Open Night

Our 2023 Open Night was extremely successful. Firstly, it was very pleasing to see well over 350 people attend the night. Secondly, the organisation and smooth running of the night enabled our potential Fairhills High School community members to experience the school in a very positive light. I want to congratulate Silvana La Leggia (AP of the Middle School), the marketing team and all the staff and students who contributed to the night. By working together we were able to showcase the best of what we have to offer.

School Improvement

In the past few weeks members of leadership have gone out to visit schools who consistently demonstrate outstanding practices in Learning & Wellbeing.

What we saw:

• Consistency of practice from one classroom to the next
• Use of an Instructional model in all learning environments
• High expectations and routines and rituals
• Differentiated learning through the use of success criteria and small group point of need activities
• No teacher desks at the front of the class
• The third teacher (classroom environment and signage) being an essential and important element to create a consistent and calm learning environment.

All of these best practices have led to a Supportive and Orderly Learning Environment and the school achieving the best NAPLAN results in their region (100+ primary schools)

It was certainly inspirational to me as an educator, and I have learnt a great deal from these visits. The aim is to bring some of these evidence based strategies and within our context embed them into our school.

See some of the photos I took below.

Our approach to creating a positive learning environment.

By the start of Term 2 a very large (100cm x 70cm) poster will be displayed in all learning environments.

The poster has:

• The FHS LEARN model in the centre. The LEARN model will support students to learn in different ways and provides consistency from one learning environment to the next. With ongoing support and development, teachers will begin to structure their lesson plans around the LEARN model.
• School Wide Positive Behaviours at ‘all times’ and in ‘learning spaces’. Students will be provided with extensive support to understand:
  the importance of these behaviours

• • how they link to our values
  • how they support wellbeing and learning,
  • how to act accordingly
  • the intrinsic and extrinsic rewards they will receive if they display these positive behaviours.

Primary Principals visit to Fairhills High School

On March 29 local primary school principals attended Fairhills High School. A part of the day was a school tour. When we went into Year 7 classes the reaction of some students was priceless. I heard some audible gasps from students when they saw their past primary principal in their secondary setting. The principals loved seeing them.

At the end of the tour, the principals provided some really positive feedback. One principal said she was surprised that it was so calm and orderly, as her perceptions of high schools were very different. Another noted the Out of Class passes and how effective they appeared to be.

We are really a school on the up ?.

Ian Van Schie
Principal