As a school we have set ourselves three mission goals. These three areas capture the heart of our core purpose; beginning with the students, working with the staff and supporting you, the parents.  I will deal with the students over the coming weeks so today we look at staff and parents.

The success of our school is very dependent on the quality of the teachers and support staff we employ. We already set expectations for the educational qualifications of our teachers, but having a teaching degree is just the beginning.  As many of you will know, most industries and professions are changing rapidly, and we need to keep learning if we are to stay current and relevant. This is true in education where a major paradigm shift is taking place about what schooling will look like in the future and needs to look like now.

GPCC is still operating a more conservative approach to schooling and although there are pockets of innovation, we have a way to go. But that is what our mission goal is about. We have re-focused Mr Matthew Cohen’s role to be the Director of Teacher Development and he works with me and the Heads of School to help teachers to grow more skilled in their practice.

We have begun to visit classrooms regularly and to focus on what and how students are learning as we look at what we need to do to help our teachers to raise levels of student engagement and progress. We have begun work on drafting a GPCC teacher profile to identify the type of teacher we need to help us fulfil our core purpose. We have re-designed our regular weekly staff meetings to focus on teacher training and will be launching a new approach to teacher appraisal next term.  

Our third mission goal though is focused on you as parents. We believe that God created the family as the best environment for children to grow up in. A strong family unit goes a long way to producing a strong adult. We recognise that relationships and families are under new and increased stresses in today’s world and so we want to support all families in the challenging task of raising children.

It is through helping you to be a quality parent that we actually help ourselves. Children being brought up by committed and skilled parents are well adjusted and can focus on and thrive at their schoolwork. That makes our job a lot easier!

In addition to creating a structure to enable you as parents to connect as education partners with us, we also want to offer support and help to you in your parenting. We are looking to run workshops and support groups, invite guest speakers and offer a mentoring program to help you be the best parent you can be.

In this way we can work together, recognising we all need to grow in our abilities, so that we can offer the best to our children and help them to be equipped for life.