Learning and Teaching News

Year 9 Performance and Pathway Conversations

Year 9 Performance and Pathway Conversations have commenced and will continue throughout Weeks 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), during which they can discuss their sons' academic achievements, strengths, and aspirations.

Students have been asked to select subject preferences for 2024 (this was emailed to your son last week from Web Preferences and included a unique code and link), and then book a time during Weeks 3 and 4, to meet with a staff member who will provide guidance on these selections and address any questions. The conversations are booked through the Parent Portal - ‘Book a Parent or SET Plan interview’ icon. We please request if you have not booked an appointment for your son, for this to occur as soon as possible as appointment times are filling quickly.

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

Student Monitoring Week 

In homerooms this week students continued to be actively engaged in Student Monitoring in pastoral groups. This is where boys reflect on their Semester 1 results and set academic goals for Semester 2.

These are now written electronically in the Learning Analytics platform. They have been asked to write MARIST (Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Improvement focused, Specific, and Time bound) goals to promote academic improvement throughout Semester Two. Parents are encouraged to view their sons' academic goals to promote accountability and support. These can be accessed by clicking the chart symbol in the top right corner of Student Cafe.

Parents and Caregivers are encouraged to sit down and discuss these goals, in particular looking at strategies to achieve these.

NAPLAN Results

This week, your son received his NAPLAN results during pastoral group. Please ensure that you ask your son for his results. NAPLAN results are now reported differently to previous years. To find out further information about your son’s NAPLAN results please check here. NAPLAN information for parents and carers.

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 12 Exam Block

Year 12 parents and students please refer to the latest correspondence from Mr Newman, sent Sunday 23 July, for the latest information on exam block. More information will be released as soon as possible.

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 Tips 

Active Study – Note-taking 

Study, as well as being planned and scheduled, should also be active and involve producing something ‘visual’ (eg. notes, mind-mapping, transferring from pictures/graphs to paragraphs, etc.). Note-taking from the material presented in and after class is an important skill that boys need to master. Research has found it to be a highly effective way of learning and committing information to memory. Note-taking during study can follow the “6 Rs”: 

• Record the notes from class notes, textbooks, teacher lectures, Moodle, OneNote on a page and look for connections 
• Reduce the essential ideas by reviewing these notes a day later, and rephrase the ideas as questions 
• Recite the answers to these questions aloud whilst making sure all the recorded notes are covered 
• Reflect by asking oneself about how well it is understood, and devise clarifying questions for teachers to bring to school 
• Review in subsequent study times 
• Recapitulate main ideas by summarising again. 

The Academic Care office is here for any boy who would like any extra help and guidance in his study preparation.

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 5:00pm-8:00pm

Where: Senior Library 

Who: 2023 Year 12s 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 5:00pm-8:00pm.      
• 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 5:00pm-8:00pm 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