Principal's Report
It gives me great pleasure to welcome our students and families back to school for the final term of 2017. Term 4 is always a busy term but it is also an important term for our senior students as they work their way through their final assessments and prepare for life beyond McGuire College. I encourage all of our senior students to value their remaining time with us and to seek every opportunity that they can find to harness the support and encouragement of their teachers throughout their final weeks of 2017. Remember, that your results at the end of the year are directly related to the effort and endeavour that you have and continue to apply towards your school work and studies. Our Principal Team wishes you every success for a positive end to your school year.
School Improvement
Each year the College develops an Annual Implementation Plan that guides our improvement efforts and for the last few years this has been guided by the Department of Education’s Framework for Improving Student Outcomes. In 2017 our improvement efforts have been focused around Building Practice Excellence and Building Communities. Initiatives and programs that have been linked to this improvement effort include our Senior Years reporting afternoons, establishment of engagement activities linked to STEAM, eLearning, Reading and SEAL, broader community involvement and an ongoing focus on building the capacity of teachers to enhance student achievement in literacy and numeracy.
Our recent review findings have been shared with staff and College Council and will shortly be published in more detail to our College Community. The review process involved students, staff and parents having an opportunity to provide our College and our reviewers with a clear sense of where we have achieved success over the past three years and where we still have scope for improvement. Over the next term our Leadership Team will be working with staff, students and College Council to write a Strategic Plan for the next four years that ensures McGuire College can continue to grow from a good school to a great school.
Student Attendance
A timely reminder to all students and parents that attendance at school is important. We want each student to be able to make the most of their learning and their time at the College, in order for this to happen, all students need to be attending school regularly.
Our attendance data for the first two weeks of Term 4 is reflected below and unfortunately no Year levels have been able to meet our 90% attendance target. We look forward to this improving over the remaining weeks of the year.
Student Leaders for 2018
It has been wonderful over the past weeks to spend time with our potential student leaders for 2018. Our selection panel have spent time reading applications, speaking with and listening to our potential future leaders and what a privilege it has been. Each young leader that has nominated for a College Captain role in 2018 has highlighted for us the rich and diverse talents and abilities that we have within our student cohort. We look forward to announcing our successful candidates early next week, so stay tuned.
I encourage you to take the time to listen to what our students are looking for in their 2018 leaders by visiting our Facebook Page and viewing a great video put together by Year 8 student, Luke Fitzsimmons with the support of our media teacher, Mr Cosimo Rando.
Kind regards
Brad Moyle
Principal