SCAS News

Throughout its relatively brief history SCAS has seen significant changes to the campus, with new buildings and facilities being developed to support and enhance the educational experience of our students. These changes have been in recognition that the world outside SCAS is changing rapidly and if we are to prepare our students well for future success we need to be able to respond to these changes.

In this vein SCAS will, in 2018, undertake a number of changes in the school’s leadership structure that will allow it to:

• Enhance the Pre K → Year 12 experience of the students
• Ensure that outdated structures or “silos” do not impede educational effectiveness
• Promote and deepen the leadership capacity of staff
• Allow the school to remain agile in confronting change

“Successful cultures are organic and adaptive, they change and flow, yet always, just under the surface is a bedrock of values, smoothed by the current above, but unyielding…..First we shape our values, them our values shape us.”    James Kerr, Legacy.

These changes are not made for the sake of change, but are based on the following tenets:

Principles of a SCAS Education

1. Teachers must understand their power to affect change.
2. Our school is about the students, not the teachers, managers and leaders.
3. Structures and practices that are not enhancing learning must be identified and discarded.
4. To improve our results, we will require a whole-school approach.
5. Real improvement can only happen when all staff are joined by a coherent and cohesive vision for what learning should be.
6. The best professional learning often happens in school.
7. Data must drive decisions.
8. Leaders need to lead learning.
9. Leaders/managers are responsible for overseeing improvement.
10. Everyone in our school – leaders, teachers, students – must model effective learning.

“For the past decades schools have largely paid lip-service to developing and implementing the structures needed to support 21st century learning. We are already well into  the second decade of the century, yet relatively little in terms of school structure, timetable etc has changed . We need to acknowledge that we now have the opportunity to take on the next set of improvements to our school that will ensure continued success.”

The basis of these changes will be the creation of a series of K-12 Directorships, working across the school. These Directors will have charge of the leadership and development of:

• Teaching and Learning
• Professional Learning (including Student support)
• Wellbeing (Physical, social, emotional and spiritual)
• STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics)
• Humanities (English, HSIE, Languages)
• Performing Arts (Music, Drama, Dance)

Supporting them in their efforts will be Deputy Directors of Teaching and Learning and Wellbeing, and Curriculum Managers, (Secondary) Year Patrons and (Primary) Stage Coordinators.

Believing that the school already possessed the “talent” necessary to support these changes, an interview process was undertaken to select the new Directors. This process confirmed our belief in the talent of our staff and the final decision-making process was made exceptionally difficult due to the high calibre of the applicants.

The successful applicants for the new directorships are:

• Teaching and Learning – Mr Paul Rikmanis
• Professional Learning – Mr Chris Delaney
• Wellbeing – Ms Tracy Diplock
• STEAM – Mr Daniel Zavone
• Humanities – Ms Elissa Strahley
• Performing Arts – Mr Mark Brown

Over the next weeks we will introduce our new Directors and their plans for further improving education at SCAS and keeping us at the forefront of exceptional spiritual, cultural, academic and sporting performance.

Coordinator roles for 2018 are:

• Coordinator English – Mr Kevin Mills
• Coordinator Maths – Dr Janine Stewart
• Coordinator Science – Mrs Joanne Duncan
• Coordinator CAPA – Mrs Catherine Grootenboer
• Coordinator Commercial/Languages – Mrs Gayle Houlahan
• Coordinator Technology/Visual Arts/VET – Mr Justin Munro
• Coordinator PDHPE – Ms Morgan Critchley
• Coordinator Sport – Mr Dane Dickson

The Deputy Directors and Primary Stage Coordinators will be announced over the coming weeks.

“One of the most consistent characteristics of high-performing schools is their ability to focus on student learning. The most successful  schools cited a clear mission and focus on increasing student growth and student achievement as their number one goal. These high-performing schools have stayed focused on their core mission, while at the same time remaining compliant with other external accountabilities. Leaders often talk about the importance of filtering out external noise and distractions so that teachers can maintain their focus on student learning.”