A dedicated educational leader spearheads educational innovation with a moral purpose. They have strong faith in themselves and possess a forever-learning attitude. Such leaders ceaselessly guide and support their colleagues and students towards growth and betterment and they are driven by the motive of refurbishing the benchmarks of education.

One such erudite leader with a passion to learn and educate others is Narelle Nies, the Principal of Revesby Public School, NSW, Australia. Being a proud frontrunner, she enthusiastically involves in activities of the school community and the broader learning community as a part of a systematic scholarship.

She upholds the values of the NSW Department of Education in every decision, action, and plan. Narelle’s prime objective is to prepare young students for rewarding lives as ethical citizens of the community and as global citizens of the future. She leads by example and is always prepared to take steps for the betterment of the students.

Narelle takes the initiative to know every student and their family and works to ensure that they are cared and valued for in the school. Forming meaningful relationships is at the heart of her philosophy and as such, she invests heavily in them resulting in their school community being one of the most engaged communities in the area. She is a firm believer in team effort and puts in a lot of effort on building a positive school culture where everyone belongs, celebrates strengths, and strives for growth. She has immense faith and high expectations of the staff, students, and the community, and seeks opportunities for all stakeholders to improve.

A Steadfast Leader

Narelle always focuses on the development of the students, the community, and achieving academic excellence. She has collaborated with many institutions to develop a strategic plan for the community of schools, where she invites the best ideas from within and beyond the department. Implementing her leadership skills, Narelle uses evidence-based programs such as Learning Sprints and Educhange Leaders to have a significant impact on both teaching practices and student learning outcomes. She not only focuses on collaborating with the staff and community, but also with colleagues in the wider profession.

Narelle’s primary attention remains on ensuring that the staff and students are providing and receiving the absolute highest standard of education. As a result of her dedicated endeavors, the school received an “Excelling” rating in the School Excellence Framework through the External Validation Process. Narelle works to ensure that all stakeholders are accountable for the role they play in properly educating the students. She constantly strives to regularly improve the school’s performance and prepare for a bright future.

She is a dynamic and sensitive leader, who aims at achieving meaningful outcomes through her dedicated endeavors. Her honesty, expertise, and commitment speak for her excellent leadership skills. Narelle is often called upon leaders of the local community, media, and other educational groups, which portrays her abilities as an excellent leader. She is a passionate, transparent and professional leader whose service to staff, students, community, and the NSW Department of Education is exemplary. The school culture at Revesby Public School can be directly attributed to outstanding leadership and a common belief that its values enable all opportunities for the community to connect in meaningful ways.

An Accomplished Educator

Throughout her illustrious journey of imparting education to the youth, Narelle has achieved much recognition. Some of her accolades have been mentioned below:

• Narelle was nominated for Principal of the Year, 2019 and named as a finalist in the Australian Education Awards.
• She was identified to present at the NSW Principals Conference 2018, regarding the school initiatives to over 600 principals to share programs, future focused learning, innovation, and project based learning.
• As principal, Narell was named Innovative School Leader of the Year, 2017. During her first year as principal, Revesby Public School, presented an innovative project to the Inclusive Communities Youth Summit, involving students presenting their own initiative at NSW Parliament House to politicians and religious and cultural leaders, as well as the media. As part of this innovation, students worked with community members, religious leaders in the community and Aboriginal elders to develop a plan to ensure cultural inclusivity within Revesby Public School. The project was recognized by way of a Secretary’s commendation.
• She has also received a Secretary’s Award for the Growth Mindset as a part of The Faces of Education. This was produced as a video to represent the Department of Education related to the Growth Mindset and shared widely through social media.

Collaborating for Excellence

Under the astute leadership of Narelle, Revesby Public School demonstrates strong links between the learning and curriculum enhanced by partnerships between other schools and inter agencies, where it works collaboratively to focus on improving student outcomes. The school prides itself on highly valued relationships between students, staff, and the broader community seeing a greater input from all areas in the school’s directions.

Narelle is proud of the productive relationships that the school has developed with a range of external agencies such as Beechwood Nursing Home, local high schools, Filmpond, Film By the Banks, Learning Links, and Together for Humanity. This provides the opportunity to enrich the learning experiences and add great value in education. She leads the school to take the learning beyond the classroom where it has developed many close partnerships with the local community.

A prominent collaboration is with that of Beechwood Aged care facility. Students of the school have visited the facility on a number of occasions to share music and stories. This provides students the opportunity to interact with the local residents. Additionally, the students get to know firsthand the importance of human connection across the generations. The residents share stories related to their life experience and important parts of their local history. Such interactions bring out various qualities such as kindness, compassion, and empathy among the students. The school lays emphasis on these qualities, which will help the students to develop into responsible global citizens. It considers all the residents as a part of the community and wish to connect with them. It believes that teachers, parents, and the community can work together to promote learning and enhance education.

About Revesby Public School

Revesby Public School aims to develop an exemplary school culture that is conducive to learning. The school’s philosophy is built upon ensuring every student is known, cared for, and valued. It works collaboratively using the expertise within the school to promote improvement for all students through providing tailored professional learning. It marches ahead to embed positive processes in order to build collective efficacy. The school intends to build successful, active, and lifelong learners where wellbeing is a clear focus. It is an inclusive and supportive community which values respectful and collaborative partnerships. The school fosters resilience and persistence through a growth mindset.

The Frontrunner’s Legacy

Narelle believes that every child has equal right to quality education. Her legacy is to prepare the students beyond their school years to become independent and responsible individuals. She intends to inspire students who are resilient, persistent, creative and critical thinkers, reflective, and who value learning as a lifelong tool. She is of the belief that leaders are responsible for making things better. Hence, she continually focuses on making constant improvements and how to make the institution better.

“The school’s roadmap would be one of inspiration, motivation, affirmation while challenging the practice and pedagogy in order to strive for improvement. It is all about supporting educators within and beyond the school gates to build their capacity so as to have positive impact as a system” she says.

Narelle works to ensure that every student belongs and sees themselves as a part of the broader community. She inspires students to be active global citizens who understand that they can contribute significantly to the world around them. She proceeds with the motive to build a community of practice where the focus is on how students learn, how teachers teach, and how leaders lead. Narelle’s greatest hope is to create a lasting impact in the way they enable and empower students. She aims to promote a future that is better than the past.

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