From the Principal Class Team
Dear Parents and Guardians
Welcome to our last newsletter for Term 3. It has been an incredibly busy term, with lots of events happening at all year levels.
Congratulations to Shalom Tiatia and James Mangali of Year 11. They attended the Fundies for the Future, completion held in Sydney organised by SVA and Hearts and Minds.
Students had 48 hours to prepare an investment pitch on JB Hi-fi, and submit an 800 word report. One week later, at the offices of UBS Australia in Sydney, the students made their 10 minute pitch to a four-person panel of some of Australia’s top fund managers, including the CEO of UBS Australia. Students were then questioned on their strategy by the panel. The competition included schools from Victoria, South Australia and NSW. St Albans students won the overall competition, impressing the panel with their pitch and presentation skills. Their pitch was to sell JB Hi-Fi shares, which have reached their highest share price ever. As the winners, they will return to Sydney in November to attend the sold out Hearts and Minds Conference. The conference is a one day investment event to be held at the Sydney Opera House. Tickets cost $3500 per person. The conference invests funds to raise money to support medical research in areas such as MS and heart disease. Thanks to Ms Andrea Holiday and Mr Craig Moore for traveling to Sydney with the students, and supporting them in the competition.
NAPLAN 2019 results – a snapshot
NAPLAN results were received by the school last week and by now all Year 7 and 9 families should have received their child’s NAPLAN report in the mail. If you have not received yours, please contact Ms Jacqui Hunter at the school and we will follow this up for you.
Our teachers of Year 7, 8 and 9 English and EAL and Mathematics are currently analysing the results, with a focus on:
- How much growth each student has made from year 5 to 7 and Year 7 to 9 on each area of the NAPLAN test
- Which elements of each test our students did well on, and which elements presented challenges for them.
Both pieces of information support teaches and leaders to further refine and adjust teaching to support each student’s learning and skill development in Literacy and Numeracy.
The results showed continued improvement in our Literacy results with strong growth (greater than 30 % of students with high growth) between Year 7 and 9 in the areas of Reading, Writing, Grammar and Punctuation and with greater than 40% high growth in Spelling. These results show student improvement at a rate that is higher than the State growth. This is culmination of targeted approaches to Literacy across the school involving all staff and students and, along with Numeracy, has been part of the strategic planning over the past four years. We are looking at ways to maintain the high growth we have experienced in the past for our Numeracy results, with the percentage in the Top 2 bands at Year 9 this year for Numeracy being similar to the State. There are many programs and initiatives running in the school to assist students improve their Numeracy and Literacy skills.
Student Attitudes to School Survey
Every year all government schools survey their students on their attitudes to school. This survey provides a range of measures that help direct the College future planning to support students and continue to improve our College. This year the majority of our schools results are stronger than like schools and state government averages which is pleasing, however, strategic planning in the final stage of our school review will incorporate how to continue our improvement journey in identified areas of growth.
