On Wednesday, November 8, the Diocesan Principals’ End of Year dinner was held at the Olde Horsham Inn.
Departing and Retiring Principals were farewelled at the dinner, with the following speeches made:
Paddy Ryan – farewelling Stephen Russell
Eugene Dalton – farewelling Peter McElgunn
Michael Kennedy – farewelling Paddy Ryan
Also acknowledged on the night were Mary Knight, Brendan Maher, Gary Typuszak and Tom Hogan, whilst it was acknowledged that Mary Frawley was to be farewelled at the Central Zone Principal’s meeting.
The evening provided a great opportunity in a relaxed atmosphere for both primary and secondary principals and CEOB staff to mingle and reflect on the year which is almost finished.
On Thursday, November 9, the Principals met at Coughlin Park, Horsham. The Diocesan Leadership Framework was discussed and explained. The eSIT School Improvement Tool developed jointly by the Catholic Schools Office, Wagga Wagga Diocese and the Australian Council for Education Research (ACER) was explained in detail. Prof Pauline Taylor-Guy from ACER was the keynote speaker who ran the workshop explaining and unpacking the eSIT tool. This workshop gave the schools an opportunity to work through the tool and to understand how it can be used across the Ballarat schools system to help with school improvement.
Principals came away with a far greater understanding of school improvement and how the eSIT tool can be applied to each school.