Murdoch University’s Vice Chancellor, Professor Andrew Deeks held a sundowner last week in the new Boola Katitjin teaching and learning facility on the South Street campus. Tony and myself attended this event hearing of the university’s new strategy for 2023-2030 “Building a Brighter Future Together”. We met with senior executives from various areas within the university discussing new programs with relevance for our students. We were provided with a tour of the state-of-the-art facilities in Boola Katitjin which is the largest tertiary building of its kind in Australasia. We were shocked and delighted to receive a full scholarship to Murdoch University for one of our year 12 students to commence tertiary studies in 2024.
This year we have nine Year 12 students who are intending to transition to university studies in 2024 with five of these students currently undertaking the TLC110 undergraduate course through Murdoch University. All nine Year 12 students have been compiling their Big Picture portfolios to ensure they are ready for submission to their university of choice. This is certainly going to be a hard decision to choose just one student for the Ngala Kwop Biddi Brighter Futures Scholarship as the successful individual needs to demonstrate outstanding leadership, advocacy and active engagement in endeavours that have led to positive outcomes aligned with one of the University’s three strategic themes; Sustainability, First Nations; and Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. We are lucky to have our entire Year 12 cohort who demonstrate all of these qualities.
We have several new staff members to welcome for term 3. Elizabeth Nedala-Campbell will be joining us as our Student Wellbeing Advisor and will work across the three school campuses. Lisa Wells will be replacing Jade in the Program Coordinator role for the Maambarkoort sub-school until Scarlett’s return. Lisa has a wealth of experience in school leadership with her most recent position being Deputy Principal at Fairbridge Farm School. I am delighted to also inform that Lisa has commenced her AMI Montessori Orientation course and has been loving her workshops. Lucy Beadle will be our new Turtles teacher and joins us from Blue Gum Montessori where she has been working for the past five years and most recently as a 6-9 teacher. We also have Nicola Pearson who will be joining us in the Mooja class for Thursdays and Fridays as Di returns to a part-time role. Nicola studied Montessori through her University degree in the UK and comes to us from Dubai where she has been teaching in an international school. Katrina Hayes will be joining us for one day per week at the Port Kennedy PS site to teach Indonesian which will allow Pania to work solely on the Rockingham site. Claudia Garner Scruph has commenced in the Lakelands Playgroup enabling Carla to cover relief EA work. We welcome you all to our school.
Another couple of staffing changes include the welcome return of Renea and the imminent return of Nurjana both from Maternity leave. Martin moving into the maintenance role for two days per week and Rebecca Scrivener covering Martin for these two days in the Adolescent Program. Serena Zen will be covering Deb D’s Long Service Leave and sick Leave for terms 3 and 4. Clare will also extend her program coordinator role at the Rockingham Primary School site and Pania will cover this time in the Dugongs class.
I would like to thank Yulia for all the work she has done in setting up the Rockingham PS site library and I am delighted that she has now moved over to the Adolescent Program site to commence the set-up of that library area for both the AP and the Port Kennedy PS sites. All classes now have scanners, enabling the children to see which books and materials are located in which site/classroom area across all sites and to be able to check items in and out of the library catalogue system.
It has been exciting for our students to receive their reports over the past week and for our teachers to be meeting with families to share the progress their children have made throughout this semester. Our Adolescent students have also been extremely proud to have their families be part of their exhibitions, again sharing their interest projects and all the work that has been produced during a very busy term.
We also have enjoyed supporting twenty-one of our students who have been undertaking transition visits to their new classes over the past few weeks, ready for their start next term in their new cycle.
