Dear Families
As I write this newsletter I am into my fourth day as Principal of your wonderful school and am thankful for the warm welcome I have had from everyone.
I had just about completed my ten-year contract as Principal of Rosary School, Prospect, before winning the position here. Spending ten years in a school is a substantial amount of time. There was building work, refurbishments and educational changes that have shaped Rosary into a very modern school. There are many similarities between the two schools and that is one of the reasons I was eager to become part of your community.
I began my teaching career in the late ’80s in Whyalla and went onto winning a permanent position at Stella Maris School, Seacombe Gardens. In a small school, you wear many hats and I went onto doing much work across the whole school in the educational arena. As window based computers were coming into vogue, I had the opportunity to set up a computer room for the school and trained staff and students in their use. I was shocked to find out, the School Principal at the time, had nominated me to lead the whole region of school’s and around 200 staff in professional learning in this area. Little did I know that this was to lead me down the path to be a School Principal!
I finished my time, at Stella Maris School, as an Acting Principal, before moving to be the Deputy Principal at St Francis of Assisi, Newton. At the time this was a very big school of nearly 700 students. A number of teachers, currently at Star of the Sea School, were employed in my time at St Francis! At St Francis, I spent a large amount of my time working with teachers on the school’s educational program. I was also involved in the Building Program that resulted in half the school being knocked down and rebuilt. It took five years of planning, before any action because of the innovative classroom structures. This build became the basis for many other schools and is still being used today.
After a few Acting Principal stints, I won the Principal position at St Gabriel’s, Enfield. I spent eight years at this school before moving to Rosary School at Prospect where I spent the last 10 years. It almost seems as if I am doing a circle around Adelaide!
Over the years I have had an association with Star of the Sea, through long term projects that both schools were involved in. I was also on the External Validation Review Panel for this school. This program allowed the school to have validated its educational and community programs. The school passed this with flying colours!
On Monday I was very fortunate to begin with a pupil free day, where I was able to work with the staff. Every staff member in the school attended the morning session. Here I was able to introduce myself to the staff in a fun and interactive way. This was followed by the most important part of the day, where I unpacked the work that I do around “Culture,” which, when put simply, is just the way we do things around here. With an emphasis on “WE.”
After morning tea we turned our attention to education. Here we looked at the concept of, “Thriving people, capable learners and leaders for the world God desires.” This is, of course, part of Catholic Education SA’s, “Living, Learning, Leading Framework.”
As the day progressed I shared my goals with the staff for the first ten weeks:
- Learn all staff names in the first week
- Learn a Year level of students names each week
- Ring a parent of each student once I have learnt their name
- Inquire as to how each person is thriving at school
- Discover more about the culture of the school
- Create a data wall of all students in the school showing where they sit individually
Overall, I have had a very welcoming few days at Star of the Sea School. I look forward to sharing more about our first day with the staff, over this term.
Regards,
​Damian Weeks
Social