12 Feb 2019
Welcome to the 2019 school year.
Everyone within the Orara High School community can look forward to a year of great learning, progress and achievement. Whether you are a student, staff member, parent, carer, or community member, I look forward to our many collaborations throughout this year of development and growth.
A special welcome to all our new students and their families. The Class of 2024 (Year 7 2019) is our largest group for some time, numbering 160 and still growing. This is very exciting, indicating a growth trend for the whole school in coming years. It is great to see Year 7 settling in so well already; my thanks to our Year 10 Great Mates for their terrific assistance and leadership with this important transition. To the many other new students across many year groups, a warm welcome too. You are all joining Orara at a very exciting time in its history.
Over the Summer we had some significant physical improvements made to the school. Construction on our new covered walkway entrance and the new roof above the History/Geography and Support Unit building is well underway. A new wheelchair accessible ramp was also installed at the entrance of our hall during the break. There will be some disruption this term as these projects continue and I look forward to everyone’s patience and flexibility during this process. The finished work will however be another important step in improving our facilities.
My thanks to the great work done over the break by our General Assistant, Scott Rolfe, and Farm Assistant, Glen Sweeney. Many necessary maintenance improvements were carried out so that students returned to the safest and tidiest playground possible. Additional work will be done in the coming weeks to install more covered seating areas and other improvements around the campus. Thanks also of course as always to our great ISS cleaning team who have worked hard to have our school looking clean and tidy prior to students returning.
As important as all these physical improvements are, it is of course people who make a school. As I have already mentioned to students, we all have to bring our best selves each day to this place of learning in order to make it an even better school. We must have high expectations of ourselves and of each other for great things to happen this year. If the first few days of 2019 are any indication, I think we are off to a flying start. My thanks to all students and staff for creating such a positive atmosphere from day one.
Please look forward to our first Newsletter for the year which will be published on all platforms towards the middle of Term 1.
Best regards
Mr Malcolm McFarlane
Principal