Learning and Teaching

Curriculum Handbook

It's been a busy and productive term from a learning and teaching perspective.

We finalised the curriculum handbook detailing our extensive subject offerings and counselled hundreds of students with their subject choices. Many thanks to the sub schools, teachers and careers team, and to Mr Lewis for supporting all our students into their chosen their individual pathway.

Parent Teacher Student Conferences

The student conferences this week were an opportunity for a 3-way discussion about learning progress and future improvements. Feedback on the conferences from a number of parents has been very positive, especially references to developmental rubrics when discussing learning. The specific feedback on the skills and knowledge their child has mastered and the next stages in their learning helps parents provide more targeted support and advice about what to do next. Online sessions provided greater flexibility for all involved to attend from home and workplaces. Whilst some parents experienced technical difficulties logging into meetings from some brands of phone, the vast majority of interviews went without a hitch.

Maestro

This term, we launched Maestro, our developmental assessment and learning platform, and an increasing number of parents have been logging into the app to see how their Year 7 or 8 child is progressing in their learning. It's a great tool for learners, teachers and parents and in 2023 all students and parents 7-12 will have access to the platform. It brings to life the school's long term vision around assessment which focuses on learning growth not grades and using specific evidence of learning to make teacher and learner judgements of progress.

KIOSC

There have been nearly 20 excursions to KIOSC this term  from excellent technology and critical and creative thinking workshops for many subjects - from Year 7 to Year 12. Peter Kos and all the supervising teaches have done a remarkable job of engaging our students in authentic career-focused learning experiences, with a particular focus on STEM. I had the pleasure of attending the year 8 Skepsi excursion the other week to observe students using coding to create and light up their laser cutting projects. Kiosk celebrates 10 years of STEM education this year and we are very proud and grateful to be a partner school.

NAPLAN

Our 2022 NAPLAN results for Year 7 and 9 have been released and have been mailed out to families. We are very proud of our all our students and their individual successes in the Numeracy and Literacy tests.

Overall the students in Year 7 have achieved above or well above in the top two and middle NAPLAN bands in all areas, writing and reading, and they have performed especially well in numeracy, spelling and grammar, and punctuation.

Our Year 9 results show that in all five tests we have improved the outcomes of a significant number of students from the bottom 2 bands into the middle and top two bands. These great results are only possible through the outstanding efforts of our Maths and English teams and our classroom Inclusion Learning Assistants. Growth in student skills is also attributed to the intervention support provided by amazing tutors through the Quicksmart, MYLNS and tutor learning program. All of these programs will continue in 2023 for students who need additional support.

I hope staff and all our families have a safe and restful term break in preparation for a final term.

Natalie Manser 

Assistant Principal

mar@wantirnacollege.vic.gov.au