Gumleaf Primary School – Mythical Name, Real Pain!

Its not just the School Council Parents that are hurt with Bronwyn Pike’s Scape Goat School Merger Policy!

In checking out about School Mergers in Victoria, I came a cross an interesting paper that was looking back on the experiences of participants in a “Master in School Leadership” course that was developed at Monash and Melbourne University. The program was described basically about helping kick start Educators in the area of leadership:

In 2004 the Department embarked on an exciting and ambitious venture, engaging Monash University and the University of Melbourne to design a Master in School Leadership (MSL) program.

This high quality development opportunity, which leads to an accredited master qualification, was designed to enhance the leadership capacity of current and future leaders and provide an opportunity for teacher leaders to share professional learning with fellow educators from all over Victoria.

(Source: Willing to Lead – http://www.eduweb.vic.gov.au/edulibrary/public/staffdev/schlead/Willing_to_Lead/Willing_to_Lead_-_Master_in_School_Leadership.pdf)

To my surprise, Mary Verwey (right) had written a Case Study about her experiences at “Gumleaf Primary School”, a school that had went through a messy school merger. Interestingly enough, Mrs Verwey had been the Acting Principal at Oakwood Park Primary School, the school that my son had gone to for his first two years until it closed in a messy school merger process.

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