Principal's Update

Dear Families, Students and Community Members,

Reporting to Parents

At the end of last week, Progress Check 2 was 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. If you haven’t already done so, please download and discuss with your child/ren. 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. Please ask your child/ren about the feedback they have received this term on their benchmark tasks and SACs.

Parent/Teacher/Student interviews

As I reported in my last newsletter article, we have allocated a full day with altered hours of attendance for this important event in Term 1 this year. School Council have endorsed Wednesday 31 March 11am-7.30pm for our parent/teacher/student interviews, in the last week of this term. Classes will be cancelled for this day and students are required to attend the interviews with their parent/carer, wearing their school uniform. Bookings will open this week on Compass after 5pm on Wednesday 17 March. A map of teacher locations will be available via your Compass log in to assist you in making your bookings in the most efficient way. We expect that parents and carers will value this opportunity to speak with teachers about their child/children’s progress this semester and will therefore be in attendance at the interviews. Even though we conducted very successful online interviews during Term 3 last year when in lockdown, we would like to conduct these first interviews for the year in person, dependent, of course, on there being no further state lockdowns this term. If you have any issues with making the bookings on Compass, please contact the General Office for assistance or Assistant Principal, Andrew Moffat.

Transition

An important part of our publicity in the lead up to our Open Events: Sports Excellence Program information session 6pm and SEAL information session 6.45pm (both on Thursday 22 April) and Open Night 6.30-8.30pm on Thursday 29 April, are the visits we make to our main feeder primary schools (Aspendale PS, Aspendale Gardens PS, Edithvale PS, Chelsea PS, Chelsea Heights PS, Mordialloc Beach PS and Bonbeach PS). This started last week and involves myself, Tracey Bastin and Daniel Williams 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 have taken a group of current Year 7 students and two Year 12 students to speak about their experiences as students of Mordialloc College. They have represented the College with pride and the way they feel about their school was obvious in their respective speeches, 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 attended and spoke at each visit: April George, Charlie Dodds-Vines, Cooper Oates, Asha Davis, Mackie Taylor, Ryan Dollard and Ethan Simons.

Extra-curricular activities and lunchtime clubs

There is a fantastic array of lunchtime clubs and extra-curricular events on offer for our students this term. I would like to thank all teachers who are involved in providing these opportunities for students. Mr Simon Cummins, Director of Student Engagement, has already shared our Term 1 calendar of events and clubs with parents earlier this term. I would like to highlight the following clubs/groups currently on offer: Philosophy Club, Coding Club, Chess Club, Debating Club, Gardening Club (Stephanie Alexander Garden), French Club for Middle School, French Club for Senior School, VCE Maths Club, Lit Chats, Snapshot (the student driven magazine), Writing Club, Breakfast Club, Respect Group, Japanese Club, Student Voice Committee and our Student Representative Council (SRC).

Cultural Diversity Week

This week we have been celebrating Cultural Diversity Week. It coincides with the United Nations’ International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Thanks to Mrs Peerbux for organising an engaging program of activities and teachers Ms Baker, Ms Champ and Ms Capp for their assistance in running the activities. Apart from the daily quiz and poster competition, there was origami and trading cards, the Linguistics Olympiad, bocce games, a range of different cuisines served in the canteen over the week and calligraphy lunchtime sessions. The Taiko drumming incursion for Year 8 is scheduled for Term 2.

Year 8 Camp

This week our Year 8 students are off on camp from Wednesday to Friday at Rawson Village in West Gippsland, which is on 15 beautiful acres on the doorstep of the Baw Baw National Park. Students will have the opportunity to participate in a range of team building, adventure and fitness activities. Thanks to our Year 8 YLCs, Laura Gorman and Georgia Davey, for organising this camp and the following staff joining them for the three days to work with and support our students: Tracey Bastin, Daniel Williams, Julie Pretty, Loretta Ilott, Phoebe Macreadie, Madeline Hatton, Samantha Wells, Eleni Capp, Indigo Yorke, Kellie-Ann Roberts, Jess Doherty, Alireza Panahandehfard, Andrew Fisher, Daniel Mayadas, Mick Haber, James Nicklen, Cameron Young, Di Douglas and Simon Belluzzo.

Letter from the Victorian Chief Health Officer

Please find the link to this letter from Brett Sutton encouraging schools and communities to remain vigilant in helping prevent the transmission of COVID-19. The most important action we can take is to ensure that any unwell staff and students remain at home and get tested even with the mildest symptoms.

Message to schools early childhood centres and their communities.pdf

Staff Professional Learning

Our whole staff meeting schedule includes Monday after school 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”, and our Wednesday early dismissal day. This allows a one to two hour workshop focussed on a number of key priorities for professional learning stemming from our Key Improvement Strategies in our Annual Implementation Plan for 2021 (and new Strategic Plan 2021-2024); and also time for collaborative planning.

Our Key Professional Learning priorities includes:

connecting feedback to data following a cycle of inquiry in Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) e.g. Year 7 Discovery team of five teachers, supported by our triad peer coaching program and Learning Area focus in supporting the use of assessment data to improve teachers' ability to diagnose and evaluate student learning growth over time. This includes using multiple data sources to identify our instructional groups and track student growth and for differentiation to be evident in lesson planning and feedback to students;
continuing to embed the MC Instructional Model (for consistency of teacher practice) supported by our triad peer coaching program and Learning Area walks
continuing a whole school literacy focus on Reading and Writing
positive and engaged learning/classrooms – with guest presenter, Glenn Pearsall over four hours this term after school.

We are measuring improvement in teaching practice and precision through the PIVOT student perception data collected during mid Term 1 and all teachers will be surveying students again in September/October. Teachers receive results for their individual class/es and we also receive collated results for the whole school by learning area and year level. Teachers also complete focus group discussions with their class/es to further explore the results and set goals for improvement based on student feedback.

Professional Practice Days implementation

As per previous years and as outlined in the Victorian Government Schools Agreement, in addition to the four whole school student free days, teachers have been allocated two professional practice days (pro-rata for part-time teachers) to be utilised this semester (one per term), and I expect this to continue in second semester (dependent on the new schools agreement currently under negotiation). They are entitled to be released from classes to focus on the improved delivery of high quality teaching and learning. The work undertaken on these days must be consistent with Department and school priorities (as outlined in our Strategic Plan) and selected from the following areas: planning, preparation, assessment of student learning, collaboration, curriculum development, relevant professional learning and peer observation including feedback and reflection.

The College priority has continued to be how we can most effectively implement this requirement to minimise the disruption to our students' learning program.

How to best support your child with homework

This article from the online publication “the conversation” may be of interest.

https://theconversation.com/how-to-help-your-kids-with-homework-without-doing-it-for-them-126192

Ms Michelle Roberts

Principal