Principal’s Update

Dear Colleagues,

I hope you all found time to unwind and rest over the holidays.

Thank you to those colleagues who were in over the break picking up enquiries and dealing with external contacts.

Unfortunately, at the end of term, my mother was taken into emergency care and suffered a stroke. I will be in college on-site as usual in the mornings but working online in the afternoons from her home this week to support, sharing care with my siblings until we can organise other support. I am telling you this as I like to be open and transparent and may not be my usual self over the coming days. It is good to be at work and have some normality though.

Congratulation to our Hair and Beauty team for winning the Inter-Island trophy, I thoroughly enjoyed the show. It’s wonderful to see students from France, Jersey and Guernsey interacting with each other and enjoying the whole experience.

This week at SLT we will be looking at the new and developing teaching and learning strategy including digital (rather than as a separate plan), wellbeing support for staff and students, recruitment and stakeholder engagement. The HR role for Highlands is out on advert and I have received a few contacts from interested parties which is great. Also, the replacement role for Vice Principal has been approved and I will be engaging AOC to support the recruitment process, probably with an assessment centre in May.

At the end of term meeting, I welcomed new colleagues, but there was an error in the list provided – apologies. Please find an updated list below and say hello to our new colleagues when you get a moment.

Carol Crowther will be leaving us at the end of this month after decades of service to the college; there will be local celebrations, but we all wish her well for the future and wish her every happiness. She will still be supporting assessment and verification for the professional courses which is appreciated.

Seán O’Regan – Group Director of Education

As we continue to pay mind to the step down in Covid mitigations, and returned to more ‘business as usual’, this has seen Department colleagues, external leads and peer reviewers undertake nine JSRF reviews this term, seeing a great deal of impressive practice in our schools and colleges. School and college leaders have gathered to push forward on our ambitions to be a more inclusive system, including at this week’s Inclusion conference, hosted at Highlands. We also gathered together across all schools at a great learning and teaching conference led and hosted by Les Quennevais School, with the world leading input of John Hattie’s keynotes.

Spring has been a challenging term, with the ongoing responses to the disasters that beset our Island, most recently with the flooding in Grands Vaux, which have affected so many families. We have also faced the enduring challenges re recruitment, with new and successful approached to the recruitment of teachers and lecturers, and TAs, both for now, and those in training or the future need. We still have much to do but will see further success through collaboration.  

Thank you for all your endeavours.

I hope the beginning of term isn’t too frenetic for you.

Best wishes

Jo