Principals from across the Catholic, independent and public education sectors in Bendigo came together for a historic meeting on Thursday as part of an initiative of the city’s Education Council.
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Council chair Darren McGregor said the meeting at La Trobe University was the first time in living memory principals from each of the sectors had met to discuss their common passions and values.
“The main aim of the day really is to get people to start talking to each other, to get people across the sectors in leadership in education saying ‘This is what’s going on in my school, this is what I’m trying to improve, this is where I’d like some help’,” he said.
“You start to see people across the room go ‘Oh, I’m the same, we’re working on that as well’, and suddenly you’ve got the Catholic sector talking to the state sector, you’ve got primary schools talking to secondary schools.”
Mr McGregor said the Education Council was born three years ago when the schools realised there was no “unified voice” on education in Bendigo.
“The perception three years ago was all the schools were competing against each other, and it is a competitive market, but that’s not the main message, the main message we want out there is we’re all committed to education, we’re all committed to young people and we want to be that voice,” he said.
“There was this phrase out there saying ‘we want to be an education city’, in actual fact it was happening in a way in isolation to education so we had to lift our game.”
For Golden Square Primary School’s Barry Goode, the meeting was a unique opportunity to hear the perspectives of his non-government colleagues.
“I get to see government school principals quite regularly at networking meetings, but tapping into the ideas of how other people are functioning and working on some of these really important issues that are on the table at the moment from both independent and Catholic sectors is really valuable,” he said.
Leanne Preece of Weeroona College Bendigo, who is on the steering committee reviewing the Bendigo Education Plan, said the Education Council initiative was a valuable addition to the city’s education future.
“It’s tied into this because really what that review is going to be doing is looking at the future and looking forward to 2028 around what’s going to be happening in state education in Bendigo and that has a bearing on all education in Bendigo,” she said.
