Reynella East College is our new name! I received a letter recently from the CEO to say that our newname has been approved by the EducationDepartment and the Geographic Names Board. I amcertainly pleased that the overwhelming vote byparents across the whole school for Reynella EastCollege has been endorsed by DECS and the Board.Now the work begins to turn our new name into areality. For the remainder of this year an interimGoverning Council has been formed from thePrimary and High School Governing Councils toguide the school through to the first AGM ofReynella East College which will be held early nextyear.
The members of the interim GoverningCouncil include; Bev Bradwell, John Reeves,Bernadette Parkhurst, Amanda Barker, Wendy Fry,Leanne Dyer, Jo Brown, Chris O'Dea, PaulWhittenbury, Greg Bowden, Tania Guest and TanyaDi Lernia. At our next meeting, we will beconsidering a range of issues related to the closing ofour schools and reopening next year as Reynella EastCollege, including our school colours, logo, anduniform. We are also very keen to begin a numberof committees and support groups, such as a schoolSport committee and to continue our Parent andFriends committee. Please contact any members ofthe Governing Council if you have any thoughts orideas about these matters.
We would certainly bekeen to hear of anyone who would like to assist theCouncil in any of the committees that it establishes.In the meantime, planning continues for our majorrebuilding program, with weekly meetings with thearchitects looking at every aspect of the newbuildings and refurbished older buildings. Whilesome preparatory work has begun, the majorconstruction is not scheduled to start until themiddle of next year. Our new classrooms will not becompleted until the middle of 2012. All of this meansthat we will continue to operate fairly much as weare for at least the next couple of years, in that theCPC - Year 7 section of the school will continue tooccupy the existing primary school site and havelesson breaks at different times to the Year 8 - 12section of the school.
Many of the services that thePrimary children access will still be located in thesame buildings until the completion of the BuildingProgram. Only then will the Year 7's move into,what is now, the 8 - 12 section of the school. In themeantime, we will be considering all aspects of theway that our school operates to ensure that studentsreceive the best possible conditions in which tolearn. One example is the Learning Communitystructure of the Middle School. There areopportunities to extend the 3 Middle schoolcommunities into the Senior School and also into thePrimary section of the school, but does this thenmake them too big to operate effectively? Anotherissue that we will be looking at is the InternationalBaccalaureate Program.
Again there areopportunities to use the International Baccalaureatecurriculum in both the Primary and Secondarysections of the school, but with the NationalCurriculum being introduced across Australia, is itstill useful to use the International Curriculum?These and many other questions will be the topic ofmuch conversation amongst staff and the GoverningCouncil as we continue to look at ways to enhancethe learning opportunities that our school provides.An enhancement that many of our students enjoy issport. At the end of last term it was great to see ourteams in the Saturday morning Soccer Competitioncompete in the finals and win in two of the age groupcompetitions (see further information in this newsletter)and of course this year, many of our teams havereached and won state finals in a range of schoolsporting competitions.
In recognition of our successand the commitment of our Sports staff, led by MrMatt Silcock and Mr David Scholz, we have beenapproached recently by both the Rugby LeagueAssociation and the Football (Soccer) Federation tostrengthen our relationship with them that mayinclude establishing sports' hubs at the school usingtheir development officers and coaches. Along withour ties with Golf SA and the Vines Golf club, we willcertainly be able to offer even more opportunities toour students here and in the surrounding schools.
