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At the end of Term 2, the School was saddened to farewell our much loved and respected Head of Junior School, Mary Bourke, as she moves back home to Ireland. Mary joined Ivanhoe Girls' in 2016 and with almost seven years of service to the Junior School, she leaves a legacy of a strong cohesive culture where our students feel known for their unique personalities, character traits and skills. Her warmth, natural empathy, kindness and humility will be greatly missed, but we wish her nothing but the best in her exciting journey ahead.
This time last year I wrote about the importance of renewal, continuous school improvement and the benefit of fresh eyes to ensure our school is always meeting the needs of our students. Furthermore, it is through the professional development of existing staff and by attracting outstanding educators to our school that we can continue to optimise student achievement, engagement and wellbeing.
Ivanhoe Girls’ strong reputation results in our school being a ‘destination’ school for staff. This means we attract and retain the very best calibre of teachers and professional staff to help us to build on our tradition of excellent foundations. Each year we farewell a small number of our valued teachers and professional staff members as they retire or move to take up promotional positions in other schools and organisations.
At the end of Term 2 we farewelled our much loved and highly respected Head of Junior School, Mary Bourke, as she plans her move back to live in Ireland with her husband Keith. Mary joined Ivanhoe Girls’ in January 2016 bringing both extensive leadership and international education experience to our Junior School.
With an already well-established focus by teachers on differentiating learning in the classroom for all students, Mary expanded the personalised learning for students by taking our most talented Junior School students to their learning edge with the IGNITE Program. This program provides learning extension opportunities for students in a range of areas including Mathematics, Science, Writing, Problem Solving, Robotics and the Creative Arts.
With her almost seven years of service to the Junior School, Mary will leave a legacy of a strong cohesive culture in which parents feel warmly welcomed as partners in the learning journey of their daughters and students feel known for their unique personalities, character traits and skills. Mary’s warmth, natural empathy, kindness and humility have enabled her to create a sense of calm and stability for our students and staff.
We will all miss Mary greatly, however, I feel blessed to have shared part of her professional journey with her at Ivanhoe Girls’. We are indeed grateful Mary chose Ivanhoe Girls' in which to serve and lead. Mary’s many contributions and achievements were acknowledged at her official farewell morning tea in the final week of Term 2.
While we are always sad to farewell valued colleagues such as Mary, the glass-half-full view tells us that these farewells provide opportunities for new team members, with new and innovative ideas to join us. The School has commenced the search for our new Head of Junior School while being most ably supported by Helen Moore in the role of Acting Head of Junior School and David Furness in the role of Acting Head of Curriculum, Learning and Innovation – Junior School, throughout Semester 2. We know that both Helen and David will have the full support of the School and their fresh perspectives in their new roles will facilitate continuous improvement in the Junior School.
Dr Deborah Priest
Principal