Calwell High School Annual Board Report - 2007
Principal's Message
Calwell High School is committed to providing all students with a high quality education.
The school works closely with its community and is a full service school. The school believes that appropriate and effective relationships between all members of the school community provide the building blocks for strong educational outcomes.
The school is committed to restorative justice and has implemented a relational policy for dealing with student management issues. Solving problems through corridor and classroom conferencing, formal conferences, classroom circles and the use of relational language are some of the key components of this approach.
The school is structured around a Key Learning Area (KLA) faculty model based on the belief that specialist teachers who are committed and passionate about teaching their subject leads to improved educational outcomes for students. This, combined with a restorative relational framework, creates a professional teaching environment that focuses on meeting the individual needs of all students.
The school offers a broad curriculum and has developed a very strong band and dance program. Students who are gifted and talented are challenged through being able to access Level 1 classes and a range of extra curricula activities. The school has developed a Talented Sports Program and has a partnership with a local Australian Rules Club to provide opportunities for students to develop their interest and skills in this area.
Students who are struggling with their literacy and numeracy are supported through smaller classes, and having the same teacher in a number of KLAs. All KLAs have a strong emphasis on the delivery of literacy and numeracy.
Calwell High School works closely with its priority enrolment area (PEA) primary schools in the Calwell Cluster. The cluster has developed a P – 10 values curriculum and a P – 10 relational policy based on restorative practices. The cluster will be undertaking significant professional development in classroom management techniques and quality teaching. The school is a member of the Tuggeranong Consortium of Public High Schools in the Tuggeranong Valley.
Some of the highlights of 2007 included:
• Winning the ACT and NSW division of Rock Eisteddfod and coming second in the national competition. Calwell High was the first ACT school to win the NSW division and the first school outside of NSW and Victoria to be placed in the top three schools at the national level.
• Calwell High ensured that all students in year 10 had an in depth careers interview as part of their student pathways program. The vast majority of eligible students have had work experience and accessed a wide range of workplace visits and workshops. This program was expanded into year 9.
• Calwell High LEEP (Leading Enterprise Education Partnerships) project: development of partnerships with local businesses leading to work placements
• Strong student performance and involvement in mathematics, English, science and computing competitions
• Australian Business Week for 10
• boys dance group performances in the wider community
• further expansion of the “Counting On”, Language for Understanding Across the Curriculum (LUAC), Content Rich Integrated Maths and Science (CRIMS) and other literacy and numeracy projects
• capturing “numeracy moments” across all KLAs
• further development of the full service school model with the inclusion of a chaplain
• a successful year 9 Exhibitions program which had excellent support from the wider community
• continued involvement by the school in a wide range of sporting activities including increasing participation rates in the sports and athletics carnival
• developing and implementing a new school plan for 2007 to 2009
• continued work on enhancing the school environment
The information in this report is balanced and accurate.
Denis Dickinson
Principal
Calwell High School
For full documentation please download here
