Open Day 2nd November 2011

Your Parentingideas magazine is ready for you to collect!

Follow this link: Parentingideas.com.au/parent

The second edition of Parentingideas Magazine with great tips and advice to help you raise wonderful kids and enjoy the journey is ready for you to collect.

Parentingideas Magazine is a quality quarterly online parenting magazine featuring some of Australia’s best parenting writers, covering the topics you want to know about. And it’s published by Michael Grose.

Here’s a little of what you’ll read in this issue:

• The amazing Dr. Jason Fox writes about motivating kids to learn through gaming
• Channel 9’s Morning Show regular Dannii Miller has a great piece on overcoming self-consciousness in girls (it’s great for boys too!)
• Fay Angelo writes about helping girls (and you) prepare  for their first period.
• Fivehive’s Yvonne Adele has some getting to bed tips with a difference
• Ninja Dad Malcolm Nix has a cool column for dads! It’s a great read and it’s fun too!

There’s heaps more......................

Best of all it’s FREE!

Please pass this magazine on to your parent community. Oh, and have a good read of it yourself!

Regards,

Michael Grose

Music Concert

The Music Concert was a lot of fun and the boys once again enjoyed showing their skills.

Boys at the home show

2011 Golf Day

What a fantastic day! $38000 approx. Yay looks like the new Turf is getting closer.

ERO Review

The Education Review Office have been into the school on Monday and Tuesday of this week. Whilst this is a relatively short timeframe I was impressed with the amount of information they were able to process in that time. Key areas they wanted to see was continued improvement to our educational curriculum carrying on from our last outstanding report, our management of the dormitories, and our management of International Students.

I sent them a copy of our procedures and our new curriculum document. On site these were the areas they felt we were doing extremely well in:

1. Our Curriculum Document. ERO felt in their discussions and observations that our curriculum document was a very comprehensive document that drew in all aspects of the Huntley Ethos and gave staff a solid theoretical platform to launch their teaching from. They felt our staff attestation and professional development practices were of a very high standard and allowed for constant review by using the Teaching as Inquiry process. Staff are using high quality data to develop quality learning programmes. Advancement in nationalised testing was generally well above national standards expected. They felt that the teachers planning was in line with our stated curriculum and there was a clear correlation between planning and identified needs for the pupils at the school. They clearly identified that the boys knew their learning goals and what they were hoping to achieve within their lessons. The Huntley Values were strongly a part of the school ethos and this was apparent in many of the lessons they observed.
2. Our Dormitories. There was clear evidence of student voice in this area of school with surveys being taken regularly. The pastoral care of the boys is an obvious priority and they also commented on the role of the form teacher in ensuring that all boys have someone they can talk with when experiencing any difficulties. They felt the addition of the new heaters had been well received by the boys and their parents. They were pleased to see we had gone through a process of self review in the areas of Nutrition, Medication Administration, Earthquake and Fire drills and Bullying surveys.
3. International students were obviously very happy and making pleasing progress within the school. The quality of the pastoral care of these boys was exceptional and Lyn Barnett is obviously doing a fantastic job with these boys.