Mr McDowall replaces long-serving former principal Karen Jagers, who retired at the end of last year after dedicating her entire 38-year teaching career to St Philomena's, the past 10 as principal.

Although he has "big shoes to fill", Mr McDowall brings plenty of experience to the role.

He comes to Moree from his previous post as head of learning and teaching for the Catholic Diocese of Armidale, where he spent two years overseeing the learning and teaching of all 24 schools, including St Philomena's, from kindergarten through to year 12. Prior to that he was the principal at St Joseph's Primary in Wee Waa for three years, and assistant principal at Bourke. He's also taught in the Lismore Diocese as leader of pedagogy and prior to that had spent 10 years teaching in London.

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However, he said he's keen to "hang his hat up" for a significant amount of time in Moree.

With a young family - nine-year-old twins Harrison and Jackson in year 4 and eight-year-old Emerson in year 2 - Mr McDowall said the opportunity at Moree offered the ideal professional work/family life balance.

"In my previous role, I was on the road every week. I was home on average one to two nights a week," he said.

"St Philomena's has a reputation in the Diocese for leading the way and to have children being taught in that environment was appealing to me and my wife. This school is from kindergarten to year 10 and we have every intention of our children going through to year 10 here."

Mr McDowall had also been working with St Philomena's on a project for the past two years, and is looking forward to being able to continue that work but in a more direct involvement as principal.

He said he's been loving his time at St Philomena's in the five weeks he's been at the school.

"I've worked in many schools but I can't say I've felt this comfortable in such a short space of time," he said.

"The community has been incredible.

"I'm spoilt and blessed to have the staff that we have here. They're very serious about improving learning for our kids. It's great working with them."

As principal, Mr McDowall hopes to continue the legacy that Ms Jagers and the leadership team have created and developed over the past few years, "growing and instilling the fabrics of lifelong learning".

"When a student leaves in year 10, we're preparing them for global challenges, not just local," he said.

One of the biggest changes he's already brought to the school is his philosophy of teachers as "leaders of learning". The term 'teacher' has been dropped from the school, being replaced by 'leader of learning'.

"As teachers, we have a responsibility to deliver content but as a leader of learning, we are ultimately after student learning," he explained.

"Teachers teach content, which can often be about content delivery. Leading learning is about refining, reflecting and re-looking at how our students learn so that learning takes place. We don't stop until learning takes place."

Every day at the school, students are asked five questions by their leaders of learning - What are you learning? How do you know you're learning? How are you going with it? How can you improve? Where do you go for help?

These questions are asked every day, multiple times a day and are used to constantly gauge what is sinking in and what might need revisiting.

"The more we realise and help students understand that we're on a journey and we all start at different points and we're all going to get to points at different times," Mr McDowall said.

"If we look at how we can grow, that's success."

Another change students might have noticed is that Mr McDowall and the leadership team have been meeting and greeting every student as they come to school every day, helping to build positive relationships.

"It's an opportunity to get to know students and for them to get to know us," he said.

Mr McDowall said he looks forward to working with the leadership team and staff to continue and expand on the great work started by Ms Jagers.