Dear Parents and Friends,

In my last two articles I have introduced the exciting changes we are making to the Science Department and Library here at GOS. As you know our Vision is to ‘Educate, Nurture, Inspire Excellence’ and the improvements we are making to the school are designed to assist us to achieve our Vision and give your child/children the best possible education for lifelong learning.

We are also planning to develop other areas of the school including:

• Administration Services areas for parents - At present these are spread between the floors. This means for parents to pay the finance department they have to go upstairs, then back down to the uniform office or student services offices. We are planning to put all the parent services on the first floor. This will make it much easier and more efficient for our parents to complete their business with non teaching staff at the school.
• Renovations of our Art Rooms. This will include a kiln and new rooms for Art so they can expand into pottery, sculpture and have areas for displays.
• Covered areas-To increase the space for children to use when it is raining and during very hot sunny days, we plan to cover the basketball and netball courts with roofing. This will enable students and teachers to have more covered areas for play and PE lessons. It will also mean it will be possible to hold assemblies and concerts outside for both the whole school and parents to attend.
• More covered areas for secondary students. We plan to renovate the fifth floor area of the school. This will mean a purpose built covered area for senior students to sit and work as well as take their breaks in a dry, shady area. We will also be putting benches and seating in other areas of the school to enable students to be comfortable outside the classroom at break times.
• There is a committee working on updating our technology in the school. We will be looking at ensuring all areas of the school have Wi-Fi and so the use of tablet computers for study will bring GOS into the virtual learning age. This is a very exciting area and one that needs to be managed and well thought out. Our committee is creating IT use policies as well as systems to ensure this technology is used correctly.

The above are plans to make GOS an even more exciting place to be. There will be other improvements and changes including increased security cameras, painting of rooms and doors, renovation of public areas and better facilities for staff.  It is planned that the majority of these improvements will be ready for the start of the 2016/17 school year.

Over the coming semester I shall keep you updated with the progress of our plans and show designs for the new facilities. Thank you.

Helen Swan
Principal