Bray Park - Principal's message

Kirsten Ferdinands – Principal, Bray Park State High School: Having stepped foot into the school initially as the principal, I had followed in behind four principals in 12 months. There was a lot of issues with structure and processes and policies but also too for a lot of our heads of department and deputy principals, they just became managers of faculty, they became managers of people, they just were putting out bush fires. My initial scanning and assessing was that we needed to look at how we could lead strategically through a clear improvement agenda. It was about particularly working with the heads of department and the deputies and myself, understanding our role as leaders to do that, really working with the AITSL materials around standards for leaders. When we looked at ourselves each and every day what were the behaviours that we were displaying and modelling to everyone in the school and the school community. My role as principal was continuing to articulate that at every opportunity to both staff, students and parents in our community. So I'm checking in on myself continually about how am I turning up as a leader? Have I coached someone today? Have I been a learner myself? Have I thanked somebody? You know, am I visible? We've gone from being a state school in Brisbane in Queensland, to having a real national and international and global presence in the work that we're doing. We've presented overseas that the new pedagogy is for deep learning, conferences in Canada, we continue to have international visitors come and look at our strategic leadership plan but also learn about our journey and how we've achieved improvement across the four and a half years. John Tabrett – Deputy Principal, Bray Park State High School: At Bray Park State High you know, our culture has, has driven the change, the improvement and also our movement from you know, an everyday school within Brisbane to being great and outstanding and the full credit goes to you know, all our staff. Emma Wilson – Head of Department, Bray Park State High School: The best thing about being here is that we all want the same thing for our students, we want them to have some success. I guess the other thing that's really great about it is that you feel appreciated working at Bray Park High School. Kirsten Ferdinands – Principal, Bray Park State High School: I get excited to get out of bed every morning and I talk to my staff about who else doesn't get excited to you know, get out of bed every morning and that's the feel that you get when you're seeing students succeed. Students that we're seeing succeeding that have had massive barriers to learning or life that we've been able to support.