As we all know, the role of a school leader is complex and multi-dimensional with effective leaders drawing on multiple sources of information and supports. The Department offers a range of services to support school leaders with the execution of their roles and responsibilities. Three such services that we encourage members to access are the Principal Advisory Service, the Principal [...]
Whilst recent commentary and dialogue has focussed on the severe teacher shortages, little mention if any, is being made in relation to the national trend that’s been growing for some time and that is principal shortages. Over the course of many years, there has been a declining trend of senior teachers and assistant principals aspiring to the role of principal [...]
The Annual Report is a legislative obligation that provides a valuable opportunity for the school community to celebrate achievements, reflect on the school’s performance, and understand where and how improvement efforts have enhanced student achievement, engagement and well-being. As you know this is key to building community pride and confidence in the government school system. Each year Performance Division quality [...]
How harmful is social media to teenagers’ mental health? According to one recent research study, social media is no more harmful than television was for young people in the 1990s. The study looked at more than 430,000 young people aged 10 to 15 in the UK and US. It found no evidence that any link between mental ill health and [...]
Schools face ever growing threats from sophisticated cybercriminals. These bad actors are exploiting any network vulnerabilities including any devices connected to or joining the school network. A good example is the risk posed from Internet of Things devices that often have limited or very basic security controls. Once a cybercriminal gains access to a school’s network they gain lateral movement [...]
I don’t like to sound like a nag, however, I continue to raise concerns with individual members about their well-being. The reported 14-16 hour days in this emergency period are not sustainable and your health will suffer significant damage. Please examine ways to reduce this urgently. • Control your IT use after a set time at night. • You need [...]
For the rest of our lives we will remember what we are going through at present. As you can appreciate, there is no historical precedent for the management of a pandemic in schools and preschools and this is currently being reflected in the policy responses and advice being announced daily. These times are unprecedented as we are at war [...]
More and more of you are taking on board the need to challenge current culture and take active steps towards the protection of your own health & wellbeing. It was apparent in the summer break the number of you that had disengaged from the email onslaught and posted a message to indicate you were on leave and a response would [...]
There are a myriad of comments that can and should be made about this move by the DET to ban mobile phones in schools. The most important of all is this: Given that many schools had already banned phones or established policies to limit their use at school, in making a blanket ban such as this, school leadership and autonomy [...]
A recent audit report on the implementation of Child Safe Standards released by VAGO was critical of the VRQA, indicating they could have better supported schools in the implementation of the Child Safe Standards. In an attempt to address this, the DET has attempted to sort out the confusion between minimum standards and best practice (and myth from fact), which [...]
