Redbank Plains - Principal's message

Evan Willis – Substantive Principal, Redbank Plains State Primary School: My leadership journey commenced here midway through 2016 and at the time the school was receiving priority support as identified by the Department of Education school improvement unit. The blessing in that was that we got to work very closely with the region and our Assistant Regional Director. Racquel Gibbons – Assistant Regional Director, Department of Education, QLD: I think the greatest challenges for this school at the beginning were the belief that students can be high achievers. The greatest turning point for this school was when they reformulated the leadership team here, so they have invested huge amounts of time and resources in developing the capability of all staff at this school believing that people are first. There was a real transparency in the leadership and what their expectations were of students, of staff and for the community as well. Leanne Stewart – Acting Principal, Redbank Plains State Primary School: We had to retrain teachers here to start to look for the wins in order to have more of them. So I would say that's a really big shift. Evan Willis – Substantive Principal, Redbank Plains State Primary School: Out of the process in the work that the leadership team undertook, we understood that a quality curriculum supported by great pedagogy was key to our development. It gave us a focus on preventative measures through exciting teaching learning experiences as opposed to a focus on reacting. I think that our community is typify by a lot of people who may not have had positive experiences themselves at school and so whilst they had faith in the school they weren't maybe invested or aware of how the school was operating. One of the key pieces of work as a new principal coming into the school was to be seen to communicate with, with parents and, and you know, not to underestimate the value of being at the school gate. Racquel Gibbons – Assistant Regional Director, Department of Education, QLD: There's been, in this school, a huge transformation in the belief of students, staff, parents and the leadership team in where this school can see their achievement.