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Hello, thanks for joining me for Episode 7 in Series 3 of the School Assembly podcast from Teacher – I’m Jo Earp. School Assembly is the series where we find out what it takes to build a new school from scratch. For the last 6 months we’ve been following Dan McShea, Foundation Principal of Notre Dame P-12 College on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. Well, the big day finally arrived and we’re about to check in with Dan on how that first day of the new school went. I hope you enjoy it!
Jo Earp: Hi Dan, it is fantastic to see you in 2025. First of all, then, massive congratulations, Notre Dame P-12 College is now officially open! How good is that?
Dan McShea: Hi, Jo, great to be back with you again. Yeah, we're up and away and it's fantastic to be here and to have our school up and running.
JE: Yeah, and we will talk more about that, and what happened on the day and your feelings on that in a moment. Just in case people are new to the School Assembly podcast, or new to Teacher podcasts, in fact, for this year – you may be a new teacher or just discovering us – I'll go through a bit of a quick recap of kind of how we got here. So, it's a bit like, you know, ‘Previously on School Assembly …’ for those people who want to do a quick catch-up.
So, we first caught up in August last year and had a brief chat there about, you know, just about your background and the plans there for the college. Episode 2 was on student enrolments (so, we have a different theme each episode). Episode 3, we had a really good discussion about crafting the school vision and the mission statement; I found that really interesting, so have a listen to that one on the archive. Episode 4 was all about leading – all about that role of leadership and some of your philosophy on leadership and empowering others and so on. So, another good listen that one, I enjoyed that one. Episode 5, always a popular one about the actual building process (and we had some good pictures of you in that). So, really just talking about the process of getting the site up and running and how you get it from a shell to a finished school. And then, we're back with this new one. We had a little bit of a one before Christmas on setting the teaching direction, the pedagogy; and I also caught up the principals from Series 1 and 2 as well – and they're doing fantastic too!
So that's kind of like a bit of a quick run through of where we're up to. We talk about the team a lot then, and that's obviously super important, the team itself, but as the foundation principal then tell me about that feeling of opening the new school. I want to go from sort of the day before, the night before. Is it kind of like butterflies you’re getting? And then the day itself … so you run me through your feelings on that.
DM: Yeah, great. Look, there's certainly butterflies and a lot of excitement! In our case this year, we did go right down to the wire with the construction project, or elements of it. And so, we were still actually wearing hard hats around outside and only able to access one building up until sort of 2 days before students returned. So, our teachers only got into their classrooms 2 days before students returned (guided by a labourer with hard hats on) so it wasn't ideal, there was a lot of workers around.
We really wanted to give our students a red carpet, remarkable moment on the first day of school. And so, everyone was up for it, and we literally did roll out the red carpet and it was a great day. There was a lot of joy. There was a lot of relief. There were people everywhere, smiling. I shared a video with you earlier, Jo, that you're able to see, and yeah, it was an unforgettable first day of school and one that I'll certainly remember for a long time.
JE: Yeah, I’m going to pop a link to that video in the transcript of this podcast, or just head over, in fact, to the Notre Dame Facebook page where you've uploaded it there. It looked fantastic, I have to say, it looked amazing. What a great day. Just seeing everybody with those smiling faces, you there at the gate and the staff at the gates welcoming the parents and the families and the new students, they were having a lot of fun there.
And you had like little photo opportunities and things, didn't you, where they could take, like, you know [photos] on the backgrounds; and it just looked like you had loads of really fun stuff set up.
DM: Yeah, it was, it was cool. And even just driving into work and seeing our uniform for the first time coming off buses and around the city of Caloundra was pretty amazing. And we also had a mascot of our Sea Eagle running around the place as well. So, there was definitely plenty happening, bubbles everywhere. And yeah, I think you can see the joy in that video that the kids were really happy, staff were really happy, and the parents were really happy. And we wanted to create that sense of belonging from the very first day.
JE: It looks like you did a fantastic job at that, and all the staff did as well.
DM: Thanks.
JE: Just remind us then, how many students did you actually open to on that first day?
DM: So, we started with 212 students – there's a few that'll still join us in the next few months as their homes aren't finished being built yet; so, we will have a few more trickle in over the next … well, before the commencement of Term 2. But 212 on our first day. Yeah, look we you know, we've already, we're 3 weeks in, we've had our swimming carnival, we've had our opening ceremony, we've got the Westpac helicopter landing on our oval this Friday. So, there's plenty happening already every day, Jo and it's a busy place!
JE: Wow, you're off to a real good start there. Wow, the helicopter landing. I love the fact that you've got the swimming carnival in nice and early as well.
DM: Yeah, it was a different experience just having … it was just our year 7s that we took down to the pool for the swimming carnival. But, you know, to be able to set the tone for what future carnivals will look like and make sure that that was a great day as well. And yeah, a lot of fun, a lot of fun, a lot of energy from the staff also, which was cool.
JE: That sounds great. Now, you mentioned there about last-minute things popping up. That was going to be one of my questions – a bit of late problem-solving there, or smooth sailing? It sounds like a bit of problem-solving. I know that you've had some, you know the weather up there has been terrible, hasn't it with rain and stuff. So, there was still things going on in terms of the building. I'm assuming then, did you have like a Plan B, C, D, E, whatever, whatever … you know, ‘if this happens, we'll do this’?
DM: Yeah. Look, something has happened or popped up every single day and I think you know for anyone undertaking this journey, or considering it, a degree of versatility and adaptability is absolutely required. Because, whether it's site issues, outside school hours care had some licencing challenges, the power [has seemed to be] pretty unreliable, the internet, missing deliveries, as you mentioned the weather – we've had a lot of rain over the end of last year and the beginning of this year. And so, we've just tried to focus on what really matters and that's, you know, that's our students, our staff and our families. And in that regard, things have gone smoothly.
JE: And you mentioned there about the opening ceremony, then, the official opening. So, does that come … you don't do that on the first day then? That kind of like, you schedule that for another time, that’s for the dignitaries then is it that come along? What do you do at the official opening then?
DM: Well, we just had an opening ceremony in our Catholic context – we had an opening mass, and that was on Friday. We would have had that with the dignitaries if we could have but some of the facilities weren't ready and there wasn't notice for some of those calendars. So, we're hoping to have our official opening ceremony in June, which is our feast day as well – June the 6th. So, that's the intention, that everything will be certainly finished by then and we'll have our official ceremony with all the dignitaries and special guests on that day. But we just had a beautiful morning just with our staff and students on Friday and that was the first time we've actually all been together in one place from P-7.
JE: And what's the response been like from the students? Were they're like ‘wow, this is like fantastic’, … again, this is the first time they've seen that; you weren’t able to do any tours in advance, that kind of thing – you had that brilliant 3D model, and you had the fly throughs and things, but it's not the same, is it?
DM: Yep. No, it's not. You know, we've had students just coming up to us and say ‘we've never…’ like the swimming carnival as an example ‘we've never had a day like this before. Thank you’. So, we've heard that quite a bit. We've had parents write to us already thanking us just for the for the ‘one-percenters’ I think – that people have gone to the trouble of getting to know the students. It's good, there's only 200 students, I think I'm pretty good with their names already and we've got a fair few staff that would be able to remember all the names of all the kids at our school. Won't be able to say that forever, but it gives us a good start!
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JE: The other topic that I wanted to touch on briefly in this episode then was the resourcing – and I mean that sort of from the perspective of getting all the ‘stuff’ (for want of a better word) in place. So, that might be like your furniture, your technology – you know all your computers and screens, there's so much tech in schools nowadays … websites, student portals … tonnes of decisions to make. External support programs that you're going to use, library and stocking of books, and all kinds of things … there's so much to think about there. How do you go about making those decisions when you haven't got anything really to draw on? I mean, you've got your pedagogy approach to draw on, obviously, but how do you go about making those decisions? Do you, kind of, like do a little bit now and then do more, or do you just do as much as you can? How does it work?
DM: Our Business Manager started in Term 2 last year. So, in Term 1, it was just myself and an administrative role, and our focus really was marketing and enrolments. By the time the Business Manager started, we were straight into furniture and big-ticket items like, you know, some quick decisions about which devices we were going to be able to afford and use. Big-ticket items like design technology and hospitality equipment and all of our classroom furniture was ordered pretty early in Term 2 – so that was our first focus there. We were later joined by a Head of College role (which is like a Deputy Principal in our system), and we started working on ways of working and our pedagogy, and what we call our Education Strategy document, and we started thinking about how we would operationalise that and what we would need to do.
We were then joined by a Librarian, a Primary Learning Leader and an Assistant Principal Learning and Teaching. They started in Term 4, and they were with us for all of Term 4, and so that's when we got down into the weeds on books and subscriptions and textbooks, etcetera. And you know, we were literally contacting textbooks as well in our little office at the end of last year trying to get everything ready in time. So yeah, book lists, toys for prep, play equipment … everything.
There is a lot of gear that goes into a school and there's still a lot of things that we'll keep ordering as we realise ‘we haven't got that yet’. We also see, you know, some of the staff don't realise what we have ordered, so we've got to say ‘no, we do have this, and this is where that is’, and we need to keep showing those resources to our staff already … and that happens in any place.
JE: Yeah, yeah. It's interesting when you're going through that list there and the other things that I haven't even thought about and then you've got all the PE equipment and … oh my, there's so many things, there's so many things to think about and they've all got to arrive on different days, and they all arrive in different places and that must be a nightmare. But yeah ...
DM: Well, yeah, one of the one of the challenges there was we had all of our deliveries lined up for the 6th of January and there was literally deliveries every day that week, big ones. And we couldn't access our site on the 6th of January, so we had to put them somewhere temporarily and then re-move them. And that was a bit of a nightmare. But look, we got through it, and it's done now.
JE: So that whole process sounds a bit like a giant game of Tetris to me. You've got to get your blocks on the bottom right, and then you know, you build up something else and you take on the library stuff and you take on the … and then all that's got to be in place, hasn't it – and then it should be, it should be OK. So, yeah, preparation.
DM: It should be one. One of the things that was really fortunate was our Business Manager has actually opened a new school twice before, so this is the third time he's been involved in a new school build; so, he's absolutely a wealth of knowledge and brings a lot of efficiencies to that space, which is why we wanted him.
JE: Now, we’re going to end on the 3 questions, but before we get there, I just want to ask you – what's it like, then, when I caught up with you at the end of last year, yes, you were busy (you know, like, of course, you were busy), but what's it like, that shift between where you were last year and then where you are now?
DM: Yeah. You know, there's days when I miss last year, Jo. I think I was certainly busy, but it was on my own terms, and you know I was actually I was probably going for a surf a lot more often and getting in the gym a bit more regularly. And already you can see some of those things falling away, because you’ve got to you got to turn up every day – you’ve got you got to be here a lot. But yeah, very different. But you know, it's so good to be around students again because, you know, I had a whole year without any students and that's been wonderful.
JE: Yeah, you do miss it don’t you, so that's good that it's so enjoyable. OK, then the usual 3 questions to end on. This will be interesting – biggest achievement? I think I'm … actually, you know, biggest achievement …
DM: Oh, so many, so many. I don't know if it's achievement, but the first day of school was wonderful. An absolutely unforgettable day and, yeah, and I think it went really well. Biggest hurdle?
JE: Hurdle.
DM: It’s just the construction. As much as our builders have been outstanding and they really pushed to get us where we are – and you know these are big projects, it's a feat to complete it in 12 months, which is what they've essentially done – but yeah, there's always things that aren't finished, aren't right, or compromises and plan B's and C's as you mentioned that you have to come up with and that's the hurdle.
Biggest learning for me is – you know, you can easily just get caught up in your office, but you’ve got to be present to the students, so you’ve got to make yourself get out there every day, I think. And that's what really matters; you don't want to let that go by and miss out on it.
JE: Yeah, that's fantastic. Well, awesome job on everything you've done so far. Congratulations to the whole community on the opening. This has been a really smiley episode – we've been smiling ear to ear all the way through it because it's just such a great feeling; and I'm feeling that actually just coming down through the connection as well, which is just how exciting is for you there. We're going to catch up in roughly about a month's time. It will come around really quickly though, they often do. And I think next episode the topic is probably policies and procedures, something like that, so there's a lot to get through in that as well, it’s a lot to think about. So, I'll be interested in that one. But for now, you enjoy the next few weeks, enjoy the start of term still and we'll catch up with you next month.
DM: Thanks for having me, Jo. Look forward to speaking to you again, have a great day!
That’s all for this episode, how good was that one! Thanks to Dan and the team up on the Sunshine Coast, and thanks for joining me, wherever you are. If you do want to keep listening now, don’t worry, there are more than 300 episodes in our archive to choose from, including our Research Files series, Behaviour Management and School Improvement. Find those wherever you get your podcasts from. Hit the follow button to make sure you don’t miss out on new episodes. And please leave a rating and a review while you’re there. Bye!
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Other episodes in Series 3:
In this podcast episode, Dan McShea talks about creating a sense of belonging for students from day one. We know from research that a sense of belonging is an important schooling outcome, making a difference in educational success and long-term health and wellbeing. As a school leader, how what strategies do you have in place to create a sense of belonging for existing and new students? How do you nurture this as a classroom teacher?
