National School Boards Week
This event is celebrated in many schools around Australia during the first week of Term 3. This means that next week is National School Boards Week at NCS!
National School Boards Week was instituted as a way of appropriately recognising the significant contributions made by approximately 75,000 school board and school council members across Australia’s Catholic, Independent & Government schools. These dedicated men and women are all volunteers who commit considerable personal time and effort to ensure that Australian schools are well governed.
The NCS School Board If you were asked to name all the members of our NCS School Board, how would you go? Are you familiar with the men and women from our school who currently serve on the Board? Did you realise that all of our Board members are either current parents or grandparents of students at our school? Do you know what their key roles are? How often does our School Board meet?
If you are struggling to answer some of these questions, I thought that I would like to help you out. Below you will see a labelled photograph of our current Board members, taken at a recent Board meeting. And, just in case you were wondering, our NCS Board meets monthly from February through to December which is a major commitment for already busy people. Not only do Board members meet on a monthly basis, but many will find themselves also being members of Board sub-committees set up to examine key areas of importance to our school. Just one such sub-committee that is currently operating is the Uniform and Appearance Review Committee.
L to R: Mr Rob Bray, Mr Craig Frew, Mr Paul Dickinson (Chairperson), Mrs Belinda Davie, Mr Kurt Clifton (Treasurer), Mrs Bessie Weissel, Mr Jeff Fairbairn, Mr Ryan Heard and Mr Richard Chartier.
Key Board Responsibilities The organisers of National School Boards Week list the following items as being just some of the key roles and impacts of Board members:
can make a positive difference to student achievement
are an integral part of the school community
undertake a leadership role within their respective school communities
seek to enhance their stewardship of the school
contribute skills and knowledge to decision-making processes
work in partnership with the principal
are gatekeepers of the school’s values
participate in mandatory board members training programs
As you can see, this is a long list of very important roles. Consequently, I would encourage you to uphold our hard-working Board members in prayer. I know that they would be most appreciative of this support.
NCS Insight 2018 – 5 September, 6.30 – 8.30pm
This is a new annual NCS event, designed to be of particular interest for parents/carers and other interested community members. It will also provide an excellent opportunity to meet with the members of our School Board as many of them will be directly involved in the running of this evening. The program has been deliberately designed to provide an ‘insight’ into key areas in the life of NCS over the past 12 months and into some of the exciting developments that are being planned now and into the future. A number of items will also be presented for your entertainment by current NCS students. So mark this date in your diaries and you will be both encouraged and entertained as well as having the opportunity to personally meet our hard-working Board members. Mr Rob Bray Principal
