Secondary News T4 W6 2022

New New

I love visiting other schools. It gives me a chance to reflect on our College and how the programs we are developing compare to other leading schools. It also provides me with a chance to look for where other schools are doing things better and potentially bring back new ideas and ways of doing things.

This week I had the chance to visit three schools as part of a learning tour organized by Lutheran Education Queensland. All three schools had spent considerable resources on developing innovative spaces. This included one of the flagship schools for innovation in New South Wales called Lindfield Learning Village. This school is regularly featured as a leading school for innovation. This reputation was well deserved as the spaces they have and some of their programs are phenomenal to see in action.

The two biggest takeaways I left with were:

• Aim to do New New. A traditional school that hasn’t changed in 30 + years does Old Old. Some schools do New Old where they change something like a building but don’t actually change what they do. The best schools do New New. This means that they don’t just improve on a broken system they actually build something new, different and exciting.
• That whilst having swanky new buildings looks great it doesn’t necessarily mean that the programs are there to match them or have substance. At Faith we have probably the best programs of any school in Australia with our MyPath@Faith program.

As we move into the next few years and commence master planning, I am encouraged by the fact we have done a lot of the hard work and already have something special that is New New.

Innovation Award

We have again been named one of Australia’s most innovative schools. This is exciting and also great recognition for our MyPath@Faith program and the hard work of the team.

Monday to Wednesday 5-7 December

You would have received an email about the extra three days after the end of term where students can attend school if they want. In support of families making a decision those three days will have a series of rotational activities, that students will rotate through. If students don’t attend it will not be marked as an absent day for reporting purposes. If you have any questions please contact me.

Stuart Needham
Head of Secondary School