Principal's Update

Dear Members of the Mordialloc College Community,

Reporting to Parents

At the end of this week on Friday, Progress Check 1 will be released to parents and students on Compass. These progress checks focus on our students’ learning behaviours which link to our school values, their attendance and their academic progress.  Please download and discuss with your child/ren. In addition, continuously during the semester, students will receive specific written feedback from their teachers on benchmark tasks and SACs and they will be given some class time to reflect and identify areas for improvement.  Parents and students should also check Compass for results of benchmark tasks and SACs throughout the semester. Please ask your child/ren about the feedback they have received this term on their benchmark tasks and SACs.

A reminder of our reporting calendar published in a previous edition of our newsletter in February and attached here again for your reference. 

Parent/Teacher/Student interviews

We have conducted very successful online interviews over the past few years. We received very positive feedback from parents about the efficiency of conducting the interviews online, without the travel time and having to wait in line to see a teacher when held onsite. We have also taken on parent feedback to continue to improve in any identified areas to ensure the whole event runs smoothly and effectively for parents and teachers.  

We hope that parents and carers will value this opportunity to speak with teachers online about their child/children’s progress to date this semester and will therefore attend the online interviews.

The interviews will be held on Wednesday 5 April. Classes will be cancelled on the day and students are required to attend the online interviews with their parent/carer. The times will be confirmed in next week’s newsletter after being tabled at our School Council meeting this week for endorsement. One of my Assistant Principals, Tracey Bastin, will open bookings on Compass for parents by the end of the day on Wednesday 22 March. If you have any issues with making the bookings on Compass, please contact the General Office for assistance or Assistant Principal Tracey Bastin. 

NAPLAN: National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy

The national testing program has moved from May to March to enable earlier access to the results for schools and families. During this week and next, all students in Year 7 and 9 will sit the national tests online. Year 9 are sitting the tests in the EZ larger space and adjoining classrooms; and Year 7 throughout the Learning Centre. The testing period is being spread out over several days across both year levels with online tests in Reading, Writing, Conventions of Language and Numeracy. We encourage all students to treat these tests seriously and strive to achieve their Personal Best. 

The results once available will be used to:

• help teachers identify students who require greater challenges or additional support
• help the College identify strengths and, if any, gaps in teaching programs and to set goals in Literacy and Numeracy
• provide additional feedback to students and parents about individual achievements and progress

All parents of students in Year 7 and 9 will receive a NAPLAN report on their child’s results this semester. The report is only one aspect of the school’s assessment and reporting process and does not replace the more extensive and informed judgements made about your child by teachers. Thanks to Rachael Stone for organising and running the days of testing supported by our ICT team (and the practice test days in the lead up to ensure the College could meet all technical requirements of the online tests and for students to be familiarised with the online process), Director of Literacy Improvement Jamie Towsey and Director of Numeracy Improvement Maria Antoniou. 

College Council Elections

In the recent call for nominations for parent vacancies on Council we received enough nominations to fill all vacancies, which was most pleasing. It is my pleasure to welcome back Ian Fox and Jason Allen, and welcome Stuart Kerr as a new parent member. We had three nominations for two DET vacancies and an election was held amongst staff. Simon Cummins and Rachael Stone have been elected to these positions.

We had two nominations for the two vacant student positions on council, Bonnie Blinco and Tallain Connor, both in Year 9, are duly elected to School Council. School Captains, Jeremy Thai Chan, and Amelia Davidson, join Council as community members for the year. I thank all members for their commitment to Mordialloc College.

We have one outgoing member of council, Adam Wade who served on our College Council for the past five years and held the position of Treasurer, leading our Finance sub-committee. I thank Adam for his most valuable contributions and service over this time. 

City of Kingston Performance

On International Women’s Day last week, our students were invited to perform and speak at the City of Kingston International Women’s Day Awards celebration event. 

Thanks to Demis Danoudis and Kelly Ferguson for working with our students to prepare them for this significant performance in front of such a large audience from the City of Kingston community. 

Congratulations to the following students for their performance of “Brave”: Kylie Wolfe, Eden Lasbury, Lachie Welsh, Mia Hoernel, Nina Rachel-Burtt, Dylan Henderson, Jake Hickey, and former student from last year Bronte Taylor. 

In addition, the following students gave very thoughtful speeches - Lachie Welsh, Eden Lasbury and Bronte Taylor. All students can be very proud with how well they represented the College. 

We also congratulate one of our aides, Kelly Scurrah, for a being named as a finalist in the sporting/volunteer category for her work with the Mordialloc Lifesaving Club. 

New Front sign and DUX honour boards

After a further delay, the footings for the new front sign were finally put in place on Tuesday last week and the new sign will be installed this Friday 17 March. Once the reception and IT staff have been trained in the use of the software (hopefully on the same day) we can start populating with photos, key messages, key event reminders and celebrating our student achievements.

In 2018, we introduced the dux of each year level at Awards Night, and now we will have a permanent celebration and recognition for these students with new dux boards for Middle School and Senior School to be placed in the Learning Centre and Senior School Centre. All student winners since 2018 have their names on the boards and, like our other honour boards (90 plus board already in the Senior School Centre and honour boards in the foyer of our main building), they will be updated at the start of each year. The Middle School honour board has been installed with the Senior School honour board going up on 17 March. 

Transition

An important part of our publicity in the lead up to our SEAL Information Night (Thursday 27 April) and Open Night (Thursday 4 May) are the visits we make to our main feeder primary schools (Aspendale PS, Aspendale Gardens PS, Edithvale PS, Chelsea PS, Chelsea Heights PS and Mordialloc Beach PS). These visits will be taking place over the next few weeks and involves myself and Director of Middle School, Brendan McFarland, taking some of our students to visit each school for 40 minutes. Most schools are keen for us to speak to Grade 5s and 6s. On each visit we take a group of current Year 7 students and two Year 12 students to speak about their experiences as students at Mordialloc College. All students give a speech complemented by a PowerPoint presentation about the College and programs offered. I would like to thank all students for their involvement in this program, especially our Year 7 students who will be speaking at each visit: Kshama Rajendra, Cooper Gregory-McLean, Ally Worner, Molly Richardson, Ella Beckett, Sienna Hornek, Emma Dougal, Luna Kovac, Holly Grebbing, Stella Riley, Ava Adkins, Mia Scott, Jasmine Stratton, Isla Carmichael, Seb Acaro, Charles He, Lena Gorbatchev and Ivy Drury.

Tours

I have been taking a large tour each week of prospective students and parents since the start of the year. There has been an average of 30 people on each tour, and it usually takes 90 minutes with a big group to get around the whole school, speaking at each main building and following up with plenty of questions asked along the way. I have had to let prospective parents know that we will be limited in the number of out of zone enrolments we can take, and these can no longer be based on curriculum grounds (SEAL, SEP or Languages). The DET priority order is in zone, sibling and any out of zone placements are now to be based on those closest to the school zone, given the regional director has put a limit on our enrolments. This is to stabilise our student population at around 1200 students and thus not continue to grow. (We currently have 1220 students). 

Congratulations Jess Turner Year 10

Congratulations to Jess Turner in Year 10 who paired with a student from Geelong, Ellie Jury, to enter the pairs competition for Year 10 students at the Victorian Schools Cup for Beach Volleyball on Thursday 9 March and won their division. A fantastic achievement. They will compete again later this month in the National Schools Cup at Coolangatta following the Australian Youth Beach Volleyball Championships.

Helping Girls Regain their Confidence and Motivation

This is an interesting article by well-known clinical psychologist and author, Andrew Fuller that I shared recently with staff. It is worthwhile for parents to read.

Staff Professional Learning 

Our whole staff meeting schedule includes Wednesday early dismissal day (2.40 pm) for our staff to meet in their allocated Professional Learning Communities (based on the main subject/s and year level they teach in) to follow the “Mordialloc College Cycle of Inquiry” for an hour, followed by collaborative planning time. In our PLCs we are focused on metacognition and student self-regulation. Metacognitive strategies teach students to think about their own thinking. When students become aware of the learning process, they gain control over their learning. Metacognition extends to self-regulation or managing one’s own motivation towards learning. This pedagogical intervention from research conducted has the most impact on student growth and is demonstrated when the teacher:

• provides students with specific strategies to set goals, and monitor and evaluate their learning progress
• assists students to identify and use strategies that support them to achieve learning goals
• demonstrates how to use a particular metacognitive strategy in ways that make content knowledge more accessible
• uses a variety of learning and assessment strategies to scaffold and personalise the learning process
• provides support and scaffolding tasks through check lists, self-questioning, student teacher conferences and self-assessment
• uses ICT to increase student choice and flexible learning

This strategy is demonstrated when students:

• have a repertoire of learning strategies and can select strategies appropriate for the learning goals
• reflect on their learning processes, self-assess, and acknowledge the impact of effort on achievement
• actively seek out feedback because they value it as a way to improve understanding of how they learn
• are capable of self-regulation and proactively take control of, and responsibility for their own learning. 

Our staff workshops on Monday 3.30 pm - 4.30 pm are focussed on several key priorities for professional learning stemming from our Key Improvement Strategies in our Annual Implementation Plan for 2023 (and new Strategic Plan 2021-2024).

Our Key Professional Learning priorities includes:

• Introducing metacognitive strategies following a cycle of inquiry in Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) working in learning area teams
• Continuing to embed the MC Instructional Model (for consistency of teacher practice) supported by our triad peer coaching program 
• Continuing a whole school literacy focus on the six plus one traits of Writing 
• Senior Maths team working alongside Rob Park, Maths consultant 
• Positive and engaged learning/classrooms – including student and staff wellbeing

We are measuring improvement in teaching practice and precision through the PIVOT student perception data collected towards the end of this term, and again in Term 3 to measure growth.

Michelle Roberts

Principal