Associate Principal, Operations Report

News that the return to face-to-face teaching is near is welcomed and it is good to have some greater certainty.  We remain teaching remotely until the end of this term and for the first week of Term Four. Classes resume on Monday 12th October. 

During the week of 5th October, the VCE GAT and some other VCE assessments will be held.  The GAT will involve all Year 12 students and virtually all Year 11s.  It is to be held on Wednesday 7th October, commencing at 10.00am.  There are 15 minutes of reading time and the exam itself then lasts for three hours. 

The GAT is an important part of the VCE, allowing checking of school results and ensuring fairness between school assessments.  The GAT is also used to determine Derived Examination Scores where a student’s final examination performance or attendance is affected by external circumstances and it also functions as a checking part of the examination marking process.   Increasingly too, universities can use GAT results to help in the selection of students when there are a number of students with a similar ATAR.

As can be seen, the GAT is pretty important!  Students have been provided with a series of information sessions on how to approach the GAT and they are encouraged to try tackling past GAT papers during the break so that they are not caught unprepared on 7th October.

Recently, I read a novel, Miss Benson’s Beetle by Rachel Joyce.  A short quotation from Pema Chodron, included as a prelude, can be found before the novel itself begins:

Somehow, in the process of trying to deny that things are always changing, we lose our sense of the sacredness of life.  We tend to forget that we are part of the natural scheme of things.

We have certainly experienced plenty of change this year and we have had numerous chances to feel that the scheme of things is closely involved in our lives! 

Our students have shown us the way by their resilience and willingness to persevere. Our Year 12s deserve great credit and I do hope they can use these remaining school weeks, and the holidays, to ensure they are as well prepared as possible when the final examinations commence.  I hope too that they have all made arrangements to “attend” the revision lectures in the final week of the break.

I am also grateful to my Year 10 English class, members of which greet me warmly each lesson … and even tolerate their teacher getting caught out by technical matters from time to time!

We are about to enter another period of change as we return to classes.  The “business end” of the year is fast approaching for our senior students.  We are all tired as we reach the end of Term Three.

But there is still so much to look forward to as we continue to experience the sacredness of life Chodron talks about.

Neil MacLean

Associate Principal, Operations