Learning and Teaching News

Year 12 Academic Schedule  

In line with previous correspondence from Mr Michael Newman on Friday, the Year 12 IA3 exam block originally scheduled for Monday 31 July – Wednesday 2 August has been rescheduled to now take place from Tuesday 8 – Thursday 10 August 2023. Students will only be required on campus for their scheduled exams.

The schedule for the exam block is outlined below –

Year 12 Sport and Recreation students will be on camp during this exam block. These students will complete their make-up exams on Monday 14th August. 

The Year 12 mock exam block scheduled for weeks 7 and 8 of this term will now be held from Monday 28th August to Wednesday 6th September and will include a mock external exam for every General subject. Students will return to normal classes from Thursday 7th September until the end of the term at 3:10pm on Thursday 14th September. The schedule for these mock exams will be released closer to the date.

Year 11 End of Unit 2 Exam Block

As per the College calendar, the Year 11 End of Unit 2 exam block was scheduled for Friday 31st August – Thursday 7th September (week 8 and 9). This block will now commence on Wednesday 6th September and conclude on Wednesday 13th September 2023 (week 9 and 10).  The exam bock schedule will be released closer to the date.

Year 11 Unit 2 report cards will be released in Week 3, Term 4.

Year 9 Performance and Pathway Conversations  

Year 9 Performance and Pathway Conversations have commenced and will continue throughout Week 3 and 4. These conversations provide a valuable opportunity for our students to engage in meaningful discussions about their subject selection for 2024 and beyond.  They involve 15-minute interviews with individual students and their parents (encouraged to attend in person or via TEAMs), during which they can discuss your sons' academic achievements, strengths, and aspirations.  

Students have been asked to select subject preferences for 2024 (this was emailed to your son from Web Preferences and included a unique code and link), and then book a time during Week 4, to meet with a staff member to discuss these selections. The booking system has now closed, so I request students and parents who have not booked in to email curriculum@marash.qld.edu.au and we can manually do this. Parents are welcome to join these meetings via TEAMs, please email curriculum@marash.qld.edu.au and we can send you the link for this. 

We encourage all Year 9 families to actively participate in this important process and take advantage of this opportunity to shape their sons’ educational journey.  

NAPLAN High Achievement

Congratulations to the following students who were at the top of each testing domain in NAPLAN as per their scaled scores. 

A special mention to Luke Garvey who achieved full marks in his writing script.  We have included his story for you to have a read. Congratulations Luke.

Disaster

James couldn’t move. Every primal urge in his body desperately fought to make him run, to escape, attack , do anything but he was nonetheless bound by a superior urge to clench every muscle in his body and hide, to stay, to survive. Everything was shaking and it felt like the world was folding in on itself to converge upon James and destroy him. Lying in the fetal position beneath what felt like an oak tree, such mental deadlock persisted for hours? Minutes? Time had no meaning. The only thing that meant anything, the only that occupied James’ catatonic mind was the sound. It propagated from his toes to his head and back again, penetrating his very essense. All the while the now feeble voice of rationality grasped at the fog for meaning for explanation. Why was he here? What was going on? Is anybody there? Then it ceased.

Everything suddenly stabilized and James miraculously emerged from his meretricious trance. He stood up, still completely despondent. He saw a cracked and splintered tree nothing more than a foot away from where he lay. The recent vacuum inside his thoughtless mind was filled by the austere beauty of the solar rays illuminating the crushed shrubbery, and amber sap spilling from the broken wood fibres, the brilliant luster of the minerals and plantlife within the spring, as well as the subtle complexity of the panicked, albeit organised complexity of the ecosystem of arthropods and insects beneath his deet. There was destruction, and desolation everywhere. Then he felt something tightly nestled in his palm. Looking at it, he saw a uniquely irridescent stone of... andesite, perhaps? Then it all came back to him. His blissful ignorant trance of disassociation ended and all that he had repressed rushed back to him. The floodgates were open.

James was on hiking trip with his parents in North America, his first time on a plane. They had set up camp near one of the many recreational destinations near their resort. He was happy. He was exploring with his Dad when he saw it. The stone. He was fascinated by its unique sheen and the similarly distinct imprint it left on his hand when he held it. His Dad was telling him all about the tremendous and ancient geological and stoichiometric conditions that had contributed to its creation but then it happened; the powerful, and omnipresent sound infiltrated the memory and he remembers nothing back vague snapshots of the following event, running, falling, his Dad yelling something, his Dad getting fainter, falling again, and then nothing. And then now.

Wiping away the tears now accumulating on and staining the stone, he looked at it. It filled him with a passionate primal rage mixed with the equally powerful, depressive feelings of lacrimose. They compounded within him, amplifying each other more and more. He hurled the rock at the nearby spring as it momentarily skipped along its surface before sinking to its bed. He ran. Driven only by the inherently human desire to survive, to overcome. He had no tangible sense of direction but everything felt so vivid and clear as he leapt over fallen trees and vegetation. He knew his father was near he just had to find him. The sound suddenly becoming not an overwhelming force of nature, but an enemy, a problem. It became quantifiable, mortal. With this abrupt influx of the passionate, inextinguishable will to survive, James was liberated from all fear. James knew that when the sound returned, he would be ready.

Tutoring at the College 

Tutoring at the College is available for all students, and outlined below are faculties where your son can receive assistance. 

*Other faculties by appointment with the classroom teacher. 

Additionally, the CLE run touch-base tutoring for specific students in the College. For more information, contact CLE@marash.qld.edu.au.

If you would like an external tutor, please find a list of Old Boy tutors below.

Year 11 and 12 – Registering for myQCE 

The QCAA is running a competition to encourage all Queensland students to sign-up to myQCE – a platform to allow them to access key information and results as they progress to their attainment of a QCE by the end of Year 12. The myQCE competition opens on Monday 10 July and closes on Friday 15 September. It offers Year 10–12 students a chance to win one of four prizes: a MacBook Air and three Sony WH1000XM5 Wireless Noise Cancelling Headphones.  

To enter the competition students must:  

• follow the myQCE Instagram account  
• like a myQCE Instagram post  
• tag three friends in the comments  
• register for the Student Portal (if they haven’t already), log in and check/update their information such as their personal email address and phone number. 

Students can enter the competition and find more information at: https://myqce.qcaa.qld.edu.au/get-motivated/get-involved. The QCAA will contact the four winners by email, and their names will be published on the myQCE website, myQCE Instagram account and in the Term 4 myQCE update  

Senior Library Hours       

Our senior library is open from 7.30am every morning until 5.00pm Monday-Thursday. It closes at 3.30pm on Fridays. 

Your son is encouraged to head to the library before and/or after school to complete his homework or study, free from the distractions at home. 

Study Hall   

Year 12 Night Study Sessions      

The Night Study Sessions are weekly study times available to Year 12 students who wish to work in collaboration with their peers for assessment, complete revision, revisit classwork or work on external exam preparation. 

When: Every Wednesday during term time from 5pm-8pm      Where: Senior Library      Who: 2023 Year 12’s only      Requirements:      

• Current ID card is to be presented on arrival      
• All students must sign in and out of the library      
• All standard library rules are to be followed (including no eating)      
• Normal student behaviour expectations apply; if these cannot be met, students will be prohibited from returning to future sessions      
• Students are free to wear full College uniform or plain clothes      
• Students are free to arrive and leave as they see fit. Supervision is only provided in the library between 5-8pm.      
• Students are to be in the library only. This is not a time for sport or social gatherings.            

A librarian will be on duty from 5-8 pm to assist if required; however, these are not tutoring sessions. 

Accessing Student Results 

Student results and feedback for assessment items can be accessed by parents on Parent Lounge. Please follow the steps below which highlight how to access your son’s results and feedback.

1. Open parent portal and click on “Parent Lounge”   

2. On the left-hand tab select “Curricular Activities Due” and select “view all activities” on the top right-hand side of page.    

This will take you to a screen that lists of your son/s assessment to complete or has been completed.   

3. Click on a subject to view feedback.    

4. Once you click on the subject you will be able to find the following information:   

1. Task sheet for assessment – this will outline what your son needs to do to complete the task successfully 
2. Draft due dates and due dates
3. Criteria sheet
4. Feedback 
5. Result