Principal’s Piece — Justin Harrison
For those of you who are unaware, I have returned from my four-week School Supervisor role. Even though I enjoyed the opportunity to engage with other Principals and schools across the Central Queensland Region, I did miss Toolooa. I would like to thank and congratulate Mr Mark Thomas who backfilled in the Principal role and the Administration team who successfully lead and managed the school in my absence.
Upcoming Assessment
With week 6 nearly completed and the majority of subjects moving into the assessment phase of the term, students need to be organised and committed to their upcoming assessment. It is important that students take ownership of their learning and commit to each subject while also seeking feedback from their teachers on how to improve. I encourage parents/carers to regularly discuss their child’s progress and be ‘ahead of the game’ when it comes to their upcoming assessment, and to contact the school if you have any concerns.
Toolooa’s Beliefs about Behaviour and Learning
Toolooa SHS is committed to providing a safe, respectful and disciplined learning environment for students and staff, where students have opportunities to engage in quality learning experiences and acquire values supportive of lifelong learning. The school’s Student Code of Conduct is designed to facilitate high standards of behaviour so that the teaching in our school can facilitate a learning culture of high performance whilst enabling our students to participate positively with our school community.
Like any highly progressive school, Toolooa regularly reviews how the school is travelling in regards to our core values of respect, responsibility and achievement. Recently, there have been many positive pieces in previous newsletters recognising the outstanding contributions of our students in the fields of academia, culture and sport. My congratulations must go to those students and to all others who are reaching their goals.
Unfortunately, in every school, there are students who make poor choices. One such data set that I am not proud of is the total number of students who have used abusive language and directed it to a member of staff. Currently, there have been 224 referrals to members of Administration to follow up on. As you can appreciate, this behaviour is totally unacceptable at Toolooa and in any workplace and it will not be tolerated. More specifically, if a student delivers verbal messages that include swearing, name calling, or use of words in an inappropriate way, the possible consequences are:
Toolooa’s mission is Education for Life, and our school’s core value around behaviour is that: “Every member of our school community, whether staff, student, parent or visitor, will act at all times with the safety and dignity of themselves and others in mind”.
I encourage all parents/carers to remind their child of this expectation and reinforce with them the importance of being respectful. It does not cost anything to be nice. I do appreciate your support of this.
Every Day Counts
As we already know, there is a very clear link between attendance and achievement. Currently, our year-to-date attendance percentage for Years 7 – 10 sits at 84.6% and for Years 11 and 12, it is at 86.90%. This percentage is significantly below the school's target of 88% and 90% for junior and senior respectfully. To provide every student with the best chance of success, I encourage all families to continue to communicate the importance of coming to school and for their child to engage in all classes. If you are having any difficulty in getting your child to school, please contact your child’s Head of Department (Student Engagement) or Deputy Principal to discuss possible strategies.