Management Practice. The school was rated at sustaining and growing on Student Performance Measures. The full submission and report is available from the school if you would like a copy. Principal Presentation Address I hope you will enjoy reading the address I gave to the Presentation Assemblies recognising the achievements of the students and the school. I also spoke about the emerging challenge of artificial intelligence for schools and students. Congratulations on receiving your reports and other documents this semester. As you reviewed your goals and wrote your report comments, I hope you had the chance to reflect on what you had done, what you have achieved and what you still need to do. Think about how many semesters you have already done and how many you have left until you finish school. If you can divide your school career into semesters and just focus on doing well each semester you will make the most of your time and be able to focus on “getting it done in the present”. Adults often talk about the future and you will hear those adults talk about how important it is to go to school to “prepare” for the future. Do you think that is true? I am not sure that I do. I think that increasingly we must prepare for the present. We must have the skills and competencies to live the lives we have, not the ones we hope to have in the future. 1