Learning and Teaching News

Drop and Write Program 

Literacy is a fundamental component of our boys’ education. To further support their literacy needs, throughout Terms 1 and 2 boys in Years 5, 7 and 9 participate in our Drop and Write program. This program is run by our classroom teachers and supported by our Curriculum Leaders and College Leadership team. Our focus for this year is sentence structure, cohesion and punctuation. All boys have been provided with an A5 drop and write booklet, which will be placed inside the plastic sleeve in their College diary. I encourage you all to spend some time looking through these booklets and seeing what your son is writing!

Assessment Calendars

All boys should now have access to their assessment dates for Term 1. Boys can access these dates one of two ways –

1. By accessing the assessment calendar on Student Café or Parent Lounge. You can access this by following these instructions via this link.
2. By viewing the attachment in the copy that will be emailed to students this week from MCA Learning and Teaching (curriculum@marash.qld.edu.au)

2021 ATAR achievements and Semester 2 Academic Awards 

During assembly on Wednesday 16 February, the top ten achieving ATAR students from the Year 12 2021 cohort will be welcomed back to the College in order to recognise their outstanding academic achievements. At the same assembly, we will be celebrating our Year 5-10 academic award recipients from Semester 2, 2021.

To be eligible for an academic award, students must achieve:

• Years 5 – 6: 4A’s or better and nothing lower than a B in the five core subjects
• Years 7 – 10: 6A’s or better and nothing lower than a C

This assembly will also acknowledge the students who achieved the Head of College Awards. Students receiving these awards received all A’s in the behavioural and application criteria in Semester Two, 2021. 

Due to COVID-19 restrictions, this event will be live-streamed. 

Middle School Numeracy and Literacy Practice (Years 7-9)

Next week our middle school students will undertake testing to identify their literacy and numeracy skills. The results from these tests will be used to determine areas of strength as well as identifying areas that require additional support for both our students and programming. Our students will receive feedback on these tests, but results do not go towards the end of term reports etc. 

Boys will need the following equipment.

Testing timetable below.

Monitoring Weeks (Years 7-12)

Over the next two weeks, students in Year 7-12 will work with their Pastoral Group teacher on their monitoring program. This program allows students to reflect on previous academic achievements and set goals for the term ahead. Monitoring for Year 7-9 will occur this week (Week 4), while students in Years 10-12 will work on this next week. The term goals will be written in each students’ diary in the format outlined below –

Each of the goals should be S.M.A.R.T (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound). We encourage you talk to your son about his academic goals for Term 1 and how he plans to achieve these.

Year 8-11 subject changes 

Over the break students in Years 8-11 may have decided to change their elective subjects that they chose last year. If your son would like to change his subjects, please encourage him to see or email the people list below:

• Year 8 subject changes – relevant Head of House
• Year 9 subject changes – Head of Middle School Learning and Teaching, Mrs Rosenberg or Secondary Learning Leader, Mr Adam Knight. 
• Year 10-11 subject changes – Deputy Learning and Teaching, Ms Smeed or Secondary Learning Leader, Mr Adam Knight.

All subject changes will need parental permission in order to be made. This can be in the form of an email.

All subject changes need to be made by Friday 18 February.

Study Hall

Study Hall will begin again this week and will run the Resource Centre on Tuesday and Thursday morning from 7:45am-8:30am. Please note Thursday’s session is a repeat of Tuesday’s lesson. These sessions are open to all boys from Years 5-12. 

Please find below the outline for the Study Hall for the remainder of Term 1.

Future Innovators Club

In the next two weeks, the College will be inviting our best and brightest students to form part of the inaugural (and yet to be properly named) “Future Innovators” Club. It is through here that we wish to give these boys the chance to inquire, create and reflect on projects and innovations that are only limited by their imaginations. It is also hoped that these boys will enter competitions throughout the year that call for forward-thinking and innovation to design and solve problems.

Families of students who qualify will be receiving their invitation in the next week or two. The College is extremely excited to offer this opportunity to our high-performing boys who have proven these skills and curiosities in and outside of the classroom.