Hastings Secondary College will strengthen its 'one college, many opportunities' approach as it heads into a new year.
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The college will begin the year with a new executive principal as Ian Ross replaces Willem Holvast who retired at the end of 2019.
"The vision for 2020 is one college, many opportunities. We have had a refocus on that in 2019 and that's the direction I'd like to take the college over the next few years," said Mr Ross.
"It's about allowing opportunity on college wide scale for every student in our care and our vision is also to have every person in the college moving to support students. The four main areas of support are academic, social, emotional and cultural support for students.
"Our primary philosophy is that every student is known, valued and cared for. Every student is an individual and every educational journey is different.
"We are about providing opportunities for the students to develop the skills they will need to be life long learners and to be contributing members of the communities they transition into.
"I'm very pleased with the staff and the students this year and the results they have achieved. We'll do the best for every student who comes through the gates."
A total of 62 students completed year 12 at the Port Macquarie campus this year and 48 students finished at Westport. Twenty one students were recognised as Distinguished Achievers after achieving a band six result and 65 students achieved band five.
Mr Ross said the strategic directions for 2020 include positive behaviour for learning, literacy and numeracy across all key learning areas, and instructional leadership for teaching staff.
At the Westport campus Duncan Kirkland will be promoted to relieving principal after three years as deputy principal. His vacant role will be filled by former Camden Haven High School deputy principal Rob Lyttle.
"I'm very excited for the opportunity to be a part of the senior leadership team and really driving the college vision. I'm really looking forward to the challenge," said Mr Kirkland.
The Port Macquarie campus will retain principal Meaghan Cook, who started work during term two, 2019 in late April.
"Under one college we offer five pathways for students and that's where we are so different to other education providers in Port Macquarie," she said.
"We have a program for students who want to achieve results that will get them into medicine, law or engineering. We have an ATAR pathway for students who want to go to a particular university, we have a flexible pathway to keep options open, industry based training and employment fast track pathways.
"No other provider delivers that."
The college is also pushing for a female pilot program similar to Clontarf in improving the education, life skills, self-esteem and employment prospects of young Aboriginal people.
"There is a major focus around supporting aboriginal students with the Clontarf students supporting boys and we are investigating ways of supporting girls in a similar way," said Mr Ross.
"We are currently employing Kelly O'Brien in supporting opportunities for aboriginal girls at the college. We are looking to develop our own processes for that and the opportunity for students to complete year 12 is one of the main focus areas.
"The school is currently trialling an online jam-making business called Tidda Connections with female indigenous students. The pilot program began in term four, 2019.
"One of our other big focus areas this year is robotics and we have some runs on the board with international trips for robotics and our Lego league teams performing well in 2019."
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