Students from the Wellington High have built a high-quality reputation for their school, and in turn prompted the Education and Training Director-General Michael Coutts-Trotter to visit the town.
On a tight schedule, Mr Coutts-Trotter arrived in Dubbo on Monday morning to speak at the Western NSW Principals Conference, before heading to the high school for lunch.
In an exclusive interview with the Wellington Times, the Director-General made time for a quick chat about the importance of education.
“I have heard great things about the public schools in Wellington. I met Evelyn Willie and Bruce Carr who are part of the talent development group and they had nothing but positive things to say about their school.
“They spoke about the school and the way (it) helped them develop their talents.”
Admitting is was “lovely” to be out in the country, the friendly Mr Coutts-Trotter was treated to a ‘home-style’ lunch cooked by the hospitality students.
“The quiche was delicious,” he said.
“It is my first visit here and I’m enjoying every minute.
“The school leaders are delightful ambassadors for the school; they have the right mix of staff and experience to help the students achieve their best.”
The controversial ‘MySchool’ website was also a popular topic on the day, and said he saw major deficiencies in the league tables that claimed to provide analysis of the wealth of information that was recently released on the website.
“If we choose to deal with that by banning the NAPLAN tests in our schools, we will be throwing the baby out with the bath water,” Mr Coutts-Trotter said.
“We lose the benefits the diagnostic tests provide for our 735,000 NSW public school students.
“League tables have to be tackled, but a ban simply implies that our parents will not look beyond a shallow newspaper headline. Our parents are smarter than that.”
As for public schools on a national scale, he remained confident about the future.
“The quality of public schools is increasing,” Mr Coutts-Trotter said.
“What makes a good school is that every school can improve.
“We are also looking at planning and how to use money from the commonwealth and State governments, and Wellington does get a lot of money from them.”
Mr Coutts-Trotter’s visit to the school was cut short, however went on to the primary school before heading back to catch a plane in Dubbo.
High school principal Keith Peasley believed it was a great privilege to have someone in such a high position visit his school.
“The students were very excited to have him here,” he said.
“We were able to show him all the things we are doing here, and how the money we have received has helped.
“The school was looking a million bucks and he is an extremely intelligent fellow, who engaged with our staff immediately.”
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