VCE News

2024 has started very well and it is great to see VCE students approaching the term with positivity and with great energy. This positivity and energy was definitely on display at both the swimming carnival and the athletics carnival - congratulations to all VCE students who attended these carnivals and got involved not only in individual events but in supporting the younger students. We already can't wait to see how you approach the rest of the school year.

2024 VCE Coordinators

Our VCE Coordinators are here to support you and are the first person you should call on if you have any issues or concerns or have any questions. We are always here to help and we are always here to support you through VCE. If parents are wanting to book a meeting with coordinators, please reach out and we can make arrangements. The list of coordinators and each class they coordinate is attached to this post.

Attendance

At University High School, we believe that school attendance is important for young people to succeed in education and to ensure they do not fall behind both socially and developmentally. The VCE Sub-School will work with VCE students to help them maintain high standards of school attendance because we know that young people who regularly attend school and complete Year 12 or an equivalent qualification have better health outcomes, better employment outcomes and higher incomes across their lives.

Importantly, attendance in class is essential as it allows teachers to authenticate learning progress and to teach, assess and provide feedback to ensure learning growth for all students. In accordance with the VCAA attendance rules, University High School requires all students to maintain a minimum attendance of 90% for each Unit in which they are enrolled in order to achieve an ‘S’ result for each outcome of the Unit.

Managing attendance: In the first instance, it is the student’s responsibility to monitor their attendance and to ensure that attendance for each subject remains above 90%. Where a student is absent from class, it is a requirement to have these absences ‘Parent Approved’ by their family via Compass Parent Portal or ‘School Approved’ by the VCE Sub-School in the case of an approved school event.

Formative Assessment Tasks

Formative Assessment Tasks occur regularly in the classroom and allow teachers to understand where students are at with their learning and allow teachers to provide appropriate supports. Formative Assessment Tasks take place in a range of ways - worksheets, oral presentations, creation of a poster, teacher/student interview, kahoot/quizizz, Google Classroom question. Much like attendance, Formative Assessment Tasks are essential as they allow teachers to authenticate learning progress and to teach, assess and provide feedback to ensure learning growth for all students.

VCE Positive Behaviour, Readiness to Learn and Progress Concern Emails

Parents and students will be receiving direct notification about positive behaviours, readiness to learn concerns, and academic progress issues. A reminder that the coordinator still remains your main point of contact. You cannot reply to these emails as they do not return to a UHS inbox.

We will continue to work with staff to improve the clarity of these emails so students and families are not in any doubt as to what has led to a progress concern being issued and what the steps are to catch

The Landing Page

https://sites.google.com/unihigh.vic.edu.au/the-landing-page/home

The VCE Landing Page has been created to support students and families within the VCE sub-school. The VCE is administered externally by the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority, and as such, there are considerable amounts of extra information and requirements. This extra information and requirements can be found on the VCE Landing Page.

Please see the 2024 Senior School Handbook for key requirements relating to attendance and successful completion of VCE units of study.

VCE Special Provisions Applications

A reminder that Special Provisions Applications are due urgently (before this Friday 8th March) to Coordinators in order to meet the VCAA deadline.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out.

Josh Madden

Head of VCE Sub-School

jmadden@unihigh.vic.edu.au

Andrew Moffat

Assistant Principal

Senior Pathways, Student Services, Community Liaison.