Gippsland AGM Reviews the School for Student Leadership

Dr Michael Dyson

Gippsland AGM Reviews the School for Student Leadership

At the Annual General Meeting of the Gippsland Region of The Australian College of Educators on Thursday 16th June, Dr. Michael Dyson, Vice President of the Gippsland Region of ACE gave an inspiring review of a decade of activity at the Alpine School at Dinner Plain which has now expanded to include the Snowy River campus at Marlo and the Gnurad-Gundidj campus near Camperdown in the Western District. 

It is now called the School For Student Leadership.

Dr. Dyson touched on the collegiality of the environment in which the students work, and the strong commitment to their specific Social Programs which they had committed to do when they entered the school. Dr. Dyson found that the cooperative learning model and experiential and service learning developed at the school at all its campuses has been the highlight of the students' experiences and has been taken back to their home schools when they return to complete their Social Programs.

Supporting Dr. Dyson in the discussion were Prof. Len Cairns a board member of the School , and Robyn Francis, principal of the Snowy River Campus.

Dr. Margaret Plunkett, President of the Gippsland Region reported on the investment which the Australian College of Educators had made to educational thinking and discussion in the region over the last year.  The highlights included:

*    The 27th Len Falk Memorial Lecture " Leadership: It's a matter of Principal" given by Elida Brereton  on October 20th to over 70 guests.

* Gippsland Education Service Awards presented to 8 of Gippsland's top Language Teachers.  A feature of the evening was having one of the Awards presented to Lynette Dent from the KODE Campus, Morwell for her development of a language course for the local Gunnai Kurnai people. By her work Lynette has resurrected the language and its future is safeguarded.

Professor Jo Lo Bianco, Chair of Language and Literacy Education at Melbourne University presented the awards and provided an challenging talk " Languages Matter".  Dr. Margaret Batten A.M. assisted in the presentations.

* Gippsland ACE has appreciated having close ties with the Victorian State Branch which has enabled us to be involved in their activities as well as helping in the preparation of the ACE response to the Victorian Parliament's Education and Training Committee Review into the provision for gifted students.

The following will be the office bearers for the coming year:

President: Dr Margaret Plunkett

President Elect: Dr Michael Dyson

Immediate Past President: Shaumus Scott

Secretary/Treasurer: Keith Brownbill

Committee members: Dr Monique Osborn, Julie Murray, Graham Scott, John Duncan, and new committee member - Dr Deidre Marshall