Learning and Teaching at MFG

‘BE BOLD, BE HEARD’ MIDDLE YEARS GIRLS’ FORUM

On Wednesday 23 March, a group of our Year 9 students and student leaders attended the ‘Be Bold, Be Heard’ Middle Years Girls’ Forum at GMHBA Stadium. 

• Emily Forster 
• Jala Evans
• Maddie Henwood
• Rose Ng
• Hana Mousavi
• Gemma Ellis 
• Negar Hakimi 
• Faizi Fariri

The aim of the forum – attended by girls from across the Geelong and Bellarine government schools – was to create an opportunity for middle years girls (Year 9 and 10) to collaborate to enact the improvement of student voice, agency and engagement in class, their schools and their community. 

These girls spent a workshop with me analysing the 2021 Student Attitudes to School survey data and identified a number of key areas to improve and change. At the forum, the girls developed an Action Plan which will be considered and implemented by our Student Leadership team. 

Well done to those girls for being agents of change and for finding their voices!

NAPLAN 2022

This year the NAPLAN is online for all Year 7 and 9 students and involves each student using their own device.  

• The actual test dates are between May 10 and May 20 – our schedule is below. All tests will take place upstairs on HFC in the Exam space 
• All Year 7 and 9 students participated in a national Practice Test on Thursday 24th March – this was an opportunity for the students to familiarise themselves with the online platform and for us to familiarise ourselves with the online test management. Some reflections from the practice test: 
  • All Year 7 and 9 students need to have a fully charged laptop for each day of the NAPLAN in May 
  • Every student needs their own headphones or ear buds

Year 7 and 9 should have received an email from me with further information about the actual tests and the benefits of the online approach. This can be found here.  

Parent and carers who want to withdraw their child from the NAPLAN need to email info@mfgsc.vic.gov.au by the 27th April and we will email you the official withdrawal form. 

TERM 1 STUDENT-PARENT-TEACHER LEARNING CONFERENCES - REFLECTIONS

We had good engagement from parents/carers for our March 1st Conferences – do we move back to on-site conferences or stick with phone calls/video conferencing? Our School Council had a conversation about this at the March meeting. 

Some actions and changes for our Semester 2 Conferences and 2023 will include: 

• Returning to the 10 minute bookings which creates more bookings overall for parents/carers to select from
• Opening the booking system earlier for parents and in the evening to cater for parents who can’t make a booking until after the working day
• Arranging for Term 1 Conferences to be later in Term 1 so as to allow for teachers to better get to know their students and 
• How to encourage parents and carers to more effectively use Compass to understand their child’s learning progress and achievements so the Conference is more fruitful and focused. 

The following email was sent to parents as a ‘tune-in’ for them to do their ‘detective’ work prior to talking with their child’s teachers – this reflects the kind of ‘detective work’ parents and carers can do throughout the year to better understand how their child is performing and progressing. 

Of course, our teachers are always available for a phone call, a Zoom meeting or a meeting face to face. We’d like to remind our parents and carers that they should feel comfortable to contact our teachers and staff if they would like to discuss any aspect of their child’s learning or school experience. 

Dear parents and carers, We are looking forward to our Tuesday 1st March Parent-Teacher Conferences between 12 and 7pm. In preparation for Tuesday’s Parent-Teacher Conferences, we’d like to share with you some things that you can do, or think about, prior to talking with your child’s teachers: 

• Have a conversation with your child before the Parent-Teacher Conferences about their learning. You could ask them about how they think they’re progressing in different subjects; what they think they’ve been doing well, areas for improvement, what they’ve found challenging and what they’ve been enjoying about particular classes/subjects
• When using your Compass portal to look at your child’s progress, teacher feedback etc, use a laptop/computer and not a phone
• Prior to the Parent-Teacher Conferences, you could do some ‘detective work’ using Compass. You could look at:   
  • LEARNING TASKS – what do the tasks involve, are they on-time, over-due or pending? 
  • FEEDBACK – click on the Learning Task and the Feedback Tab – what are your child’s next steps or areas for improvement? 
  • ATTENDANCE – do any absences need to be approved by you?  
• Any Learning Task in ALL-CAPITALS is a CRLT (a Common Reportable Learning Task). These are the important assessments. Focusing on how your child performed on these will save you time when looking at their list of Learning Tasks. 
• Lastly, think about any information or insights about your child and their interests (or wellbeing) that their teachers might not be aware of that might be useful for their teachers to know. This could include their reading habits, hobbies, interests and what they are curious about beyond school.  

Of course we would prefer to be meeting with you face-to-face at MFG but the current Department of Education Guidelines recommend that we take a more cautious approach. We understand that the nature of the Compass booking system means that a teacher can be booked out quickly. Please feel free to contact your child’s teachers via email through Compass if you were not able to book a time on March 1st or you would like to follow up an issue in more depth. Kind regards,

PARENT OPINION SURVEY 2021

Overall, the parents who completed the 2021 survey (generally) indicated positive feelings, perceptions and experiences of their child’s education and experiences at MFG, including their experiences of Home Based Learning. Some questions raised for us by the responses were: 

• What does ‘participation in my child’s education’ look like for our parents and carers? What are our parents/carers’ perceptions of this?

•  ‘Getting extra help with learning from teachers when needed’ – what does this look like from a students’/parent/carers’ point of view?

NEXT STEPS

•  explicitly teaching organisational skills including:
  •  time management; use of the new MFG Diary; goal setting
  •  Specific revision skills and study strategies
  •  homework expectations and management of expectations/requirements 

Damien Toussaint

Assistant Principal