From the Principal Team

What a great start to semester two – so many great opportunities for students.  You will read about these in this newsletter. 

Victorian Curriculum F–10 Version 2.0

The Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) has released the Victorian Curriculum F–10 Version 2.0.

The release includes The Arts, Health and Physical Education, Humanities, Languages (Chinese, French, Italian and Japanese) Science, Technologies, capabilities, foundational skills and cross-curriculum priorities. This follows the curriculum release of English 2.0 and Mathematics 2.0 in 2023.

To support this release, the VCAA has provided resources, introductory videos and interactive webinars on the new F-10 curriculum website. 

To view the curriculum, visit the new F-10 curriculum website at f10.vcaa.vic.edu.au

To read more about the Victorian Curriculum F–10 Version 2.0 project including timelines visit the project page on the VCAA website.

AFTV Junior Video Competition

Congratulations to our students who had a clean sweep.

CATEGORY Year 7 & 8 Bilingual

• 1er prix: Glen Eira College
• 2e prix: Glen Eira College
• 3e prix: Glen Eira College

Melbourne Regional RoboCup Junior event 

Congratulations to:

• Isaac Egre - first place in the Secondary Rescue division
•  Marko Le, Arthur Dutrieux and Sullivan Jordan - first place in the Standard League Soccer division

Parent Opinion Survey 2024 

Our school is conducting a survey to find out what parents / caregivers  think of our school. The Parent / Caregiver Opinion Survey is an annual survey offered by the Department of Education that is designed to assist schools in gaining an understanding of families’ perceptions of school climate, student behaviour, and student engagement. 

The survey is optional but we encourage all families to participate. Our school will use the survey results to help inform and direct future school planning and improvement strategies. 

The Parent / Caregiver Opinion Survey will be open from Monday 29th July to Friday 30th A 2024.

The survey will be conducted online, only takes 20 minutes to complete, and can be accessed at any convenient time within the survey period on desktop computers, laptops, tablets or smartphones. The online survey will be available in English and 10 other languages including Arabic, Greek, Hakha Chin, Hindi, Japanese, Punjabi, Simplified Chinese, Somali, Turkish, and Vietnamese.

Please contact the College if you would like more information.

BYOD Program 2025

In 2025 we are replacing the Chromebook program at Year 7-9 with a BYOD program. This will provide greater flexibility for families and improved access to applications. Chromebooks are still welcome to be used in this BYOD program.

This program includes most laptops, including Chromebooks. However, tablets or iPads are not included in the program.

Course Counselling

Thank you to all our families who have attended our Information Sessions. Course counselling closes next week. We will then create the 2025 blocks and finalise student courses. Please contact the college if you have any queries or concerns.

Parent Teacher Interviews

Bookings for parent teacher interviews will be available on XUNO closer to the dates.

Year 11 and 12 interviews will be online via Webex on Thursday 22nd August 1.30 – 4.30.   

Years 7 – 10 interviews will be held face to face on Tuesday 17th September, 2.15pm – 7.15pm

Please note that on the last day of term students will be dismissed at 2.30pm

Child safety and wellbeing at Glen Eira College: information for families and the school community

Glen Eira College is committed to providing an environment where students are safe and feel safe.

Our child safety framework https://gec.vic.edu.au/about-us/policies/ explains how we support and maintain child safety and wellbeing at Glen Eira College It includes our:

• Child Safety and Wellbeing Policy
• Child Safety Reporting and Responding Obligations Procedures, and
• Child Safety Code of Conduct, which outlines acceptable and unacceptable behaviours for all staff and volunteers at our school.

Our students and families are important partners in providing a child safe environment. These regular newsletter reminders are one of the ways we ensure our school community is aware of:

• our commitment to child safety, and 
• how to provide feedback or raise child safety concerns.

If you have any concerns about child safety at any time, please contact me.  Any child safety complaints or concerns are treated seriously. For more information about our school’s complaints process, see our https://gec.vic.edu.au/about-us/policies/

We also welcome your ideas on ways we can improve our approach to child safety and wellbeing. If you have any suggestions or comments, please contact me.

Finally…

I am delighted to welcome the following staff:

• Mikayla Clemans - PSD
• Mirelle Blair replacing Lou Tsarpalas on leave this term
• Schana Serin replacing Sonia Buxton on leave this term
• Marguerite Cronin replacing Elizabeth Allan on leave this term

If you have any wonderings, concerns or feedback, please do not hesitate to call me at the school to talk or arrange a time to meet.

Sheereen Kindler

Principal

NAPLAN Results

Our Year 7 and 9 cohorts completed NAPLAN testing in Term 1 and we have now received our finalised results. 

Overall, our results are very comparable with schools in our network and also with similar schools – schools of a similar size and where students have a similar cultural background.

Student performance on NAPLAN assessments is reported using four proficiency levels. These were introduced in 2023.

• Exceeding: the student’s result exceeds expectations at the time of testing. 
• Strong: the student’s result meets challenging but reasonable expectations at the time of testing. 
• Developing: the student’s result indicates that they are working towards expectations at the time of testing.
• Needs additional support: the student’s result indicates that they are not achieving the learning outcomes that are expected at the time of testing. They are likely to need additional support to progress satisfactorily.

Parents interested in learning more should view this link: https://nap.edu.au/naplan/results-and-reports/proficiency-level-descriptions

Particular highlights of our NAPLAN results include:

• An increase in the percentage of Year 9 students being assessed as Exceeding in Reading – up from 26% in 2023 to 34% this year
• The percentage of Year 9 students being assessed as Exceeding or Strong in Writing (82%) outstripping both similar schools (77%) and network schools (80%)
• An increase in the percentage of Year 9 students being assessed as Exceeding in Spelling - up from 23% in 2023 to 29% this year
• An increase in the percentage of Year 9 students being assessed as Exceeding in Grammar and Punctuation - up from 20% in 2023 to 27% this year

There has been much media attention recently about the declining standards of numeracy across Australian students. Whilst our numeracy results are in no way alarming – we have 76% of Year 9 students assessed as either Exceeding or Strong – they reflect that there is more work for us to do in this space.

As the new proficiencies were updated in 2023, it will not be until 2025 that we can perform a proper comparative analysis of student performance. By then, our Year 7 cohort of 2023 will be Year 9 students and we will be able to see the changes in student performance measured against the proficiencies.

At a school level, we use NAPLAN data to triangulate against other forms of data, including internal formative and summative assessment and PAT data to form a holistic picture of where our students are at, academically. This allows us to make informed decisions as to how to best meet students at their point of need. We have a very high participation rate in NAPLAN which helps us in this process.

NAPLAN data is also used by the Department of Education to identify students to participate in the Victorian High-Ability Program. We have several students across Year 7 and 8 participating in VHAP Maths and English programs throughout the year.

The table below gives you a more detailed breakdown of our performance, compared with similar and network schools.

If you have any questions about this information, please feel free to contact me at the College.

Mark Oudshoorn

Assistant Principal