Principal's Report
NAPLAN
This week, our Year 7 and 9 students completed their NAPLAN testing. They were undertaken via the online portal and should all be congratulated on the smooth transition to the testing in this way. We would also like to acknowledge the work of Simon Giang and the school IT department for their support in getting our systems and the students’ devices ready to go.
The shift to completing NAPLAN online has a number of benefits for students, parents and schools. One of the biggest benefits is the adaptive nature of the tests, where a student’s test will adapt to provide students with questions to either extend students in their thinking with more challenging questions or provide students with greater scaffolding with some simpler questions. This means that the tests will provide students, parents, teachers and schools with a more detailed and accurate understanding of what students can do in each of the areas tested (Reading, Writing, Conventions of Language and Numeracy).
Whilst individualised results to students and parents won’t be released for some time, some initial whole school data will be provided for teachers in the coming months so they can individualise and target the needs to individuals and small groups of students in their classes.
Students who were absent for the testing this week should keen and eye on Teams and Compass for details of when they will be scheduled to complete a ‘catch-up’ NAPLAN session.
Learning Conferences
Learning Conferences will be held online on Thursday 30th March from 11:00am to 7:00pm via the Cisco Webex platform.
Bookings for Learning Conference appointments are now open via Compass and brief Progress Reports will be available to download via Compass at 3pm on Wednesday 22 March. Please check your Compass newsfeed for details to support you to use the platform and access teachers for your appointments.
Learning Conferences are a valuable opportunity for a three-way conversation between parents, students and teachers. As active participants in their own education, students are expected to attend the learning conferences with you. Students are encouraged to reflect on their efforts and discuss future learning goals and challenges with both you and their teachers.
Please note that this is a student free day and the school will not be providing supervision for students as there are no scheduled classes on this day.
In preparation for the conversations, we encourage you to read the comments for all Learning Tasks on Compass and review the Progress Report work habit judgements. Descriptors for these are available in the Parent Reporting and Assessment Guide on the College website. Discuss with your child their learning progress to date and identify questions you may wish to ask of teachers when you meet. To further support these discussions complete Assessment Schedules for all year levels and subjects for the Semester will be made available via the College website in the Student Learning tab under Curriculum on 24th March.
We look forward to this opportunity to meet, albeit online, to discuss your child's learning.
Promoting Student Voice
Student voice and agency in their learning is valued at Brentwood. As part of our work on developing a Student Learner Model to support the wider Brentwood Teaching and Learning Model the leadership team have been conducting student forums this past week to learn more from students about their experiences at school and seek feedback on how we can continue to improve our practices.
The school has also once again used the PIVOT survey to collect and collate student feedback on classroom practice for our first cycle for the year. The survey allows us to collect meaningful feedback on teaching practice and the data gathered provides teachers with insights and resources to continue to develop their practice in the classroom which they are encouraged to share with their classes, and for the leadership team to identify trends at cohort, faculty and whole school levels we can strategically address through wider supports.
Student Event Highlights
In the past week we have enjoyed the involvement and engagement of students in both the Athletics Carnival and Community Day. The Green Team have created a wonderful tradition of hosting a range of activities on sports days and promoting student participation and this spirit was also upheld in the recent student led Community Day. Students operated stalls in Courtyard West during lunch and the Peer Support students ran dodgeball with year 7s in the gym. We are incredibly proud of their efforts and they have nominated the Turkiye/Syria relief as their charity to contribute to.
Sonja Ardley
Associate Principal