RIENDLY VISIT: NSW Director-General of Schools, Dr Michele Bruniges, chatting with Hillvue Public School captain Amika Johnson during a visit to Tamworth yesterday. Photo: Robert Chappel 220313RCB02
A SPECIAL visitor made her way to Tamworth’s Hillvue Public School yesterday.
The Director-General of Schools, Michele Bruniges, enjoyed participating in assembly before visiting a number of classrooms to see how the school was benefiting from the rollout of the Connected Communities initiative.
Dr Bruniges said through conversations with students, staff and community she had been able to gauge how the new program was travelling.
“Connected Communities is a new approach squarely focused on raising the outcomes for students,” Dr Bruniges said.
“To do this we need to thoroughly understand their needs and the needs of their families.
“Each Connected Communities school has an executive principal who will adopt leadership that engages the school more closely with the community and builds more effective partnerships with the overall aim of improving learning and life outcomes.”
Dr Bruniges was accompanied by the initiative’s executive director, Michelle Hall. Together the pair has visited a number of schools involved in the program already and the plan is to visit all Connected Communities schools involved in the coming months.
“My visits are very much about listening and sharing,” Dr Bruniges said.
“I was very heartened by what I saw and heard at Hillvue Public.
“There is tremendous goodwill and an enormous commitment to collaborate to support the students and their families.”
Dr Bruniges said the visits were only the first step of engagement with each school community,.
“The signs so far are very positive and everyone is responsive as we seek to better understand local needs and consult about the future,” she said.
As well as Hillvue, in the New England-North West, Moree Secondary College, Moree East Public,
Boggabilla Central and Toomelah Public are Connected Communities schools. The Connected Communities strategy was put together to address the educational and social disadvantage experienced by Aboriginal children and other young people living in disadvantaged communities throughout NSW.
It alsoaims to link learning in schools with other related services including health, welfare, early childhood education and care, and vocational education and training.