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Information Technology Services
Information Technology Services MR CHAU CHUC, HEAD OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY
The IT Services team is focused on supporting our students’ educational experience by providing friendly face-to-face technical support, ensuring that heir teachers can get on with the job of teaching, providing the platforms to administer the College and ensure the continued development of Fairholme’s IT facilities.
The upgrade of the College internet connection to 1 gigabit per second provide students with fast access to online resources and systems.
The students’ response to the elearning platform, myFairholme, continues to be positive. Major technical developments have been put on hold while students and staff become familiar with the new QCE subjects and processes.
The Fairholme College Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/ fairholmecollege) was launched in 2013 and engagement continues to increase.
The Fairholme laptop program has been upgraded to the Dell 3300 series laptops with toughened glass touch screens. As with all our previous Dell laptops purchased for student use, these were purposeddesigned to meet student handling and needs in the full range of subjects on offer. Fairholme College’s IT Helpdesk and in-house systems engineering and administration continue to meet the demands of an educational environment. Listed below are some facts and figures for the technically minded.
Email and Internet Traffic: • Average number of emails sent and received (per month): 265,000 • Average number of blocked incoming emails - spam or infected (per month): 160,000 • Average volume of internet download (per month): 12TB
Helpdesk Services: • Average number of helpdesk jobs per month (other than laptop services): 750 • Average number of battery swap-and-go services per month: 800 • Average laptop and hardware services per month (free technical support such as data recovery, insurance claims or warranty claims): 250
Hardware Infrastructure includes: • 1 Video Conferencing system (Polycom) • 855 laptops (all with SSDs) and desktops • 35 iPads • 80 Data Projectors • 20 interactive whiteboards • 230TB network storage 90 printers 5 scanners 8 physical servers (library converted to VM) 25 virtual servers 70 network switches (1G or 10G capable) 9 fibre links (10G capable) 10gig backbone through entire server infrastructure Full Xirrus wireless infrastructure - 117 dual radio ‘AC’ wireless access points, 4 quad radio ‘AC’ arrays, 4 outdoor extended range antennae panels. 1 gigabit symmetric ethernet internet (WAN) connection through fibre.
Software infrastructure includes: • Single Sign On • Reach Boarding • myFairholme (third year of deployment) • Windows 10 Education (64 bit) • Office 2016 Professional Plus • Office 365 • Adobe CS 6 Master Collection • Adobe Creative Cloud • Windows Server 2019 • Exchange 2016 • System Centre Endpoint
Protection (antivirus) • Hyper-V (server virtualisation) • Freshdesk (helpdesk software) • Synergetic (school management software) • Family Zone (Internet
Management Platform).
Key Student Outcomes Student Attendance – Average Rate in the College
In 2018, the average student attendance rate for the whole College was 95%.
Year Level
43 15 22 18 25 25 33 49 95 75 79 101 81 82
Number of School Days in 2019
Total Number of Attendance Days in 2019
Total Number of Student Absences
Average Attendance Rate
APPARENT STUDENT RETENTION, YEAR 10-12
In 2019, the apparent retention rate for students moving from Year 10 through to Year 12 = 95.34%
Student Retention
Year 10 Base
Number 86 Year 12
82 Apparent Retention 95.34%
MANAGEMENT OF NON-ATTENDANCE
Fairholme College recognises that attendance each day and each lesson is an integral part of student success. We take great care to monitor the attendance of every student each day. Attendance is recorded electronically each day at 8.30am and again at 11am and in the final class of the day. In addition, rolls are also marked in Assembly/Chapel or Holme Group Meetings. Absentee lists are generated early each day and are placed on the Staff Room Notice Board and are also emailed to all staff.
Administration staff follow up any students who are absent to ensure that we have had contact from parents or care-givers to let us know of their whereabouts. These staff will phone, email or SMS the parents of any students not accounted for. Additionally, students who are missing from classes during the day are also followed up by academic staff such as a Head of Sub School or a Head of House. These staff are also involved in supporting students to return to school when they have had an extended absence from school.
When a student is ill or unable to attend school, it is expected that parents of Day Girls notify the College by 8.30am by phone, email or via the College app. Boarding staff notify key staff about any Boarders unable to attend class and are therefore in the College Health Centre. Should a student be absent for more than three days, the Head of House or Head of Sub School will contact the family to offer support and enquire as to the student’s welfare at that time. In the case of prolonged absence, parents are asked to request planned absence for their daughter in advance via a letter through the College Principal. Student Absences during examination/assessment time are managed through the College’s Student Academic Policy.
STAFF COMPOSITION
In 2019, teaching staff at the College numbered 58 full time and 11 part-time employees. Additionally, 34 full time and 49 part-time employees undertook non-teaching roles in the business, catering, maintenance, health, residential, Arts and Sporting facets of College operation.
PARTICIPATION IN PROFESSIONAL LEARNING
Professional Learning opportunities at the College encourage continuous professional growth as there is a strong connection between teaching standards and teacher Professional Learning; the link to student learning is clear. Our staff endeavor to deepen their subject knowledge, develop their teaching skills and stay current with new research while striving to remain innovative and imaginative in their field. In addition to Professional Learning days, visiting experts, keynote speakers, collaborative work, seminars, workshops and conferences, for both academic and non-academic, staff covered a disparate range of fields and topics in the past year.
The College values the knowledge and commitment of its employees. We recognise teacher knowledge and skills contribute significantly to the quality of teaching and learning at the College. Therefore, Fairholme actively supports the professional development of our staff which included the following:
Professional Learning Activity
Professional Standards/Code of Conduct Work Health and Safety Training Restorative Practices Evacuation & Lockdown Training Principles of Learning and Teaching Training Learning Management System
Teacher Participation
99%
100% 95% 100% 100%
100%
100% of the teaching staff participated in at least one Professional Learning activity in 2019.
EXPENDITURE ON PROFESSIONAL LEARNING
In summary, $38,845 was spent supporting Professional Learning for 69 teachers. Average expenditure per person sat at $563.
STAFF ATTENDANCE
Average staff attendance for the school, based on unplanned absences of sick and emergency leave periods of up to 5 days: Average staff attendance for permanent staff, temporary staff and school leaders – 97.64%
STAFF ATTENDANCE
Number of Staff Number of School Days
153 190
Total Number of Absences 686.05
Average Attendance Rate 97.64%
PROPORTION OF TEACHING STAFF RETAINED FROM PREVIOUS YEAR
100% of permanent teaching staff from 2018 retained for the 2019 school year.
Teaching Staff, end 2018 69 Staff Retained in to 2018 68 Retention Rate
98.55%
QUALIFICATIONS OF ALL TEACHERS Qualification
Doctorate Masters Bachelor Degree Diploma Certificate
Number
2 15 66 56 6
