Whole school focus

Last week on parade I shared with the whole community the direction that Bowen State School is heading in 2021. I spoke about our sharp and narrow commitment to the teaching of reading and writing here at Bowen State School and the goals to improve the pedagogy around this. I explained to families and students that “pedagogy” means “How we teach” This year we have committed school funds towards professional development around “pedagogy” in our classrooms. Staff are engaged in weekly data conversations for the next steps in learning and the leadership team are actively involved as instructional leaders in this space.

Highly effective research based methods are being used, such as: students receiving regular feedback on reading and writing, use of the learning walls in classrooms, opportunities for staff to watch each other teach in the classrooms, weekly time off class to discuss the data and regular professional development. A culmination of all this intervention will be to measure our impact at the end of each term. We have set a target that 90% of our students will meet the required level for reading by the end of the year and that 90% of all our students reach at least a “C” standard in English and Mathematics by the end of 2021.

Governor of Queensland visit

Next Friday (week 7 March 12) our school will host a visit from the Governor of Queensland. His Excellency Paul De Jersey will be attending our school during the Friday afternoon session. To celebrate this momentous occasion we will be hosting a special parade on Friday afternoon at 2:00pm ( No Morning Parade) This opportunity will enable all our community to come together to meet the Governor and hear about his role and what he does. The school leaders will be attending a gala event on the Friday evening to personally meet the Governor. What a wonderful opportunity to showcase what makes Bowen State great!

ARD visit

On Tuesday we hosted our first ARD visit for the year. Graham Foster the Assistant Regional Director and the leadership team visited many classrooms to view writing, the use of feedback and the classroom learning walls. We saw output of students writing and talked to them about the next steps for their improvement. We were looking for consistency across the classrooms and lots of evidence of writing output. The leadership team enjoyed sharing the work around the table in key projects happening in 2021.

Professional development

This week the leadership team attended workshops in Townsville at the Middle leaders and Principal Professional Development days. The opportunity enabled collaboration across the North Queensland schools and a consistent message of the key work schools need to focus on. A wonderful professional development opportunity to continue to build capacity and strengthen our understanding to be the best leaders we can be for our staff and students.

Looking forward to sharing more great stories around the teaching and learning this term. Until next fortnight have a great couple of weeks.