From the Acting Principal

Interim reports are available on COMPASS and this is the final opportunity for parents and students to take stock of their progress this term prior to the final semester reports and lead up to exams in Years 9 - 11. As always, I encourage parents to discuss results with their children and focus on elements which they can influence, such as effort, homework, behaviour and attendance. If these factors are high, academic results will follow.

Our Year 12 Students are at the end of the VCE Exam Period (Final Day 20th November) and must now wait until 12th December for their final ATAR results. To the students who are seeking pathways that do not require exams, well done and please make use of our wonderful Careers Team if additional support is required to secure your pathway.

The school has been a buzz of activity in recent weeks with special guests invited to present to our staff. On the 1st November we had Associate Professor Misty Adoniou from Canberra University conducted a workshops with all our English staff and Heads of Department.

Misty appeared on Four Corners on Monday 11th November and I would encourage all parents to view the episode on ABC or catch up TV. Her work has been instrumental in improving literacy-writing outcomes for students across the country and we are very fortunate to have had her work with our staff for an entire day. She will join us again next year as we continue our journey of improving literacy outcomes for all our students.

On 13th November, we used the Curriculum Day to work with Laureate Professor Jenny Gore from Newcastle University. She spent the day training our staff in a program that unpacks the 18 essential elements of a high quality lesson. Teachers worked collaboratively through this program discussing the complexities of high quality teaching, and what quality practice looks like in a classroom. Her research is based on thousands and thousands of classroom observations and is funded nationally. The improvement in teacher instruction after a cycle of this program regularly displays a sustained effect size of 0.4-0.5, which is considered significant in our work. I have provided the 18 elements divided into the three key dimensions.

Arthur Soumalias

Acting Principal