Executive Director’s Update to Principals #42 - 17 October 2024

Sacred Heart, Casterton - Storm impact update

Please keep Suzie McManus and the Sacred Heart, Casterton community in your prayers. 
 
Sacred Heart will remain closed tomorrow (Friday) pending a detailed assessment of damage from last night’s severe hail storm. 

The school suffered significant water-damage, including several collapsed ceilings, and is still without power.
 
Staff and friends were onsite this morning to begin the clean-up. Builders and assessors will be onsite tomorrow morning to assess and report on the damage, before confirming plans for resuming learning next week. 

Our CEB team is also supporting the school.  

The Teaching Excellence Program – Staff Professional Learning Opportunity

[Applications open until Sunday 3 November 2024]

The Teaching Excellence Program (TEP) enables highly-skilled teachers to advance their capability and confidence for exemplary teaching.

TEP2025 is fully funded by the Victorian Academy of Teaching and Leadership and is a year-long professional learning program for highly-skilled teachers, aimed at supporting and challenging them to become even better teachers. Through the program, teachers analyse their teaching practice to deepen content and pedagogical content knowledge in and across the key discipline areas. They access contemporary, evidence-informed research and apply this learning to their students’ learning needs. Teachers utilise a practitioner inquiry approach to deepen their knowledge, capability and confidence to teach even more effectively in their context.

TEP is open to highly-skilled teachers with a minimum of three years’ teaching experience from the government, Independent and Catholic sectors, including those teaching in alternative settings.   

Supported by a team of Master Teachers-in-Residence, TEP teachers engage with national and international expert educators in a diverse range of learning activities, including Conference Days, Discipline Days, Teaching Excellence Learning Community (TELC) Days and Practitioner Inquiry. 

The program is structured around key disciplines, including:

• The Arts
• English, including English as an additional language
• Health and Physical Education
• The Humanities
• Languages
• Mathematics
• Science
• Technologies

Graduates of previous TEP program report that their teaching skills have improved, and their enthusiasm for the profession has grown. They also report the TEP has ‘inspired and invigorated them’, ‘revitalising’ them and reigniting their joy around teaching, with 84 % of 2023 TEP participants saying the program had a ‘significant impact’ on their students' learning outcomes.

Program Structure

Over one school year, teachers are expected to engage with and contribute to:

• orientation session (online, 90 minutes)
• conferences (2 days) in Melbourne
• discipline days (4 days) in Melbourne
• Teaching Excellence Learning Communities (TELCs) days (4 days). These are place-based (closest Academy location: Bairnsdale, Ballarat, Bendigo, Geelong, Melbourne, Mildura, Moe, Shepparton).

The breakdown of time per term (based on 2024 program) is expected to be:

Term 1 – orientation session and 3 days

Term 2 – 2 days

Term 3 – 2 days

Term 4 – 3 days

Please connect to an information session to find out more.

Information Sessions

To support applicants with their 2025 TEP applications and answer any questions, weekly drop-in information sessions are being held for both teacher applicants and principals.

Applicants are encouraged to attend an applicant/teacher information session to find out more about the program and so that we can clarify and support applicants to submit their applications.

The principal information sessions are opportunities to hear from Principals-in-Residence. The sessions will provide information for principals to support their teacher applicants through the application process and the year of professional learning that follows.

To attend an information session click here.

More information can be found at Teaching Excellence Program (academy.vic.gov.au)

Consent and Respectful Relationships Education Principal and Leadership Team Focus Groups - VCEA

VCEA is inviting Principals or members of school leadership to participate in focus groups on Consent and Respectful Relationships in Term 4.

The aim of the focus groups is to explore the Consent and Respectful Relationships Curriculum with leaders of Catholic primary and secondary schools and identify the specific needs, challenges and opportunities in Catholic school communities.

There are both online and face to face opportunities to participate. Details are available in the VCEA Circular below: 

Respectful Relationships - EOI open for Non-government schools to participate as partner or lead schools

An expression of interest (EOI) process is open for interested Victorian Catholic schools schools to participate as a Respectful Relationships Lead or Partner School.

The Respectful Relationships initiative is a recommendation of the Royal Commission into Family Violence. The initiative supports school leaders, educators and school communities to promote and model respect and gender equality – and teaches children how to build healthy relationships, resilience and confidence.

DOBCEL recognises that the Resilience Rights and Respectful Relationships curriculum fulfils the curriculum requirements of a social emotional learning program which is mandatory in schools as well as attending to the Child Safe Standards and ensuring consent education is delivered effectively.

Taking a whole school approach to Respectful Relationships leads to positive impacts on students’ academic outcomes, their mental health, classroom behaviour, and relationships between teachers and students.

You can learn more about becoming a Respectful Relationships School at: https://www.vic.gov.au/ (search respectful relationships).

Interested schools should complete the Lead or Partner School online application form below by Tuesday 12 November 2024:

• Partner school application
• Lead school application

Successful schools will be notified by the Department of Education in term 1 2025. Lead Schools will receive $20,000 over 2 years and Partner Schools will receive $4,000 in the first year to support implementation of the whole-school approach.

New schools will commence their implementation in term 1 2025, with the professional learning and support provided by the Respectful Relationships workforce.  

Catholic School Pre-service Teacher Placement Grant Program commencing 2025

Last week VCEA released a circular announcing that Victorian Catholic Education Authority (VCEA) in partnership with Catholic school proprietors across the state will commence a Pre-service Teacher Placement Grants Program for the 2025 school year.   

The Catholic sector wants to ensure the next generation of teachers is supported to have greater choice in where they undertake their placements. It is hoped that the program will ensure pre-service teachers continue to seek placement opportunities in our Catholic Schools by providing access to financial support to complete placements.

Key features of the program:

• The Catholic School Pre-service Teacher Placement Grant is available to PSTs enrolled in a VIT-accredited initial teacher education (ITE) degree (or an equivalent regulatory authority recognised by the VIT), completing their teaching placement in an eligible regional, remote or specialist Victorian Catholic school between 28 January 2025 and 31 December 2025.
• Eligibility reflects the approach taken by the state government with its placement grants.
• The grant payments are:
  • $140 per day for placements in a specialist setting in metropolitan Melbourne
  • $140 per day for all schools in regional urban centres
  • $280 per day for all schools in inner regional placements
  • $420 per day for all schools in outer regional and remote placements
• Payment rates and location classifications match those offered for completing a pre-service teacher placement in an eligible Victorian government school.
• All DOBCEL schools are eligible, at one of the three payment levels (see CEVN website for individual school details).
• Funds for pre-service teacher payments are currently held by VCEA and there will be further communication in the coming weeks on the facilitating payments.

Eligible schools will receive a letter from the VCEA. 

The VCEA circular is available below. 

If you have any further questions, please contact Fiona Murphy or Ange Jones. 

OHS Update/Actions - 'Working at Heights' Term 4 initiative

1. Mandatory School Survey

Please see below link to a MANDATORY working at heights/fall prevention survey to be completed by all schools by 31/10/2024. This survey is designed to ensure the appropriate management of working at heights tasks/fall prevention is undertaken and highlights some appropriate controls that can be taken; this will only take 5 minutes to complete.  https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/GCVYJC3

2. Working at height ticket reimbursement initiative

A working @ height ticket reimbursement offering is in place again for Term 4 this year. This is targeted at schools who didn’t take up the 2023 offering OR were not included in the initial 2023 offering. An individual email will be sent to the principal of those schools, and we strongly encourage those to take up this initiative.

3. Further information and resources

The department of education has great resources in this space and the new DOBCEL working at heights procedure will be similar to what is included here; if you would like to review documentation available in this space please see the below link: https://www2.education.vic.gov.au/pal/prevention-falls-when-working-heights/policy

For further information, please contact: Leah Crough LCrough@dobcel.catholic.edu.au or Penelope Irish PIrish@ceob.edu.au  

Appointment of Manager: Property & Infrastructure, Andrew Grindlay

We are delighted to announce the appointment of Andrew Grindlay as Manager: Property and Infrastructure, replacing Ashley Wiseman.

Andrew joined the team on Monday 14 October. Andrew comes to us with nearly 20 years at MACS where he most recently held the position of Team Leader – Planning & Property. He brings with him a wide range of knowledge having worked in other educational environments such as Department of Education and Training and Braemar College. With experience also at Mount Alexander Shire Council as the Capital Works Co-Ordinator, Andrew will be a wonderful addition to the DOBCEL team.

Andrew can be contacted on agrindlay@dobcel.catholic.edu.au or 0447 755 798.

World Teachers’ Day - 25 October

World Teachers’ Day on next Friday 25th October honours the dedication, hard work, and passion of our teachers.  Schools are encouraged to mark the day with some fun activities around Hats Off to Teachers with some resources in the links below:

World Teachers' Day

Celebration Kit