St Peter's News

Learning & Teaching News

House Welcome Evenings

The two House Welcome Evenings were conducted this week at each of the Campuses.  It was an important chance to meet parents for Learning Advisors, House Leaders and the Leadership Team of the College.

The 10 minute Learning Conversations were an important opportunity to find out about how your child learns and how we can best support him or her. It was also a valuable opportunity to present some information on:

  • SPACE (our learning management system formerly known as Schoolbox),
  • Reading Detective Program (launched this year for Years 7 & 8),
  • Maths Pathways (for Years 7-9).

We welcome any feedback on how we might improve this evening and what we can do to encourage an even greater turn out from parents to engage with us.

Helping your child to be a student

A question asked by some parents on the House Welcome Evenings was what they could do to help their child be a good student.  From my experience as both a teacher and a parent, I would offer the following simple suggestions:

 

1.  Reading

Encourage your child to read, whether they are in Year 7 or Year 12. Our junior students just must read if they are going to successfully engage with the curriculum.  All subjects rely on reading.  Good reading skills is the biggest predictor of school retention (making it to the end of formal schooling) and retention is one of the biggest indicators of positive health and wellbeing indicators for people in Australia.  It surprises me how many Year 12 students do not read the set English texts each year and then wonder why their English score is not higher.  This is especially disappointing given that English will be counted in the primary four subjects contributing to the ATAR.

Help your child to read by encouraging them to read and listening to them if they are struggling. Ask the Year 7 & 8 students about our Reading Detective Program.

 

2.  Study space

It is important that your child have a space at home to do their homework and be able to work free of distraction and in relative comfort.  The best advice is that students do not study in their bedroom as these are places of rest and recreation for students.  It is good for them to make that psychological change and go to a different space for work/study.  However, if another open place free of distraction cannot be found in the house, then the bedroom desk is a better option.

The advantage of the kitchen or dining room table is that it allows some passive supervision to ensure your child is staying on task.  Keep in mind that if your child wants growth in their learning greater than 12 months in the year ahead, then they need to at least come close to our guidelines for homework and study times:

Year 7: 30 minutes per day, 5 times per week. Total = 2 ½ hours per week.

Year 8: 60 minutes per day, 5 times per week. Total = 5 hours per week.

Year 9: 1 ½ hours per day, 5 times per week. Total = 7 ½ hours per week.

Year 10: 2 hours per day, 5 times per week. Total = 10 hours per week.

Year 11: 3 hours per day, 5 times per week. Total = 15 hours per week.

Year 12: 4 hours per day, 5 times per week. Total = 20 hours per week.

 

3.  Technology

The April 2017 edition of the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research describes a series of experiments in which 520 college students performed tasks requiring focus, attention, and novel problem-solving skills.

  1. First group were asked to leave their smartphones in another room.
  2. Second group were allowed to keep them where they usually do (such as in their pocket or purse).
  3. Third group was asked to set their phones on the desk next to them.

The results were fascinating. Student performance on the tasks of attention and problem-solving varied depending on the location of the smartphone:

  • Scores were highest when the smartphone was in the next room.
  • Scores were lowest when the phone was on the desk.
  • The impact of the smartphone’s location was most dramatic among those who reported being most reliant on their phones.
  • The effect of the smartphone was not altered by having the phone powered off (vs. set to silent mode) or placed face down (vs. face up).

As a parent I unashamedly lock away my teenage children’s technology after 9 pm and ensure that it is in another room when they are studying.  The challenge is for them to stay off social media when they are working on their laptops.   It is a source of great concern to us as teachers that so many students are up late into the night gaming or wasting time on the internet and then coming to school late or not at all because they are too tired.

 

4.  Sleep

The technology curfew also assists children in having some down time before preparing for bed.  The research shows that:

  • Teenagers need about 9 to 10 hours sleep per night.
  • The 1 ½ hours leading up to midnight is some of the most important sleep that they will get.
  • Our teenagers are significantly sleep deprived and this is affecting their mental health and wellbeing significantly.
  • Use of technology in the hour prior to going to bed will make it more difficult to fall asleep.  It would be better that they use this time reading.

5.  Find the balance between challenging and nagging.

I think this one is perhaps the most difficult point to follow up on.  I know I struggle with it and frequently get it wrong.  We want out children to do well at school and know they need some mature guidance at time, but they also need to make their own decisions and mistakes.  Just where is that balance?  We often only work it out through trial and error in our parenting.  Just remember, when it comes to homework and study, our children:

  • Need to be challenged,
  • Need frequent short study breaks,
  • Need to be trusted.

I wish you well on joining us in the task of getting your child to grow in their learning over th next 12 months.

David Hansen

Deputy Principal - Learning and Teaching