School Culture & Come-as-you-are-ness

True cooperation is important to us

Principal Jörg Dopfer strongly believes that our decisions as a school should be informed by the entire community. He has created an open dialogue with students, parents, and teachers to understand what it is that they love about DSM. At the same time, he actively seeks parent, staff and student feedback on an annual basis - to exchanges ideas on what we could do better. 

At DSM, we have a Parent Representative Committee (PRC), a Student Council and the Consultative Committee which is comprised of teachers and administration staff. Elected representatives from these groups meet regularly with the school leadership throughout the year. These meetings provide a dedicated space to discuss new ideas, listen to feedback, and implement improvements accordingly. In 2023 for example, we created a new DSM Vision & Mission Statement for the school. Over a 12-months period, we held a series of workshops with students, parents, the Board and out staff to gather insights from all DSM stakeholders. The result is an inspiring document that expresses the different ways DSM aims to empower students' minds and enrich their lives.

By continuing to embody a collaborative mindset in how we operate as a school, we ensure that our students grow up to be independent, open-minded, and critically thinking individuals as envisioned in our Vision and Mission Statement. Together, we're creating a trusted and safe learning environment where our students can embrace a variety of learning opportunities.

Parent Representative Committee (PRC)

The purpose of our Parent Representative Committee (PRC) is to constructively support the school and to have a positively engaged group of people that regularly meets with the school and represents parents’ views, sentiments and feedback. The PRC is also responsible for soliciting feedback between parents and the class teacher/s and encouraging opportunities to connect and communicate outside of class. This new model aims to be a simple way for parents to connect with the school, to help improve and develop our school, receive timely updates, and to improve transparency and communication.

Key activities and responsibilities:

1. Selection/Nomination:
   1. It is recommended that two Parent Representatives are nominated per class - and they will alternate in attending the Parent Representative Committee meetings to represent their class.
2.  Communication:
   1.  A communication channel should be created by the Parent Representatives (if not already existing from previous years) to appropriately communicate with the parent group. Parents can opt-in/out.
   2. The PRC liaises with the school, not on behalf of the school with the parents - no official communication will be circulated by the PRC outside of the Parent Representatives filtering updates back through their defined communication channel.
3.  Social Events:
   1. One social event for the class should be organised by the Parent Representatives each term. This event is typically held on a weekend or after school and is a great opportunity for parents to connect and share feedback that the Parent Representatives can bring to the teacher or PRC meeting, as relevant.
4. Meetings:
   1. One Parent Representative per class attends the PRC meeting each term and brings relevant feedback for the school and best represents the class views/opinions. They subsequently feedback any news or updates to the parents in a timely fashion via the chosen communication channel.
   2. The Parent Representative/s also meets with the relevant teacher/s each term and brings feedback, suggestions, and questions from the parent group that is specific to the classroom.