General News
18 November, 2021
Noorat Primary secures Watkins long-term
NOORAT Primary School has secured the future of a familiar face with acting principal Ilona Watkins set to assume the principal role on a permanent basis.
NOORAT Primary School has secured the future of a familiar face with acting principal Ilona Watkins set to assume the principal role on a permanent basis.
Ms Watkins said she was excited to have been made substantive, which will begin from 2022 and keep her at the school for at least the next five years.
Ms Watkins originally joined the school in 2020 after spending eight years at Grasmere Primary School.
She said she was “absolutely thrilled” to continue her time as a part of NooratPrimary School.
“To be able to work with the children is something very unique in such a small school,” she said.
“I have a year 4-6 class every day and the whole school for sport and art. There wouldn’t be many principals in schools this small where not only are you principal and fulfilling that role, but you’re actually with the children on a daily basis.
“You really get to know them for who they are and you get to see where their strengths, challenges and passions are.
“You can then make decisions for the school and where we go based on that information. I am there, with the kids, every single day.”
While the position has presented no shortage of challenges as Ms Watkins began during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, she said seeing the resilience of students and their families had been a rewarding experience.
“I think parents, staff and students have had to experience their own challenges but the kids have done such a tremendous job to come through the unknown,” she said.
“That is something many people would not be familiar with because we like to plan and organise, and we just haven’t been able to do that in the same way we normally would.
“I started as we went in to lockdown so I was teaching students remotely before I met some of them in person. Trying to build relationships with students through a computer screenis hard.
“But it is just providing them a chance to provide feedback and then adapting the program based on their needs and what they like. It was very much a reflective process; especially in term two last year, where this was all new to the students, parents and teachers.”
The challenges of online learning also provided an opportunity to work directly with parents to help shape how the school would approach remote learning.
“We could get their feedback, as well as the students, to see how we were going as a school,” Ms Watkins said.
“How were we doing? how could we support students and parents?
“Hopefully we’re now through COVID-19 and we can get back to normal, whatever that looks like now, with excitement towards what is coming with people back in the school.
“We can start to rebuild that community and rebuild connections.”
Appointed for the next five years, Ms Watkins said she was excited to work towards a long-term vision for the school.
“My goal would be to keep building what we have been doing while getting it back to the thriving school community it was,” she said.
“We have an outside of hours care program we’re starting next year, we offer hands on learning and unique programs like that.
“Obviously some of the bigger schools don’t and because we are so small we can offer those opportunities and target so many more kids.
“My goal is to boost our numbers. This is a fabulous school with so many resources that the smaller numbers mean students get targeted attention which you can’t give to a classroom of 25 kids.”
