Principal

It has often been said that the Melbourne Cup is the race that stops the nation. I am not sure that is still the case in so many workplaces today. It certainly wasn’t the case for staff at Nudgee College who were involved in Orientation Afternoon #1 on Tuesday. Last moment preparations were underway for the arrival of the many new boys and families who were to attend that afternoon.

There will be around 250 new students commencing at the College in 2023. 190 of them will be day boys and 60 will be boarders. 140 will start in Year 5 while a further 70 will begin in Year 7. For the boys and their parents there was a mixture of excitement and anxiety as they gathered at the O’Neill Building undercroft after school. As many current families would attest, Orientation is a very important step as parents, staff and our Senior students help young boys to prepare for their first days at the College.

A side note to Orientation. Our year 12s, who conclude their school days in a few short weeks, and who commenced at Nudgee College in year 5, held their Orientation in 2014 as they were the Year 5s of 2015. We have seen some significant changes at the College in that time. Conversely, the Year 5 cohort who will commence in 2023 will be part of the Senior class of 2030. What changes will the College undergo during their time? In effect, their experiences in the first steps of their journey at Nudgee College will help to shape them as the Year 12s who will lead the College into our next decade. What an awesome thought!

Back to the present.

The responsibility for Orientation afternoon rests with Ms Susan Shakespear, our Director of Admissions, and her team. They work closely with parents, sometimes for years, as the families navigate from an enrolment enquiry, to an application, interview, offer of enrolment and eventually to acceptance of that offer. In these final weeks and months, the Admissions team guides and prepares families for that first school day in January. Successfully leading this process is incredibly important as enrolments are the lifeblood of the College.

We have been fortunate that over recent years the College has experienced a growth in enrolments. From 1,500 in 2015 to 1,700 since 2020. This growth in current enrolments is now matched by an increase in the numbers in our waitlisting pool. There is a pressure for places, which is a healthy position to be, but also a position that needs to be managed carefully with prospective families.

Since taking up the position of Director of Admission in 2016, Susan has been outstanding in her stewardship of this vital process. In 2023, Susan will step into a new role at the College as Manager of Compliance. This is an opportunity for her to use the skills and knowledge that she had developed in her previous employment. We remain very grateful for the invaluable contribution that she has made to the College in Admissions and we also know that the College will benefit from her oversight of Compliance in the future.

Compliance and risk management has been an ever expanding area of school life and we have been fortunate to have another highly capable professional lead the College staff in this area. Ms Donna Roberts has managed risk and compliance for us since 2018. She has worked closely with our Deputy Principal, Mr David Johnston, to ensure that our processes, practices and policies met the highest standards. Donna is returning full time to the classroom in 2023. The high quality of her work in compliance has mirrored that of Susan in Admissions and we are grateful for all that Donna has done over that time.

These staffing changes necessitate others within the College. Ms Tara Shipperley (Director of Development and Communications) has been on maternity leave since late 2021 and will return in 2023 as the interim Director of Admissions. Tara, too, has been highly successful in leading DevComm and connecting its operations more closely with almost every dimension of school life. Throughout 2022 her role has been very capably filled by Ms Hannah Kilburn, who has built further on this progress. Hannah will continue as the interim Director of DevComm next year.

Finally, a couple of takeaways from all of the above. While the learning, care and faith formation of our boys remains at the heart of what we do every day, there are also other significant dimensions to successful school operations, such as Admissions, Compliance and Risk as well as Development and Communications. To be a high performing school, Nudgee College needs these to be functioning well and they are. Further, we are blessed to have some highly talented, professional women who lead these critical dimensions of school life. In a large, complex all boys school such as ours these women are important role models for high performing leadership.

Mr Peter Fullagar

Principal

Deputy Principal

Communication

I recall my mother coming home from a parent-teacher meeting one evening, around the time I was in Year 7. I could see from the look on her face that the meeting had not gone well. Without even asking for my side of the story, she told me to stop playing the fool in class or I’d lose my television rights for a week (it was the 1980s, so that was a big threat). When I talk to colleagues and friends, we all have similar recollections - if you got in trouble at school, you’d better hope your parents didn’t find out, or you’d get in trouble at home too.

Gone are the days when what the teacher said was taken as gospel. Perhaps that is a good thing - it is important that we listen to our children. However, now there are times when it could be argued the pendulum has swung too far the other way. More often, it is the teachers who are doubted, questioned, and dismissed with no basis or previous reason for doing so other than not wanting to believe them. Over the last 13 years, I have seen boys go home and report an incident relating to a teacher or another student which is unjustified, unsupported by evidence, and even vexatious.

As a society, the power of trust in our educational system has moved from teacher to student.

I have witnessed a situation where a parent wouldn't accept her son’s grade and blamed the teacher and other students for disrupting her son’s learning. When it was explained that her son had already admitted he was not engaged in class and was involved in disruptive behaviour, she turned to her son and said, "Did you do this?" The son shook his head and said, "No." The parent immediately replied, "See. He was not mucking around. My son doesn't lie."

This is where it gets tricky for everyone. As parents, we want to believe everything our sons tell us and it is our role to advocate for them. However, as a school leader, witnessing the teacher provide examples of the behaviour, I was stunned by the realisation that, despite the evidence, this mother wholeheartedly believed her 13-year-old boy and completely dismissed the school’s account of events. There was clearly a problem, but rather than being open to working in partnership to resolve it, this parent wanted to attack the teacher who had had the temerity to criticise her child.

At Nudgee, we are blessed to have good teachers. These are people who are passionate about the boys, who put in long hours and who look for ways to provide support and inclusion. They want to see every child in their care succeed, not just academically, but in their spiritual growth, social interactions and character formation. A former principal of mine would always say to the parents at the start of each year: "If a teacher emails, calls, texts, or contacts you in any form because there's a problem, then there's a problem. No teacher has ever said, 'Oh, I want to deal with an angry parent today.' Teachers go into teaching to make a difference, not to torture your child."

After many experiences over 13 years, my perception of Nudgee College remains that the majority of our parents are good people. Our community is based on trust, respect, dignity and inclusion.

So, where do we go from here? How can we return to a world where parents trust teachers at their word and engage in open, productive forms of communication aimed at supporting their child’s learning?

Getting a call, email or report that your son might be exhibiting some negative behaviours can be hard to hear for any parent. You might feel worried, frustrated, or embarrassed. It's important to remember that every child can act differently from what you see at home. Our staff understand this concept and are not here to judge.

In the end, open and honest dialogue must occur. Asking your son’s teacher questions to understand a situation better is something every parent should feel relaxed about doing. It’s the relationship that will pave the way for your son’s educational and personal well-being.

Mr David Johnston

Deputy Principal

Learning and Teaching

Head of Faculty Away Day

This week Heads of Faculty (HOF) met at the ACU Banyo to plan learning and teaching directions for 2023. They brought positivity, courage, compassion, energy, expertise and the collective motivation to continue our improvement of learning and teaching.

A significant portion of the day was devoted to unpacking the new Australian Curriculum Version 9.0. Whilst families will not see dramatic changes to learning, assessment and reporting, behind the scenes teachers will engage in a process of familiarisation and implementation occurring between 2023 and 2026. During this time teaching programs will be revised to ensure Nudgee boys receive a world class 21st Century education.

In isolation a revision of the curriculum cannot set the agenda for how learning and teaching should look at Nudgee. An explicit teacher pedagogy in the form of the New Art and Science of Teaching (ASOT) has been a feature of the teacher professional learning program in 2022. HOF did a deep dive into the development of student centred learning goals and feedback strategies. They considered how to integrate better feedback strategies into the classroom, and distribute best practice across their learning area.

Further project work was also completed around the development of a deliberate Middle Years (7 to 9) strategy. HOF discussed the educational and pastoral needs of boys in these cohorts and drafted a Middle Years Philosophy which will continue to be developed in 2023. Thank you to the school community for allowing this important planning to occur.

Mr Jason Sepetauc

Dean of Learning and Teaching

Elevate Education will be hosting a free webinar for Nudgee College parents on Wednesday 9 October at 6:30pm (AEDT) focused on ‘Stress and Wellbeing’.

Elevate Education works with our students, delivering high impact workshops on study skills, motivation, wellbeing, and exam preparation. By tuning into their webinar series you will learn how you can help better support your sons at home through reinforcing the skills they learn at school.

As part of the webinar, Elevate will discuss how to:

How to spot your son’s stress symptoms early
How to start a conversation about emotional wellbeing
Techniques your child an use to self-manage stress

Please click here to register.

Ms Natalie Hughes

Director of Learning and Teaching

MUSIC UPDATE

In Week 4, the Music Department was lucky enough to be visited by MusicEDU, an online music resource that we utilise in our classroom program to provide high quality, contemporary Music practices into our curriculum. With heavy connections to technology and STEM, the MusicEDU suite has provided enriching learning opportunities for our Music students across Years 5 to 9, and MusicEDU was so impressed by our implementation over the last two years they asked if they could film the suite in action. In particular, we wanted to show off our use of their DJ program "Trackformers" that we use in Year 8, and their AR Classrooms program "Instruments of the Orchestra" that we use in Year 5. Classes were filmed using the resources, and boys were interviewed about their experience using the programs.

Boys in Year 8 all agreed that they really loved learning how to DJ, and found that although daunting to start with, Trackformers broke it down and it became much simpler to understand with guidance. They really loved being able to mix two songs together, and enjoyed how successful they've been in learning the foundations of DJing, particularly in scratching.

Year 5s have been creating their own AR (Augmented Reality) quizzes about the instrument they play in our Instrumental Immersion Program, providing excellent coding and STEM skills using the Metaverse website. They have also created a soundscape using the online Music program Bandlab, exploring how they can use musical elements to express characteristics of their chosen animals. Our Year 5s are currently creating posters with a QR code link to their AR quiz and soundscape, which will be displayed at our Year 5 End of Year Music concert. In their interviews the boys expressed how much they loved being able to use music to imitate sounds and ideas that represent their animals, and learning how AR worked.

We want to thank MusicEDU for the opportunity for us to showcase our Music program, the boys really enjoyed being able to show off what they've been doing in class and be interviewed.

Mr John Hodder

Subject Coordinator - Music

Senior Visual Art Excursion to Queensland Museum

On Thursday 27 October our Year 12, Visual Art students travelled to the Queensland Museum in Southbank. This excursion is the stimulus for the body of work boys will complete throughout their Senior year.

Queensland Museum presents a diverse and changing program of exhibitions that tell the stories of Queenslanders. There was so much to see, giving the students many opportunities to be inspired and develop their theme for this very important year.

A surprising highlight was the exhibition, Disney: The Magic of Animation. This exhibition allowed students to uncover the magic behind almost 100 years of Walt Disney Animation Studios. The exhibition featured over 500 artworks including original paintings, story sketches and concept art that have been specially selected by the Walt Disney Animation Research Library in Los Angeles, California from over 65 million physical artworks. A privilege to see such works in the flesh!

There were five sections of the exhibition and each had a focus on a different era of innovation. From perfecting the technique of bringing two-dimensional drawings to life in the 1920s to the creation of the first animated feature films in the late 1930s and 1940s.

Students were also introduced to the stylistic innovations of the post-war years; the renaissance of the 1990s; and the digital revolution and advances of the present day.

Once again, we ended the day with a late lunch where conversations were full of interesting ideas and concepts. A hugely successful excursion for all involved with full engagement from our Art students! I am very much looking forward to seeing what the boys can create from this experience.

Ms Katherine Ellis

Subject Coordinator - Visual Art

Week 5 Term 4 2022

In This Newsletter

Principal

Deputy Principal

Learning and Teaching

Student Formation

Boarding

The Locker Room