We have had a number of visitors in our school over the past week – politicians, contractors, new families enrolling students and members of sporting organisations. One common theme has been the comments on how polite, friendly and engaged the students are as the visitors have walked around the school. It is always a good sign of how engrossed students are in their learning that they don’t even realise that their class is full of visitors!

This week we hosted the Parliamentary Standing Committee in to Public Works. The politicians were guided around the school by year 3-10 students, who were able to explain the scheduled changes to the school as part of the redevelopment and what it would mean to them. The members were impressed that the students understood the upcoming changes and could openly speak their mind. From the year 10’s, it was reflecting on their 12 years at Penguin and what the benefits would be for future students, as well as some wisdom on what would need careful consideration in the planning. For our younger students, they shared some aspirational thinking and excitement of what they were looking forward to, and would be able to benefit from. For the committee, the involvement of the students was a real highlight.

Term 4 often involves a number of ‘first time’ experiences. For our kinders it would have been participating in today’s athletics carnival with wonderful support from their families. Yesterday, many of our year 10’s sat their first formal examination as a culmination of their hard work and commitment in a TASC level course of Maths Methods. We have also had a record number of students representing our school for the first time in non traditional activities with Penguin’s participation in touch football and Triathlon Tasmania’s Schools Event. I’d like to congratulate and acknowledge all of our students that have at some stage this year stepped out of their comfort zone by challenging and stretching themselves.

Mat Grining

Principal