Helen Foulger - Head of Middle School

Personal

Growing up and attending school in Weipa I always wanted to be a teacher and was very focussed on this goal. My first teaching position was in Redlynch Primary School , Cairns. At this stage this was a 3 teacher school - a little different to it's current status. I then was persuaded to join the Private sector and taught there for a couple of years. The arrival of my daughter saw me take some time off from teaching before I was appointed to a school in Mount Isa. In my seven years in Mount Isa I worked in a wide range of roles including class teacher, reading recovery teacher, Preschool teacher and a Transition class teacher (teaching primarily indigenous students who entered the P-3 years having had no prior education). During this time I focussed on Indigenous Education issues both within the school ,across our district and State as well as nationally when I was invited to speak at the "National Conference for Indigenous Education". I then moved into a position of Curriculum Leader moving the school from an outcomes based curriculum to New Basics. Following this I acted as Deputy at the school. My appointment as principal at Karumba State School came in 2002. I spent 2 years in Karumba before coming to Weipa as Head of Junior School in 2004.

Role

As Head of Middle School at Western Cape College I have a vision of providing students with a high quality of education which compares favourably with any other school in Queensland. My role extends across all four campuses on the college and has accountabilities for Curriculum development and implementation, student outcomes and working with staff to maximise their potential.

Current focus

This is my second stint as Head of Middle School and I look forward to continuing the work begun when I was in this position in Term 1 this year.

The identified priorities for the Middle School are to

• Refine curriculum delivery, focusing on completion of all Rich Tasks in the suite, reduce the ungraded results and continue to extend the standards of work
• Develop and achieve targets around the percentage of students achieving national Year 5 and 7 reading, writing and numeracy benchmarks

In addressing these priorities we are currently developing strategies around

• 6/7 Transition
• Use of Professional Standards to develop Personal Action Plans for staff
• Review of Assessment, Moderation and Reporting process in line with QCAR document
• Development of Referral and Learning Support models for Years 7-9
• Review and further enhancement of Behaviour Management and TANC processes

This term we will also be looking to complete our Triennial Review Process

Links

The following documents are key documents which focus the direction in which I am going and the strategies I am implementing to achieve this

• ETRF - Document which is driving reform across Queensland
• Destination 2010 - Strategic Direction for Education in Queensland