Principal's Message - 2019 Term 1

In the name of Allah (swt), the Most Compassionate, Most Merciful.

We send our salutations upon our beloved Prophet Muhammad (saw), his family and companions. We thank Allah (swt) for the boundless blessings has He bestowed upon us and are grateful for appointing us as His stewards.

Alhamdulillah, with the grace and permission of Allah (swt) we have been able to commence our seventh year at Irfan College. This year commenced with another milestone as our College now services Kindergarten to Year 10. Please find below some important updates as we reach the end of Term 1, 2019.

Changes to Executive Structure

We commenced 2019 with some amendments to our Executive Team structure with the allotment of a Deputy Principal, a new Secondary Curriculum Coordinator and the allotment of a Head of Policy and Compliance role. Our Deputy Principal allotment has been handed to Mr Mustafa Ayvaz, who was previously our Well-being Coordinator. Mr Mustafa will still be responsible of Well-being, however with the addition of some new roles such as attendance, uniform, duty of care and supervision, and child protection. Our new Secondary Curriculum Coordinator is Ms Jena Yalcinkaya who previously assumed the Secondary Commerce teaching role. Ms Jena is an educator with a strong vision and commitment to lift the academic and behavioural standards of our students in Secondary. The Head of Policy and Compliance role has been handed to our previous Secondary Curriculum Coordinator, Ms Sameema Ali. Ms Sameema is an educator with three decades of educational experience with vast experience in the field of policy development and compliance. Ms Sameema will be ensuring that our College policies are up to date and being implemented, and leading our progression towards HSC. I ask Allah (swt) to accept our efforts and grant success to our Executive and teaching staff.

Application for Year 11 and HSC

We are pleased to announce that an application has been made to the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) for the registration of Year 11 and Higher School Certificate (HSC) in 2020. An inspection will be conducted on 12 June this year and we beseech Allah (swt) that our application is a success. We ask our parent body and school community to keep us in their prayers for the continued success in our efforts.

DA to Increase Student Numbers

An application was made to council a year and a half ago to increase our student numbers to 300. We recently received some positive news from the Roads and Maritime Services (RMS) that no works or upgrades were necessary if we were to revise our application to 285 students. An amendment was made to the application and submitted to council a fortnight ago. The revised development application is currently on community exhibition and will be until 19 April. We believe that this is the last stretch of the application and are seeking a positive determination by mid May. Please keep us in your prayers.

Strategic Plan

Our College Executive Team will be commencing an exciting endeavour this year preparing the strategic plan for 2020-2025. The development of a school strategic plan is an extensive and comprehensive process which will be supported by an expert third party. The development will include numerous stages such as building a roadmap, research and planning, and the surveying of students, parents, staff and the College Board, collation of data, analysis, and finally production. The process will reach completion by the end of 2019 and released in 2020.

Capital Works and Facilities Upgrades

We are also excited to inform our parent body that we are currently in communication with a building company that has years of experience building schools across Australia. As soon as we have a positive determination from Council regarding our recent application to increase our student numbers, we are looking to progress with our College masterplan by upgrading our school facilities. The upgrades include a new modular primary block that is segregated from our Secondary students. The subsequent phase includes the installation of our long-awaited school hall.

It is absolute honour and privilege to be serving our community in this capacity. We ask Allah (swt) to accept and bless our efforts and kindly request our parents to keep us in their prayers. I would like to thank our parents for their trust and continued support with the education of their children. It is through our relationship, collaboration and commitment that our students will only prosper, in shaa Allah.

Yours truly,

Mr Ali Arabaci.