As most of you know I am an avid sports fan and love to be involved as both player and coach. To explain myself a bit better I am going to use sporting analogies to explain how we may do things a little differently from now on.
For me I see myself as the coach, the staff and students as the players and teaching and learning as the game. A good coach will sit on the side lines, watch the game and direct the players to get the best out of the team. They don’t coach from another stadium, an office or listen to the game in their car.
In order to replicate that here I am currently spending 2 days a week in classrooms, observing the teaching and learning and offering advice to staff and students to help them improve the way they work and ultimately our results. It also helps me to deal with and fix student issues as they arise. This has been going really well and I’m seeing some fantastic things in classrooms. During these days I have made myself unavailable to parents and the outside world as I can’t leave the game.
To make it so I can get ‘Principal’ work done I spend 3 days in the office where I am available by appointment only through my Personal Assistant Debra Briggs. I understand that this is tough, but my primary concern is making sure that our students have the best possible teachers and hence education. Therefore I ask our community to understand that I may not be available on the spot when you just drop in. I will endeavour to have our other leaders available, but need everyone to understand that if you want time with me you need to book it. That way, I can give my full attention to you.
This may take a while to get used to, but as stated before, my primary concern is giving the best possible education to our students. Working together with a little understanding will help me to do my job to the best of my ability.
Balaklava Eisteddfod
Last week saw our Central Yorke Junior and Senior Concert bands compete at the Balaklava Eisteddfod. They did an amazing job and finished 3rd in their divisions. Our students pride in their school was evident and we must thank not only Deb Schwartz who does an amazing job preparing our students, but the members of the community who involve themselves in our Senior Band.
Our students love working with people that have the same passion for the arts they do. Our results this year reflect the hard work both our students and community put into learning their ensembles. With practice and determination I know that all of our students will continue to improve.
Thanks to our SSO’s
Week 4 is SSO week and we celebrate the wonderful work our Student Services Officers do at Central Yorke School. We currently have many SSO’s working at our school doing a variety of roles. From grounds, to classroom intervention or front office administration to library our SSO’s work hard to provide a positive and supportive environment so our children can enjoy learning with their teachers. They work tirelessly for our school to make it the best it can be.
Our challenge as a community is the next time we see an SSO at the school, feel free to say thank you for their efforts to make our school great.
Senior School.
This term is quickly passing us by and is possibly the busiest term for our Year 12’s. This term will see all of their subjects finish in preparation for Term 4 exams. Students will see their workload raised yet again as they start external assessment tasks to finish their course.
For those of our students doing exams Term 3 will also see them start to book times with revision centres to organise holiday seminars. Year 12’s will also work with our Senior School coordinator to look at SATAC applications and to map out their pathway beyond Central Yorke School.
Year 10 and 11’s will start the course counselling process for next year. Students will start looking at careers and our annual SACE parent information night will be held later in the year.
More information about the SACE parent information night will be coming home with your child soon. Life beyond school can be a daunting thought for some of our teenagers so it is extremely important that parents support their children through these processes as it becomes a lot easier to navigate them together when there is an idea of what a student wants to do post school.
Students can start by thinking about future careers now, by talking to members of the community, family as well as their teachers at school.
If students are going to wait for the perfect opportunity they will find that they have missed out to the student who went out and grabbed it.
Until next time.
Grant Keleher