Teaching and Learning

Learning and Teaching

It has been wonderful to see so many faces, albeit masked ones, as we welcome staff and students back to onsite learning. With the return, we are mindful of the impact that remote learning may have had on the wellbeing of staff and students we will continue to do everything we can to support them. Two key initiatives that we have implemented to achieve this are our whole school routines and the PAT testing of our year 8-10 students. We will complete PAT testing with year 7 students later in the term.

Whole school Learning Routines

As students return to school, we want to ensure that we are establishing a positive learning environment for all. We know that established routines are incredibly important in providing stability and predictability which is critical in a time when we have all experienced so much uncertainty. Although it’s early days, we believe the routines are having an impact as most classrooms are settled and most students are focused on learning. We encourage parents to have a chat with their children about the routines and find out all the stimulating and engaging Do Now activities students are doing at the beginning of every class!

PAT Testing

PAT testing is a 'progressive achievement test' that we usually conduct once a year with all students from year 7 - 10. It is a snapshot in time that gives teachers an understanding of where students are in their learning. The PAT data that we are collecting this week will be compared with the PAT data that we collected in February to assist teachers in seeing the progression and growth of students in reading and numeracy.  Teachers will be looking closely at this data to get a better insight into the impact that Covid and remote learning may have had on individual students, classes of students and cohorts of data. It will assist us with planning for the rest of the term and identifying students who we need to provide more intensive support to next year through our Tutor and MYLNS (Middle Years Numeracy and Literacy program). 

We knew that coming into this week was going to be a little messy with different year levels onsite learning on different days and we wanted to not only give students the opportunity to 'catch up' on learning tasks and homework but also give teachers the opportunity to find their feet as they transition back to school and not have to rush from onsite lessons to remote classes. This latest stretch of remote learning has been tough on everyone and our focus this week is on student and staff wellbeing and making sure we come back to a positive learning environment. Over the coming weeks, we will be following up with students who didn’t complete the PAT tests in remote learning. Students can still access these tests and we encourage them to do so if they haven’t already done them.

Carrie Wallis

Assistant Principal