Newsletter

Assistant Principal's report

Nathan Wallace 

Exams

Earlier in June, I had the pleasure of supervising the Year 9, 10 and 11 exams. All students are to be commended for how they conducted themselves during this formal assessment period. This process should help prepare them for the all important Year 12 exams that commenced during this period with the General Achievement Test (GAT).

Semester Reports

Students will now be receiving the results of the exams and other learning tasks in their semester reports. While the feedback from CATs is continuous and will be collated from previous feedback, the Victorian Curriculum standards will indicate how your child is progressing relative to other students across the state. As important as this static measure is, the growth demonstrated by the progress line on the reports is more important. I encourage all students and parents to read the feedback provided about their learning growth, then use this feedback to set learning goals. These goals should then be shared with their teachers in semester two sharing your thoughts and ideas about how to achieve your goals.

Curriculum Committee Update

This year the Curriculum Committee have focused on improving the Year 10 program. The result of this focus is that after the Careers Expo on 24th July, current Year 9 students will have more choice in the subjects they will study in 2020. This choice includes an appropriate level of challenge in Maths and English (to be studied across the whole year), as well as choosing up to 8 semester based electives for the year. Some students may choose to attempt a VCE subject, while others may choose to attend TAFE. To ensure students are ready for this added responsibility, the course counselling process has been strengthened to ensure students are aware of the impact their choices will make on their educational pathway. This will involve working with the careers coordinator for a session, followed by a subject selection meeting with a member of the year level team. Parents are encouraged to be involved throughout this important decision making process.

Next semester the Curriculum Committee will review reporting to ensure students are provided with the best opportunity to improve their learning and achievement every day. Parents will be asked to provide feedback about our current reporting processes during this review.

Until then, I wish all students, teachers and families a safe and relaxing break. I look forward to working with you all next semester.

Cheryl Evans

READING - A SKILL WE WILL USE FOREVER

Every day we spend time reading. This might take the form of a book, magazine, a recipe, maps, a catalogue, instructions, graphs, texts, the newspaper or even just a sign just to name a few.  Words are everywhere and reading is a skill that we will never stop using throughout our whole lives.

It is important that young people read on a regular basis as reading builds our ability to give meaning to texts and builds our vocabulary. Students are encouraged to read a range of different texts as fluent readers recognise and understand many words and students with large vocabularies not only understand texts better but they often achieve better results on learning tasks. 

Research shows that families are the most significant influence on their children’s learning, development, health, safety and wellbeing. Parents, guardians and even older or younger siblings through modelling reading will also build skills in persistence, curiosity, self-belief and enthusiasm. So what can you do to support your child with their learning?

Reading together...is an extremely valuable thing to do. Reading increases your child’s vocabulary, expands your child’s understanding of the world, and gives them confidence when using language. Reading is also an important way to make the link between spoken words and written words.

Some things that you could do to encourage your child to read are;

  • Encourage your child to select books, magazines, catalogues, or multimedia stories according to their interests.
  • Encourage your child to read non-fiction. The newspaper, an online encyclopedia, or your child might might be interested in history books or autobiographies of their favourite sportsperson or celebrity.
  • Read the same novel they are reading at school so that you can discuss the text with your child. 
  • Involve your child in your discussions about the day’s events or current events. Ask their opinion. This helps them to understand different perspectives and increases their vocabulary.
  • Show a genuine interest in your child’s reading, writing and viewing of all types of texts. Talking about texts can create meaningful discussions and help your child to see them as being important.
  • Show interest in topics your child is studying at school. These can be a great springboard into discussions.
  • Encourage your child to discuss their everyday problems and feelings.
  • Use questions and discussion to explore other people’s feelings. This will help your child to develop empathy for others.
  • Use questions and discussion to broaden your child’s experience and knowledge of the world, particularly during new experiences or on outings.

Discussing news and current events, can enrich your child’s understanding of the world.

Questions are an effective way to encourage your child to think critically about an event and can help foster empathy. Questions also help your child to develop oral fluency when discussing social issues.

Questions you might ask when discussing a news article / story or current event include:

  • What do you think caused the event?
  • How do you think people will be affected?
  • Is it fair?
  • Why do you think people think that/do that?
  • What do you think will happen next?
  • How could the problem be fixed?

By encouraging your child to read you will continue to build their confidence and skills associated with self-belief.