Debbie Spanner Principal dspan3@eq.edu.au

Hello Indooroopilly Community!

It was so wonderful to return to Indooroopilly this week. Thank you to staff, parents and students who have welcomed me back so warmly. A big thank you to Mr Chris Muir for looking after things so beautifully in my absence. I am so proud of the work that staff, students and the community have  progressed and achieved in my absence.

My short secondment period provided time to reflect on how things are progressing at our school, affirming many of our current practices and prompting thinking around opportunities to remove, refine or sharpen some practices too.

My  holiday touring Northern Territory and WA was an active one, including both multi-day hikes and day walks, paddling and regular swimming in rock pools or creeks (avoiding crocodiles of course). 40 days on the road, in a tent allowed me to practice many of the skills we promote here at Indooroopilly, including mindfulness, resilience, critical thinking and problem solving. I have been hearing a lot recently about how, in recent times, we have created a society that is reluctant to be uncomfortable and can confuse normal life challenges with a risk to our mental health because we feel overwhelmed or afraid. If our children never take risks or are never pushed outside their comfort zone, they cannot learn how truly capable and talented they are. You may hear some things I have or will share with the children on assembly about some of my adventures. My intention in doing so is to let them know what it is like to take risks and be uncomfortable. The story they love the most is the fact that I went 9 days without a shower…I have had to educate them about the benefits of `bird bathing’ of course and have talked about how this practice highlights how much water we really do waste.

Collaborative School Inquiry

This Tuesday four school Principals and the School Supervisor will be visiting a number of classrooms across the school to observe our structured English practices and provide feedback on how well the implementation of these are progressing at ISS. This is an example of the processes we engage in as a school to ensure best practice in curriculum and pedagogy. Thank you to those teachers and students who will host our visitors.

Strategic Plan

We are at the mid stage of the whole school strategic plan meaning it is time for us to review progress and identify next steps. The school improvement team, consisting of teachers and leadership team members, will engage in strategic planning days over the few weeks, to help with this process.